History of American football
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November 1863, which the Oneidas won easily. The game caught the attention of the press, and the "Boston game" continued to spread throughout the 1860s.
The game began to return to college campuses by the late 1860s. Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, and Brown all began playing "kicking" games during this time. In 1867, Princeton used rules based on those of the English Football Association. A "running game", resembling rugby, was taken up by the Montreal Football Club in Canada in 1868.
Intercollegiate football
Rutgers v. Princeton (1869)
On November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in a game that was played with a round ball under "Football Association" rules (i.e. soccer) but is often regarded as the first game of intercollegiate football. The game was played at a Rutgers field under Rutgers rules. Two teams of 25 players attempted to score by kicking the ball into the opposing team's goal. Throwing or carrying the ball was not allowed. The first team to reach six goals was declared the winner. Rutgers won by a score of six to four. A rematch was played at Princeton a week later under Princeton rules (one notable difference was the awarding of a "free kick" to any player that caught the ball on the fly). Princeton won that game by a score of eight to zero. Columbia joined the series in 1870, and by 1872 several schools were fielding intercollegiate teams, including Yale and Stevens Institute of Technology.
Rules standardization (1873–1880)
On October 20, 1873, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City to codify the first set of intercollegiate football rules. Before this meeting, each school had its own set of rules and games were usually played using the home team's own particular code. At this meeting, a list of rules, based