A touchdown is the biggest scoring play in American football, yet the name comes from an action players no longer need to perform. The origin of the touchdown in rugby and football reaches back to 19th-century rugby, when a player had to carry the ball beyond the goal line and physically touch it to the ground.
American football inherited both the rule and the name, but eventually removed the grounding requirement. Rugby kept the action and renamed the score a try. That unusual split explains why NFL players can score a touchdown without ever touching the ball down.
Why Was the Original Score Called a Touchdown?
The word described exactly what the player did. Early rugby-style football required an attacker to touch the ball down behind the goal line. The noun “touchdown” is recorded in rugby from 1864, while the related sporting phrase appeared several years earlier.
The grounded ball did not initially earn points. Instead, it gave the attacking team an opportunity to kick at goal. This explains the rugby word “try,” which developed from “try at goal.” Early matches prioritized successful goals, while grounding the ball created the chance to attempt the decisive kick.
Why Did Rugby Start Calling a Touchdown a Try?
Many online summaries claim rugby simply renamed the touchdown a “try” in 1875. The historical change was more gradual. Rugby already used “try at goal” language before that date. In 1875, Rugby Football Union scoring rules formally allowed tries to help decide a match when teams had scored the same number of goals, although a try still carried no independent points value.
A rugby union try eventually rose to five points in 1992, while the conversion remained worth two. Modern rugby therefore rewards the grounding action more heavily than the kick it originally existed to create.
Does Rugby Still Require the Ball to Be Grounded?
Yes. Under World Rugby laws, an attacking player scores by grounding the ball in the opponent’s in-goal area. A player carrying the ball may hold it and touch it to the ground. When the ball is already loose, an attacker may score by applying downward pressure.
Crossing the try line alone does not complete the score. If defenders keep the ball off the ground, officials can rule it held up. Rugby therefore preserves the literal action behind “touchdown,” even though the attacking score is now called a try.
How Did Rugby’s Touchdown Enter American Football?
The origin of the touchdown in rugby and football reached the United States through college competition. Harvard’s games against McGill University in 1874 introduced American players to a rugby-style code featuring ball carrying and tackling.
Those matches became an important bridge between early soccer-like college games and modern American football.
In 1876, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association and adopted rules influenced by rugby. A touch-down required a player to put a hand on the grounded ball beyond the goal line so that the ball became dead. Carrying it across the line was not enough. The play primarily earned an opportunity to kick a goal and could help settle a tied match.
Why Did Football Remove the Grounding Rule in 1889?
American football abolished the literal grounding requirement in 1889. After the change, possessing the ball beyond the goal line could complete a touchdown without pressing it onto the dirt.
The older rule could contribute to crowded goal-line struggles as defenders tried to hold the runner and ball above the ground. Removing the final action also made scoring decisions clearer as American football placed greater emphasis on possession and field position.
Some retellings identify safety concerns and defensive piles as the main reasons for the change. Although those goal-line struggles provide a logical explanation, surviving historical summaries establish the 1889 rule change more clearly than they establish one official safety motive. The safest conclusion is that eliminating grounding simplified a game already moving away from rugby.
Why Did Football Keep the Name Touchdown?
By 1889, the term was already embedded in American football, so the sport kept the familiar name after changing the action.
That created a fascinating reversal. Football retained “touchdown” but abandoned touching the ball down. Rugby retained the grounding action but calls the attacking score a try. The American term survives as a linguistic artifact from the sports’ shared past.
How Did a Touchdown Become Worth Six Points?
Early American football valued kicking more highly than touchdowns. Walter Camp and other rulemakers helped separate the US game from rugby through the line of scrimmage, downs, standardized scoring, and other distinctly American rules.
Football introduced numerical points in 1883, when a touchdown was worth two points and the following goal kick was worth four. The values changed several times as rulemakers placed greater importance on running the ball across the goal line.
The touchdown increased from five points to six in 1912. Football also added the end zone that year, helping create the field layout familiar to college football and NFL audiences. A modern NFL touchdown earns six points, followed by a one-point kick or a possible two-point conversion.
What Is the Difference Between a Rugby Try and an NFL Touchdown?
A rugby union try requires the ball to be grounded in the opposition’s in-goal area and awards five points. The scoring team may then attempt a two-point conversion kick.
Under NFL rules, a runner scores when the ball in their possession reaches, crosses, or extends above the plane of the opponent’s goal line. A receiver may also score with a legal catch in the end zone. The ball must cross the plane; a player’s helmet, hand, or foot alone does not create the score.
Frequently Asked Questions About Touchdown History
1. Did American Football Copy the Touchdown From Rugby?
American football adopted the grounding concept and terminology from rugby-style rules, then reshaped the play through its own possession and scoring system.
2. When Did Football Stop Requiring a Real Touchdown?
Football removed the requirement to physically ground the ball beyond the goal line in 1889.
3. Why Is a Rugby Score Called a Try?
Grounding the ball originally earned the attacking team a “try at goal,” meaning an opportunity to kick for the goal that decided the score.
4. Why Is an American Football Touchdown Worth Six Points?
The touchdown became worth six points in 1912 after earlier changes gradually increased its scoring value.
How One Rugby Rule Created an American Tradition
I see the origin of the touchdown in rugby and football as a perfect example of sports evolving without abandoning their language. Rugby preserved the grounding action and developed the try into its leading attacking score, while traditions such as the third half rugby tradition in America carried the sport’s social culture beyond the field.
American football removed the grounding requirement, adopted the goal-line plane, and made the touchdown the centerpiece of scoring.
Every NFL Sunday, the word connects modern US football to rugby history. The action changed, the value changed, and the sports separated—but the original name survived.