Dartmouth College students played a football-like game now known as “Old Division Football”, for which they published rules in 1871. In 1873, Columbia, Rutgers, Princeton, and Yale came together to formulate the intercollegiate football rules for the games they played. This meeting is notable for two reasons. First, it is the first attempt to make a single set of rules for all schools to follow. Second, Harvard declined to attend the meeting. Harvard University and Tufts University played one of the “first” games that would be recognized by modern fans as American football in June 4, 1875 at Jarvis Field in Cambridge, Massachusetts, won by Tufts 1-0. A report of the outcome of this game appeared in the Boston Daily Globe on June 5, 1875. In the Tufts-Harvard game, participants were allowed to catch the ball and run with it, each side fielded 11 men, the ball carrier was stopped by knocking him down or “facing” him, and the inflated ball was egg-shaped.
A year before the Tufts-Harvard game, Harvard faced the McGill University of Montreal, Canada on May 14, 1874 at a game under rules similar to the Tufts-Harvard game. To this day, Harvard, McGill and Tufts continue to play soccer teams, although they no longer play each other. Encouraged by Walter Camp at Yale University, the schools began to adopt the rules that would differentiate American football from rugby in the 1990s. 1880. Scrimmage was introduced in 1880 and the downs system in 1882. However, at the turn of the 20th century, football became notoriously dangerous and 18 college players died in 1905 alone. responded with a series of rule changes to open up the game, more the forward pass is important, together with the ban on formations dangerous, such as the “flying wedge”, and the introduction and demand for better equipment such as helmets. The game reached its modern form in 1912, when the field has been changed to its current size, the value of a touchdown increased to six points and a fourth down was added to each possession.