Columbia, Cornell, and other eastern U.S. colleges soon after sent representative teams into intercollegiate competition.
Harvard preferring its own rules abstained from this competition. In 1874 Harvard met McGill University of Montreal, Canada, in a match played under the rugby rules of the Canadians. The Harvard players, impressed, altered their own rules accordingly. Harvard and Yale played a football game for the first time on November 13, 1875, using Harvard's rules. The following year, representatives of Harvard, Yale, and Columbia answered an invitation from Princeton football representative to attend a parley at Springfield, Massachusetts. The result of the convention included a new set of football rules and formation of the Intercollegiate Football Association. Although the rugby like rules of Harvard again prevailed, certain soccer rules were incorporated (Hillp35). The resulting combination of rugby and soccer became popular, and as time went on the rules were changed until a new game evolved. The Intercollegiate Football Association was dissolved in 1894, and in the same year a rule committee, dominated by Yale graduate and football pioneer Walter Chauncey Camp, was formed by the influential eastern schools. In1905 an independent association of colleges also formed a rules committee; the two committees soon merged, since that time American collegiate football has been governed by them. The first professional football game in the United States was played in 1895.
The game is played on a rectangular field by two opposing teams with an inflated leather ball that is roughly oval in shape. The object of the game is to score points by carrying the ball across the opponent's goal line or by kicking the ball through the goal opponent's goal post. By carrying the ball across the opponent's goal line you score a touchdown. Touchdowns are worth six points now, but early in the 1920s they were worth four points.
