It is easily the most audible word in any football game, a throaty grunt that may be the sport’s most distinguishing sound.
Hut!
It starts almost every play, and often one is not enough. And in an increasingly complex game whose signal-calling has evolved into a cacophony of furtive code words — “Black Dirt!,” “Big Belly!” “X Wiggle!” — hut, hut, hut endures as the signal to move.
But why?
“I have no idea why we say hut,” said Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, who in a Pro Bowl career of seven years has probably snapped the ball thousands of times to “hut” but still cannot explain it. “I guess because it’s better than yelling, ‘Now,’ or ‘Go.’ Some people have used ‘Go’ and that’s awful. That doesn’t sound like football.”
