The first college football game
College football generates billions of dollars each year in
the U.S. But the game looked very different 150 years ago.
Rutgers and Princeton, two New Jersey colleges, faced off
in the first match on Nov. 6, 1869, in front of about 100 spectators. Each team
had 25 men on the field, and the ball couldn’t be carried or thrown — players
advanced by kicking or batting it with their hands and feet.
On the field in 1869. Rutgers University
The rules had been established a few years earlier by the
London Football Association — meaning they were a lot closer to what the rest
of the world would call football and Americans would call soccer. The game also
featured elements of rugby.
The play was frantic and rough, and the men wore no
padding or helmets. At one point, a distressed professor waved his umbrella and
shouted, “You will come to no Christian end!”
Princeton had more muscle, but Rutgers was faster and better
organized, according to an account in the Rutgers student newspaper.
Rutgers won, 6-4.
