History of the football huddle

Dirk DBQ / CC

The college football season is in full swing; the NFL season begins Thursday. When you see the players huddle to get their play you can thank Paul Hubbard. Till the 1890s plays were called at the line of scrimmage through hand signals. Hubbard was the quarterback for Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf in Washington D.C. During practice one day Hubbard noticed that the Gallaudet defense was intercepting his signals, and thus started gathering the offense several yards off the line of scrimmage to convey the plays in secret. Though Hubbard reportedly used the huddle in several games in 1894, the huddle didn’t gain wide popularity until it was used by the University of Illinois in early 1921.