Whatever Happened to College Football's Flying Wedge?

Throughout the many decades that college football has been played on American college campuses, the changes in the game have been many and dramatic. Some of the most remarkable changes have occurred with the innovation of play design.

The golden era of the Flying Wedge and other creative football formations occurred from 1888-1893. During this time a flurry of odd plays was devised: the Flying Wedge, Lehigh V, the V Trick, Princeton Wedge and the Revolving Wedge. Football historians have come to call these plays Momentum Mass Plays.

In 1888 a new rule was made allowing tackling below the waist, but not below the knees. From 1876 to 1888 a runner could be brought down only if a tackler grabbed him above the waist. It was easy to break tackles playing this style of football, but with the allowance of low tackling the wide-open game was no longer profitable. Coaches were forced to "close-in" their formations to create interference for runners. The previous Rugby-style game changed to a closed-formation game in which momentum mass plays changed the game drastically.

One of the first mass formations was invented by Alonzo Stagg in 1890. It was known as the ends back offense, where Stagg "drew my ends back into the backfield and started a bunched running attack off tackle." This occurred at Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA College where Stagg coached the ends and backs to become lead blockers and pushers on plays over the center and guards.

Stagg coached and played with this team. From the innovation of ends back a variety of other ingenious plays were developed. Stagg described them as:

(1) "Halfback criss-crosses with the end, who ran around the opposite end." [now known as the reverse]

(2) "Fullback criss-crosses with the end, who ran around the opposite end."

(3) "End criss-crosses with other end, who ran around the opposite end."

(4) "Double pass from end to fullback in a run around the opposite end."

Late in 1893 Princeton's Phillip King adopted a similar ends back formation and worked it successfully.

In 1891, Stagg created a new formation: the turtleback. Some people claimed Harvard created the play. John Heisman said it was a "mass play claimed by both Harvard and Stagg."

This was the beginning of formations that protected the ball carrier behind a flying fortress of running interference. In the case of the turtleback, ten men would form an oval-shaped wedge by crouching and grasping each other's hips. Some linemen sewed leather handles to their pants to facilitate this formation. The runner had the ball snapped back to him and he rode the wave of interference as far as it would take him.

The V Trick was similar but the interference formation took on a V shape. It was credited to Princeton and Lehigh in 1884, dropped and then revived again in 1888.

The defense attacked these formations by throwing themselves in front of the play and grabbing as many legs as they could. The impact was terrific and injuries were commonplace.

The ultimate mass play was Harvard's Flying Wedge, invented by Lorin F. Deland. Deland was a fan who never played football but was an avid chess player and military strategist. He saw that the wedges being used at the time did not allow the interference to move as quickly as he thought it might. He encouraged Harvard to start the wedge in motion before the ball was in play, therefore getting a motion of 2 - 25 yards before hitting the defense. In the summer of 1892 Harvard perfected Deland's play on a farm and kept it secret until it was used against Yale the following season.

In the second half Harvard's quarterback Bernie Traffor started the first Flying Wedge. It stunned Yale and it took them several plays to stop Harvard. In the end, Yale won 6-0, but not before Harvard had impressed the football world with their new play.

Stagg said of the Harvard Flying Wedge that "the Deland invention probably was the most spectacular single formation ever opened as a surprise package." However, the play demanded perfect execution out of eleven players and was not successful most of the times it was run. By 1893 wedges and V formations were being used with regularity. Injuries increased dramatically.

February 23, 1894 a rules committee consisting of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania and Navy officials made drastic changes in the game. The most important change was the outlawing of the wedge, V Trick and Flying Wedge. Also prohibited was the formation of more than three players five yards behind the line of scrimmage. Thus ended the era of the Momentum Mass Play, one of the most colorful and creative periods in the history of college football.