How Did College Football Start

One of the most watched things in America is football, but there are two different levels of football the collegiate level and the Professional level. They are the same game but started two different ways. I’m going to go into brief explanation on how College football came about.

The First college football game happened on November 6^th 1869 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Where Rutgers beat Princeton 6 goals to 4. The score was this way because at this time  the game was played with a soccer style ball. The game didn’t spread as fast as you would think it would with the popularity it has now. By 1875 there were 6 teams playing college football.

 The 1880s to 1890s is when college football started to gain some sort of rules and regulations. As they implemented rules limiting each team to 11 players on the field, having a line of scrimmage, and starting the down markers at the time it was 5 yards is a first down and they got 3 downs which later changed to 10 yards and 4 downs.

By the 20^th century there were over 250 colleges having teams in this great sport. A lot of things came about in the20th century, as the numbers on players jersey came. Before players were just playing you didn’t really know who anyone was, but in 1915 it was thought players should have numbers on the front and back of their jerseys. It was finally put into effect in1937.

In 1903 the game grew to a huge popularity where Harvard was the first college to build a stadium just for football, which was huge because it never happened before. But with the all the things good happening it was like the game took 5 steps backward when injuries and even deaths started happening on the field. It was such a problem that the President at the time Theodore Roosevelt demand that changes be made. Which started what we now know as the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) who then had control over rules and regulations to make the game safer for its players.

With all the rule changes came the Forward Pass which was huge if you look at the change it’s made to the game in the present time. In 1906 the rule was implemented to help move the ball better. The pass game didn’t really become popular until 1910 through 1912 when a small school shocked the college game by the name of West Virginal Wesleyan College when they recorded their first undefeated season in 1912.

The Scoring in College Football didn’t change as the game started to change from the beginning as well. The 20the century was huge for the game, as the changing of scores went from 5 points for a touchdown to 6 points and field goals went from 1 to 2 points to 3 points. In 1958 the teams got the opportunity to go for 2 points after scoring a touchdown, or kicking the extra point which was kept at 1 point. The change in the rules for scoring grew the games popularity to an extreme level because of the amount of points being scored at a time.

For more information or if you would like to read more about the links I’ve used you can see them at the bottom.

         

Go to this website for more on the history  behind how college football started and rule changes from then and now changed 

Go to this website for more info on the first game played in college football.