History of American Football

American Football Began in Europe   

Today football is the most popular sport in the United States. Every year the Superbowl, the championship event determining the best U.S. Team, draws an average of 80-90 million viewers, making it the most watched show on American Television. But while football today may be defined by U.S. teams, the history of American football actually goes back to English roots. 

In the mid-1800s soccer was developing as a sport in England.   But as it started to get more and more popular among players and fans, it also began to get more and more violent.   There was so much hard hitting and kicking that in 1868 a group of English schools and clubs got together and set new rules and a new governing body.   Although they called themselves the first Football Association, that sport is now known in America as soccer.   The new rules were a little too tame for some Englishmen because they banned shin-kicking and carrying the ball, so six months later there was a split in the association and English football and   rugby officially became two different sports. 

While all this was happening across the ocean in England, students at American universities were also playing a number of different versions of soccer and rugby.   Each university had its own rules of the game.   The first collegiate game as such was played in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers--this game closely resembled soccer.   Harvard was the only school where “carrying the ball” was allowed and they called their style “the Boston Game.”   Because of this style, no one wanted to play Harvard, and students played a lot of games among themselves.    

All that changed in 1874 when McGill University in Montreal, Canada invited Harvard to come up and play a game against them.   Students at McGill had learned a rugby-like passing game from British soldiers stationed in the city. Harvard won that game by three touchdowns and liked McGill’s variation so much they brought it back to the United States. This strain eventually developed into what we now know as “American Football.“ The next year, 1875, Harvard played Tufts and then Yale, where the Harvard/Yale rivalry was born.   In 1876, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, basing the majority of their rules on English Rugby.   Yale disagreed about the number of players on a team and didn‘t join until 1879. 

Walter Camp, known as the Father of American Football, was a student Yale and Captain of the Yale team.   He started attending the yearly rules meetings, and with his input in 1880 the scrimmage replaced the rugby scrum.   Downs became a part of the game in 1882, and thanks again to Camp, in 1883 the number of players was reduced to 11 and   the seven-man offensive line was born. In 1892 the first professional game was played in Pennsylvania between the Allegheny Athletic Association and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club.   William “Pudge” Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play for Allegheny and they won the game. 

There were problems of violence in these early football games. One of the favorite forms of attack was the flying wedge--taken from the military, where players charged forward in a V formation.   Players who got the ball were often dragged across the field.   1905 was an extremely bad year--18 players were killed in games and the President at the time, Theodore Roosevelt, threatened to make football illegal.   This threat prompted 62 colleges to meet in New York that same year.   Rules were changed.   The V-formation and the forward pass were banned and the schools joined together to form the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later named the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). 

One year later the forward pass was back, and added were a neutral zone, scrimmage lines and a regulation that required at least six players from each team be on those scrimmage lines. After several more deaths, in 1910, interlocking formations were made illegal, new field dimensions took effect, a fourth down was set, and the scoring was changed, making the touchdown six points.. 

The popularity of college football continued to grow throughout the first half of the 19^th century and has never waned.   Local communities started forming their own football clubs and the American Professional Football Association was born in 1920.   Two years later it changed its name to the National Football League, and despite attempts to form competitive leagues, the NFL has dominated ever since.   The NFL is composed of the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC), and the best team from each of these conferences plays at the Superbowl game to determine the national champion.