dition in that they had given no adequate
supervision to athletics; that the game should not be abolished but
revised. They contended that a new game should and could be produced
that would be more open, less dangerous and more interesting than the
old game. Their counsels ultimately prevailed and the conference that
had met to _abolish_ football formed what has become the National
Collegiate Athletic Association, an organization that has done a
wonderful work in raising the standards of sport in our American
colleges. The conference appointed a football rules committee, which,
amalgamating if possible with the old football rules committee, was to
adopt rules that would revise the game of football--that would make it a
_new game_.

What should be done to produce a more open, less dangerous, more
interesting game of football? Remember that the old mass game had
resulted from five yards in three downs. The first fundamental
suggestion was the requirement of _ten_ yards to gain. This could never
be made by mass attack. Consequently the forward pass was given to the
offense--practically the one great occasion of legislation favoring the
offense. In 1912 a fourth down was added. With ten yards in four downs
and the forward pass as the fundamentals the modern game of football has
been developed. Other changes, often important and far-reaching in
influence, followed, but they followed naturally, logically, almost
unavoidably, once the fundamentals, ten yards and the forward pass, had
been accepted.

CHAPTER II.

LEGAL RESTRICTIONS RELATING TO THE FORWARD PASS.

The first suggestion of a recognition by the football rules committee of
any need of a more open game came in 1903. Between the twenty-five yard
lines seven players of the offense were required on the line of
scrimmage and the first man receiving the ball from the snapper-back
might run with it provided he crossed the scrimmage line five yards out
from center (Football Guide for 1903, pp. 127 and 142). Between the
twenty-five-yard line and the goal, however, only five men were required
on the line of scrimmage. In that case, however, restrictions were
adopted requiring the men to be back five yards or outside the end men.
In 1904 came the "checker board" field.

With 1906 came the great revolution and the adoption of the new game;
two lines of scrimmage, six men regularly on the line of scrimmage,
center trio back five yards if not on the line of scrimmage