Library vol. 4

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

No college football library would be complete without Walter Camp and Lorin F. Deland's comprehensive early volume titled Football.



Teaching equal parts strategy, technique and history, this book was written before most colleges even started playing football.

Camp's Football begins with American football's roots in rugby football and continue with game day strategy including play diagrams, instruction on fundamentals and an early rule book.

Chapter 8 @ p.350 begins a list of diagrammed plays that Camp presumably designed himself. A lot of guys come here looking for unbalanced line plays and you can find Walter Camp's unbalanced offense diagrams beginning on page 163.




















Note that the unbalanced line plays will need to change to a direct snap since the modern rules have limited the number of payers that can set up in the backfield. Last year Pitt ran the play above using three tight ends... switching the strong side by motioning one TE and following the motion with a tight-end-around sweep. I haven't seen it used yet this year, but it worked for 6 to 8 yards per play under former Pitt OC Matt Cavanaugh. Maybe Pitt is saving it for tougher in-conference games, or maybe that's one of the plays that was lost in the transition to a new offensive coordinator.


Google did an unbelievable job getting this book up as there's a nice table of contents at the beginning of the book (note the contents button on the google viewer) and a detailed hotlinked index at the end.



Walter Camp has a well deserved reputation as the father of college football and this book is an essential read for those interested in the history of the sport.




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It is the mission of The Unbalanced Line Online Library to present important and interesting historical texts to college football fans. Items will be added regularly as blog postings and can be easily indexed in the Library button on the site bar.

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