About America's First Football Game
Widely considered as the birthplace of football
America's first official football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers University and its neighbor, New Jersey (later known as Princeton) played that first game of intercollegiate football on a plot of ground where the present-day Rutgers gymnasium now stands.
The first game is now considered the birthplace of football. Rutgers won the game, 6-4. "The Birthplace Of College Football" signs are currently displayed around Rutgers football stadium. The National College Athletic Association (NCAA) describes the matchup as the first American football game ever played. The Pro Football Hall Of Fame recognizes it as the first ever game.
The contest was played on a field that was 120 yards long and 50 yards wide, with a goal at each end. The teams consisted of 25 players each, and the ball used was a round soccer ball. The game was divided into two 50-minute halves. Rutgers won the coin toss and chose to kick off to start the game.
There were no referees or official scorekeepers at the game, so the players had to make their own calls and keep track of the score. At the end of the first half, the score was tied at 2-2. In the second half, Rutgers scored the only two goals of the game to win by a final score of 6-4.
The game received little attention at the time, and it was not until several years later that football began to gain popularity as a sport in the United States. However, the Rutgers-Princeton game is now recognized as a significant moment in American sports history, marking the birth of a new and uniquely American game.
The early Rutgers-Princeton games were based on the London Football Association rules, but team captains haggled over individual rule tweaks for each game. There was no guarantee one game would be played under the same rules as another.
There was no forward pass or line of scrimmage. Nobody could pick up the round ball and carry it. Points were only scored by kicking the ball across a goal. There were no quarters, halftimes, or officials, as timekeeping more closely resembled that of tennis or baseball.
A rematch took place the following week at Princeton, which won 8-0. That set the stage for a much-anticipated rubber match. The game marked an important milestone in the evolution of the sport, laying the groundwork for the development of modern football in the United States.
Over the following decades, football gained popularity not only in colleges but also in high schools and communities across the country. By the late 19th century, football had become firmly established as one of America's most popular sports.
This set the stage for the development of professional league and the iconic traditions we see in football today. In some areas of the country, the South and the Midwest, college football is far more popular than professional football.
In fact, the largest attendance for an American football game in history was a record 156,990 fans. The game took place in Bristol, Tennessee on September 10, 2016 during a college match up between Tennessee and Virginia Tech.
*Note: The first professional football game was played on November 12, 1892 at a recreation park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And the NFL did not play its first game until 1920. This establishes the Rutgers-Princeton match up, which took place in 1869, as the first official football game ever played in America