College Football: The Complete History

The first college football game between Princeton and Rutgers was played on November 6, 1869 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. There were different things between the match played that day and the matches we are watching today. In the early days of college football, soccer was round and the field was 120 yards long and 75 yards wide and each team had 25 players.

The popularity of college football was very low in the early days and there were only 6 teams at the time when rugby ball was used to play and the first referees for the game were used. The following year, the crossbar was added to the goal posts and is still in use in college football matches to this day. The college football field has also been scaled down and the number of members per team has been reduced to 15.

In 1876 the crossbar was added to the 10-foot goal posts (in effect to this day), and the field was reduced to nearly modern dimensions. At the same time, the number of players on each side was reduced to 15.

It took until 1880 before further revisions were made to the rules and teams were limited to 11 players. In 1882, the downs system was introduced into college football games, although it began as a requirement for a team to make 5 yards in 3 touchdowns, which remained in effect until it was changed to 10 yards in 4 touchdowns in 1912. A game that became a ball College football is now more popular and widespread as more than 250 colleges played in 1900.

The first true college football uniform was designed in 1877 and included a skinny fabric jacket, black knee-length pants, socks, and an orange shirt. This form of college football uniform did not provide much protection for the players, unlike the college football uniforms used today, many footballers were seriously injured and some died.

The number of referees in a college football game grew from a single referee in 1885 to a trio in 1894. These three referees for college football were a referee, a referee, and a referee. Eventually, a field judge was added to the college football team of officials in 1915, then a reserve judge in 1955, then an assistant judge in 1972, and finally in 1983, a side judge.

By 1894, the referee team had grown from a single referee (first required in 1885) to a trio: referee, referee, and referee. A field judge was added for a brief period beginning in 1908 and became a permanent part of the crew in 1915. A back judge was not added until 1955, with an assistant added in 1972 and a side judge in 1983.

In 1905, there was so much outcry about the violence of a college football match that an administrative body was needed to oversee changes to the game. This became the National Athletics Association and continues to exist to bring about changes in rules and procedures to ensure the safety of college football players.