Hello.
'From 1869 until 1883, scoring was mainly a mixture of rugby and
soccer scoring rules. Kicking was emphasized in the early game. Walter
Camp was the leader in establishing "American" football rules and in
1883 his scoring system gave one point for a safety, two points for a
touchdown, four points for a goal after a touchdown , and five points
for a field goal.
In 1884, a touchdown was raised to four points and a safety to two
points. The point after a touchdown was reduced to two points. In
1898, the touchdown was raised to five points and the point after
touchdown was lowered to one point. The field goal was cut to four
points in 1904 and then to three points in 1909 where it has remained.
In 1912, the touchdown was raised to six points where it is today.'
source:
The Evolution of the Football Scoring, on the web site of PARKERSBURG HIGH SCHOOL
http://www.phsfootball.com/Fact%20Book2002/factbook20032.htm
Also see:
"Evolution of the Game," hosted by stent.com
http://www.stsent.com/_football/history/history.html
----------------
As mentioned above, Walter Camp's scoring system of one point for a
safety, two points for a touchdown, four points for a goal after a
touchdown, and five points for a field goal was adopted in 1883.
Why was this scoring system adopted?
Well, there's a good discussion of this on pages 20-21 of the book,
"The Origins and Development of Professional Football, 1890-1920," by
Marc S. Maltby, which is available for full-text searching from
Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0815327978/
According to Maltby's book, there was a great deal of confusion over
scoring until Walter Camp's system was adopted in 1883. Point values
were generally not used. Rather, each type of score was measured
against other types of scores. For example, two safeties were
considered "equivalent" to a touchdown. A field goal simply "counted
more" than a touchdown, but four touchdowns "counted more" than a
field goal. This non-numerical system created problems. In the 1882
Harvard-Princeton game, Princeton had one touchdown, a missed
conversion kick and a field goal. Harvard had one touchdown, a
successful conversion kick, and no field goals. There was a
disagreement over which was worth more: the conversion or the field
goal. No specific rule was in place, so both sides claimed victory!
Thus, by assigning specific numerical point values, Camp end such
disputes. Now why the scoring system tweaked again and again in 1884,
1898, 1904, 1909 & 1912. Well, from my reading in Maltby's book, it
seems that football's emphasis simply evolved more from kicking to
running. During this period, the rules of football were constantly
changing. During the period of 1904-1906 changes were made that
began to emphasized the position of quarterback (i.e., allowing the QB
to run with the ball and legalization of the forward pass). Thus,
touchdowns increased in value while scoring based on kicking was
reduced.
--------
search strategy:
football, scoring system, "six points"
"walter camp" 1883 1912 points
I hope this helps. |
