Page "College football" Paragraph 7

A game which modern audiences would more readily recognize as American football occurred six years after the first ever game and occurred between Harvard University and Tufts University on June 4, 1875.

The first game ever played that resembles the game as it is known today was played between an American team, Harvard, and a Canadian team, McGill University of Montreal in 1874.

Harvard, who was trying to get away from the soccer like game that many schools played, set out to find another school who played a game similar to them.

This first game was a lot like rugby but much closer to the modern day version of football than soccer.

After the captains of the two teams met they quickly realized that the games each school played were still different.

In a compromise the teams decided to play two different games, one under each teams set of rules.

On May 14, Harvard won the game under their rules, and the game on the following day, May 15, under McGill's rules ended in scoreless tie.

Harvard would eventually go on to fully adopt the McGill version of the game that included more carrying of the ball and also used an oblong ball that was easier to carry and throw.

An 1869 game of intercollegiate " football " between Rutgers and Princeton is often cited as the first intercollegiate American football game, however it was an unfamiliar ancestor of today's college football, as it was played under 6-year-old soccer-style Association rules.

The game played between teams from Rutgers University and Princeton University, which was called the College of New Jersey at the time, took place on November 6, 1869 at College Field, which is now the site of the College Avenue Gymnasium at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Rutgers won by a score of 6 " runs " to Princeton's 4.

The 1869 game between Rutgers and Princeton is important in that it is the first documented game of something called intercollegiate " football " ever played between two American colleges, and because of this, Rutgers refers to itself as The Birthplace of College Football.

It came two years before an inter-club rugby game under the auspices of the Rugby Football Union would be played in England ; though it must be remembered that rugby had been codified 24 years before this in 1845 and played by many schools, universities and clubs even before the laws were first put on paper.

Although the Rutgers-Princeton game was undoubtedly different from what we today know as American football, it was the forerunner of what evolved into American football.

Another similar game took place between Rutgers and Columbia University in 1870.

The popularity of intercollegiate competition in football would spread throughout the country.