24 Facts About College football

College football refers to American or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes.

Therefore, college football is generally considered to be the second tier of American and Canadian football; one step ahead of high school competition, and one step below professional competition.

In some areas of the US, especially the South and the Midwest, college football is more popular than professional football, and for much of the 20th century college football was seen as more prestigious.

On November 6,1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in the first game of intercollegiate football that resembled more the game of soccer than "football" as it is played today.

Harvard preferred to play a rougher version of College football called "the Boston Game" in which the kicking of a round ball was the most prominent feature though a player could run with the ball, pass it, or dribble it.

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College football expanded greatly during the last two decades of the 19th century.

Yale football starts the same year and has its first match against Columbia, the nearest college to play football.

College football then used it in 1903 at Carlisle against Harvard and garnered national attention.

In 1891, the first Stanford College football team was hastily organized and played a four-game season beginning in January 1892 with no official head coach.

In 1899, the Oregon College football team left the state for the first time, playing the California Golden Bears in Berkeley, California.

At the time, the future of American College football was very much in doubt and these schools believed that rugby union would eventually be adopted nationwide.

However, due to the perception that West Coast College football was inferior to the game played on the East Coast anyway, East Coast and Midwest teams shrugged off the loss of the teams and continued playing American College football.

California's return to American College football increased the pressure on Stanford to change back in order to maintain the rivalry.

The onset of American involvement in World War I gave Stanford an out: In 1918, the Stanford campus was designated as the Students' Army Training Corps headquarters for all of California, Nevada, and Utah, and the commanding officer Sam M Parker decreed that American football was the appropriate athletic activity to train soldiers and rugby union was dropped.

Style of College football playing has altered considerably; by the old rules, all men in front of the runner with the ball, were offside, consequently we could not send backs through and break the line ahead of the ball as is done at present.

The mass plays being now barred, skill on the College football field is more in demand than mere weight and strength.

College football increased in popularity through the remainder of the 19th and early 20th century.

College football lacked the authority to abolish football and was, in fact, actually a fan of the sport and wanted to preserve it.

College football is credited with being the first major coach to emphasize offense over defense.

College football was so famous at that point that his funeral was broadcast nationally on radio.

College football quickly became the most popular spectator sport in the South.

Several major modern college football conferences rose to prominence during this time period.

The Big East split into two leagues in 2013; the schools that did not play FBS College football reorganized as a new non-College football Big East Conference, while the FBS member schools that remained in the original structure joined with several new members and became the American Athletic Conference.

College football is a controversial institution within American higher education, where the amount of money involved—what people will pay for the entertainment provided—is a corrupting factor within universities that they are usually ill-equipped to deal with.