The hook and ladder is one of two common desperation strategies a trailing team can use at the end of a game, the other being the Hail Mary pass.
This is not synonymous with a "ladder", which is a specific route (also called a "chair") in which a receiver cuts out before turning up the field along the sideline.
This would not be true of many hook and lateral plays; in the case of the play run by the Boise State Broncos in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, the player who received the lateral from the "hook" receiver was running a slant route across the center of the field rather than a ladder route.
On the January 2, 2007, broadcast of ESPN's Around the Horn, sportswriter Woody Paige claimed, perhaps facetiously, that the name "hook and ladder" originated with NYC Firemen Football Team in Hell's Kitchen, New York.
The next day, Jay Mariotti claimed the phrase "hook and ladder" referred to coal mining in Pennsylvania in the 1930s—his research claims that coal miners need a hook and ladder when trapped in a mine.