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The 1869 college football season was the first season of intercollegiate football in the United States. While played using improvised rules resembling soccer and rugby as much as the modern American sport, it is traditionally considered the inaugural college football season. It consisted of only two total games, both of which occurred between the Rutgers University and Princeton University; The first was played on November 6 at Rutgers' campus, and the second was played on November 13 at Princeton's campus.

The first ever college football national championship awarded (retroactively) was split between the only two participants in 1869, Rutgers and Princeton. Princeton was named the champion by the Billingsley Report and the National Championship Foundation, while college football research historian Parke H. Davis named the two teams co-champions. Various other ratings and retrospectives have rated the teams differently.

The two games were played with rules very different from what is currently understood as American football, and also played under home field rules that differed from each other. However, what developed into a more rugby-style play and eventually into the football known by current fans had its beginnings in 1869.


First intercollegiate football game ever played

In what some regard as the very first game ever played of intercollegiate football, a contest was held between teams from Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). The 1869 game between Rutgers and Princeton is important in that it is the first documented game of intercollegiate game called football between two American colleges. The Princeton/Rutgers game was undoubtedly different from what we today know as American football, as there was no running with the ball, each team included 25 players, and the ball was perfectly spherical. The first game which included running with the ball, 11-man sides, an oval-shaped ball, and tackling to end a play occurred on June 4, 1875, between Harvard University and Tufts University.

Rutgers won the game by a score of 6–4.




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