Time Machine activated and lets go all the way back to......150 years ago.
November 6, 1869
Today was the first ever ever college football game. College of New Jersey (now Princeton) played Rutgers College. The game was in New Brunswick, New Jersey and it looked very different from the game we all know and love today. What happened on 11/6/1869 could probably not even be similar to football as we know it.
First, lets look at the rule differences. The most obvious rule difference is that you could not carry or throw the ball. The game was even played with a soccer ball. Instead of the modern day offensive drive, the teams played 10 games. The winner of a game would receive a point, similar to tennis and matches. In order to score you would kick the ball across the other team's goal. You had 25 players per team and 11 were defenders (yes, like soccer) and 12 were bulldogs (basically scorers). All on the field at once this had to have been chaotic.
Now, to the game. Rutgers scored first and took a 1-0 lead. They would use a formation called the "flying wedge" at one point. This was an old war strategy where a wall is formed and then running at the opponent. New Jersey would later tie it after four games at 2 games a piece. Rutgers took the next two to lead 4-2. After New Jersey tied it at 4 after eight games, at this point Rutgers had to change strategies. They knew Princeton as larger and they decided to keep the ball closer to the ground. Rutgers won the next two games to win 6-4. New Jersey had the bigger team based on size, but they could not seem to kick it well enough to win.
Once the game was over the New Jersey players were basically forced out of town by Rutgers students and this is thought to have been the birthplace of the college football rivalries. While this was the first game technically, it did not look anything like the product we know and love today. The first game with rules as we know it would be played on June 4, 1875. That game would feature another Ivy League school Harvard as Harvard played Tufts College. Tufts is now a NCAA Division III school.
Interesting facts from the game include the following. One of the Rutgers' players was a wounded veteran from the Civil War named Madison M. Ball. He had an interesting heel kick play that would make a difference halfway through the matchup. The heel kick would confuse the New Jersey team. Another cool fact is that the game may have been played around 4:00pm or 5:00pm. We do not know the exact time it began, but we do know that it was a Saturday. We may expect a large number for the attendance but only 100 people were at the game. That is a large number for that time in history, but when considering most teams have 100 players in the present game, it makes that number astronomical. We cannot find a ticket price for the game, if they even had to have a ticket to get in. We do know that in 1875 $1 was equal to $20.20 in todays money. Rutgers plays a home game on November 16 and the lowest ticket is $40 on StubHub. With that pricing scale it would have been $2 and some change.
This game was very monumental in the aspect of sports history. This sport has become an American pastime and Saturday tradition. You cannot go to any town like Tuscaloosa, Baton Rouge, Clemson, Oxford(MS), Gainesville, Eugene, Columbus(OH), Ann Arbor, and many more without seeing a tailgate on Saturdays in the Fall. We also have some phrases engrained into society such as Roll Tide, War Eagle, Hotty Toddy, Buckeyes, Hook 'Em, Boomer Sooner, and many more. If the people on that day knew what they were watching in a historical aspect, they would have laughed. Here's to another 150 great years of college football.
Have a magical day and we will SEE YA! real soon.
