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It is widely believed that American football is a spin-off of two popular European games - soccer (known as football in Europe) and rugby. In the late 1800s, players in the United States decided to use an oval ball instead of a round one and took rules from both games to form a brand new one. For awhile, early American football was very similar to rugby - until the rules changed enough to produce the game you've come to know and love on Super Bowl Sunday.
The sport of football traces its origins to rugby, which was played in England in the early 1800s. Similar to football, rugby is played with an oval-shaped ball and has similar scoring and passing methods. The two sports differ in various ways, however, and though they trace their roots back to the same era and sport, they have now both become distinct sports, with their own fan bases and specific rules.
In the United States, the first intercollegiate football game in recorded history took place on November 6, 1869, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The match was between football teams at Princeton and Rutgers Universities, and according to some reports, featured an enormous field, more than 25 players per side, and no referees or sports officials. That early incarnation of the game was very different than the one we know today. It used a round leather ball, much like a soccer ball, and players were not required to wear protection or helmets on the field. The use of referees in the game didn't even start until six years later.
Over the course of the next several decades, the game continued to grow and be played by male students at colleges throughout the northeast. These early players transformed and reconfigured the game, introducing the rules we know today and influencing the sport as a whole. Soon an egg-shaped leather ball was being used instead of a round ball, very similar to the ones we use today. Referees were introduced into the game to keep injuries and disputes to a minimum. Eventually teams were made smaller, to only 15 players on a side, and the size of the field was brought down to modern size.
In the 1870s, football players from Harvard and Yale Universities met in Massachusetts to formalize the rules of the new game, creating the Intercollegiate Football Association (the IFA), which was to be the forerunner to the modern college football association. Although many teams were already established in various universities and colleges, each team played by distinct rules and regulations, and there was no common set of guidelines. The IFA was created to standardize the rules of football and make it easier for various teams to compete against each other in intercollegiate games.
Several years later, in 1880, Walter Camp, then a player at Yale University, worked with the IFA to consolidate and further establish the rules of football. As head of the IFA Rules Committee, he petitioned to bring the number of players down to only 11 on a side, and to introduce a scrimmage system for putting the ball in play. Two years later he introduced a system of downs for moving the ball up the field, in which each team had to advance 5 yards within 3 downs. This was a forerunner to the current system of 10 yards in 4 downs. For this, and other smaller changes, Walter Camp transformed the early game of football into a sport very similar to its modern incarnation. By many standards, Walter Camp is considered one of the fathers of modern football.
Within several decades, despite increasing popularity, the sport was banned in many colleges and universities for its rough play and high rate of injury. By then, some 250 schools had teams, and the sport was spreading rapidly. However, the rough play and lack of protective equipment had resulted in 18 deaths and hundreds of serious injuries. At the time, other than the school uniforms with slightly thicker materials and some extra layers, players didn't wear any protective gear. As a result, a meeting of over sixty schools took place, electing a seven-member Rules Committee which would later become known as the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
Since that time, college football has continued to evolve and grow in popularity. Leagues and teams are now being played in hundreds of colleges and universities across the nation, and the sport has become symbolic of American athleticism and college teams. While rules continue to be adjusted and revised, the main tenets of football haven't changed since the early years, and the sport continues to share in the tradition laid down by early players in colleges and universities across the Northeast.

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