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The first game played between teams representing different colleges or universities was played on November 6, 1869 between Rutgers University and Princeton University, at College Field (which is now the parking lot behind the College Avenue Gym, as well as the site of the Gym itself), New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers won, by a score of 6 to 4. As the score would indicate, the game bore little resemblance to the game of today. The rules of that game were the 1863 rules of the English Football Association, the basis of the modern form of soccer.
The development of the American game can be traced to a meeting between the Harvard University and McGill University football teams in 1874. The two teams were used to playing different brands of football--the McGill team played a rugby-style game, while Harvard played a soccer-style game. The teams agreed to play under compromise rules, and from this meeting the game of football began to evolve in both the United States and Canada.
The game increased in popularity through the remainder of the 19th century. It also became increasingly violent. President Theodore Roosevelt threatened, in 1906, to ban the sport following a series of player deaths from injuries suffered during games. The response to this was the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which set rules governing the sport. One of the rules changes to emerge from this attempt at alleviating the violence of the sport was the introduction of the forward pass. Another was the banning of "mass momentum" plays (many of which, like the infamous "flying wedge", were literally deadly).
Prior to the founding of the National Football LeagueFor other uses of the abbreviation "NFL," see NFL (disambiguation). The National Football League NFL is the largest and most popular professional American football league in the world, consisting of thirty-two teams from American cities. The league was fo, and for a few decades thereafter, college football was the predominant venue for American football. Innovations in strategy and style of play originated in college football and spread to the pro game gradually. It was not until the post- World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough era that the pro game achieved ascendancy in the eyes of the average American sports fan.
Unlike the NFL season (which runs from September to the end of December), the college football regular season has a different schedule. It begins two to three weeks earlier, towards the end of August. Until 2003See also 2002 in sports, other events of 2003, 2004 in sports and the list of 'years in sports'. Auto Racing Stock car racing: Michael Waltrip wins rain-shortened Daytona 500 Winston Cup Championship won by Matt Kenseth for Ford. Nextel signs deal to repl, the regular season was officially ushered in by the Kickoff ClassicAmerican football College football The Kickoff Classic was a season-opening college football game played at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey from 1983 to 2002. Rules changes promulgated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association brought, held in recent years in New JerseyNew Jersey is a state of the United States of America and has the U. postal abbreviation of NJ . The state is named after the island of Jersey in the English Channel. The USS New Jersey one of the most decorated vessels in the United States Navy, was name (although other pre-season games such as the Eddie Robinson Classic and the Pigskin Classic have also been played), but recent NCAA sanctions eliminated some of these games, and so the season starts right off with regular games. The regular season then continues through early December (generally with the annual Army-Navy GameThe Army-Navy Game an annual game generally played on the last weekend of the college football regular season in early December, pits the football teams of the United States Military Academy Army and United States Naval Academy Navy against one another.).
The college post-season is ushered in by the annual presentation of the Heisman TrophyHeisman Memorial Trophy Award is given annually to the top college American football player in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Award was presented by the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan, New York, a privately owned recreation faci Award, considered the most prestigious award in all of college football, given to the top player of the year. This is then followed by a series of successful bowl games that showcases (in some situations) the top college team in a particular conference, as well as the mythical "national champion" (determined usually during the New Year's holiday in January). A series of all-star bowl games round out the season for the balance of January, including the East-West Shrine GameAmerican football competitions College football The East-West Shrine Game is an annual post-season college football all-star game played in January in San Francisco, California. It matches teams of players who attended college in the Eastern United States, the Senior Bowl (for many decades the official final game of the season), the Hula Bowl, and the Gridiron Classic (in recent years, the Hula and Gridiron have alternated as the final game of the season).