This is not me making fun of america?

Question

But why is American Football called that when the ball rarely touches the foot I was just wondering this

yes the ball is every so often kicked with the foot but it is by large a throwing game and no i am not making fun of americans

Answer 1

Up until the late 30s there was this thing called a drop kick where any player at anytime could try for a FG by dropping (back then the ball was much rounder, like an Australian rules football) the ball and kicking it as it hit the ground.

The rule is still active. Doug Flutie last year kicked the latest drop kick. Before him the last was some time like 1941.

Answer 2

American Football is actually based off a game they used to play in Europe. The name FOOT ball was referring to the fact that the game was played on foot, not that feet were used to kick the ball. In this time a lot of games were played on horseback.

Answer 3

Within the spectrum of modern football codes there are several "families", which have diverged from and/or influenced each other in their development. Many of these games have their origins in varieties of football played in England. By the 1850s, the two main families of football in England were the "kicking games", in which the ball was mostly kicked along the ground, and the "running games", in which the ball was mostly carried by players. Some codes combined elements from both families. In 1845, at Rugby School in England, rugby football became the first of the running games to have codified rules


By 1820, a notoriously violent game known as "ballown" was being played at the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University). In 1827, a Harvard University student composed a humorous epic poem called The Battle of the Delta, one of the first accounts of football in American universities.

Both American football and soccer have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, and American football is directly descended from rugby football. The majority of the plays in a typical American football game involve handling the ball rather than kicking it.

Rutgers University and Princeton University played the first game of college football on Nov. 6, 1869 in New Brunswick, N.J. Rutgers won that first game, 6-4. From the 1820s to around 1890, Dartmouth College students played a football-like game now known as "Old Division Football," to which they published rules in 1871.

Encouraged by Yale University's Walter Camp, the schools began to adopt more standardized rules that would differentiate American football from rugby in the 1880s. The scrimmage was introduced in 1880 and the system of downs in 1882.

Answer 4

Because in the original rules they scored more points by kicking the ball through the goalposts than with a touchdown. It's true.

Answer 5

because the first american football game used most of the rules from the english football association and the english rugby football assocation
think was around 1869

Answer 6

The game has evolved to the aerial attacks you see today....Its history is rooted deep into running and kicking the ball. and being played this way the game was all about from the hips down. Maybe should of been called Hipball............Don't sound right does it.........Just my theory................Who knows what they were think in back when it got its name

Answer 7

Walter Camp created football from the same principles as English Rugby, football. The name stuck with it.

Answer 8

You are right. I know in my country football is soccer. I guess they call it that because when time for kickoff they use their foot to hit the ball.

Answer 9

It goes back to how it started basically. You'll hear this or that as reasons but really it goes back the orgin of the game. They simply kept adding to the game and it evolved to OUR version.

Answer 10

They didn't invent the game yesterday, it has changed a lot in over 100 years of play