American Football History

American football is now played everywhere more than even before. Although known for being a physical sport, American football has its share of popularity and evidence of this is the Super Bowl. There is a mystery behind the sport however. And it seems like the word American is already attached to football. This is mainly because “football” alone may mean soccer. But what does American football history has to say? Did it originate in America?

If your suspension is that soccer and football are cousins, then you are right. Soccer and football are basically the same form of sports played in early United Kingdom. In the middle of the 19th century, a game also came to be popular and this was the rugby football. The rugby football however did not have anything to do with kicking balls. Mostly, the sport involved the hands in passing the ball. There were some elements in this sport that resemble the typical game of modern American football as you may notice also with the modern rugby. But it definitely was with rugby football that American football came out. And the rest is American football history which is continued on the next paragraphs.

There were many claims about the first American football games that were played in the United States. But the authenticity of the claims is still in question mainly because the rules that were used were so distant from the ones employed in the modern NFL. But it was believed that in American football history, a group of students in secondary school and college played a game that appeared to be the first in the 1800s. No particular record is being held yet on the profile of these students, although what was known only is that these players were from the East part of America. This group of players used a puffed up ball and passed it along lines to score goals. The passing was somehow similar to soccer but it involved kicking as well, indicative of an early football game.

The first completely recorded college football in the American football history was the game between Princeton University and Rutgers University in November 6, 1869 in New Jersey. Others would call this, the first NCAA game. Rutgers won over the Princeton team with 6-4. While some have questioned the claim that the New Jersey game was to be considered as the first, many have consider it however as a significant part of college football. No one has ever really known who played the first American football.

The first professional game in the history of American football was said to be that of the Harvard University and the Tufts University on the 4th of June, 1875. The game which was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts recorded Tufts as the first winner with 1-0. The game was reportedly published in a daily called the Boston Daily Globe on the following day. The rule of the game was that the player was allowed to get the ball and run it. To stop the carrier of the ball, he may be either tackled or knocked down. This time, the ball had a shape of an egg.

Because it was a success, Yale University then helped in developing rules and standards of the game. McGill University in Canada has even played a big part in this since they joined a game with the Harvard University even before the historical Tuft-Harvard match. In 1882, the system-of-downs was already developed.

At the start of the new century, and with the increasing popularity of the sport, colleges have become so worried about its ruggedness. The history of American football wrote its first in-game casualty of 18 in 1905. This signaled revisions of the rules. The following years saw the sprouting of leagues like the Ivy League, NFL and AFL. The first Super Bowl league game took place in 1967 and the football fever spread all over the world since then.