When did college football rules change so a team scoring via TD or FG kicked off rather than received a kick?
March 7th, 2010 | by admin |Rules of college football in the 1920s specified that if a team scored, they received the ball again via kickoff. This led to some lopsided games (the infamous Georgia Tech 222, Cumberland 0 is an example). Sometime after 1929 the rule was changed out of sporting fairness. But when?
I doubt if that rule ever existed. Except on playgrounds. The rule gives the scored-upon team the option of kicking off or receiving.
Sarge
2 Responses to “When did college football rules change so a team scoring via TD or FG kicked off rather than received a kick?”
By Bob on Mar 7, 2010 | Reply
I doubt if that rule ever existed. Except on playgrounds. The rule gives the scored-upon team the option of kicking off or receiving.
Sarge
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By Merchant on Mar 7, 2010 | Reply
At first thought it seems almost plausible that there would have been a rule silly enough to give possession of the ball back to the scoring team, but it really doesn’t appear that this has ever existed.
Historical rule changes that had impacted included point changes for scoring, preventing players from locking arms and other things that opened up the play styles more and differentiated it from Rugby.
If you look at the Georgia Tech v. Cumberland game closely you’ll see Cumberland had plenty of opportunities to move the ball on offense, they just failed to do so . That would be inconsistent with a rule that gave Tech the ball back each and every time. Cumberland was a group of 14 scrubs as the University was essentially forced to play Tech despite scrapping their football program – they had to in order to avoid being penalized for failing to uphold their end of an agreement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_Cumberland_vs._Georgia_Tech_football_game
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