BY DANIEL S. HOLT | October 1, 2025

What do rugby and soccer have in common? They are the two sports that American Football originated from. The first football game was played between Rutgers and Princeton Universities in New Brunswick, New Jersey on Nov. 6, 1869. But the game looked much different than the football I play in school.

In that first game, players could use their feet, hands or head to kick or hit the ball, but they could not hold the ball. That means they couldn’t run with the ball either. Over the next few years different colleges played with their own rules. I would bet that would have been confusing! 

In 1875 Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Columbia Universities all agreed to play using rugby rules with some changes, which formed the Intercollegiate Football Association. In 1905, 19 players died playing football. President Theodore Roosevelt said he would ban the game unless major changes were made. Colleges from across the country met and formed the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States. This organization later became the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This is the same organization that oversees college sports today.