1873 First Formal Rules Of Football

1873 Harvard played a series of three games with McGill University of Montreal, Canada the next season. McGill played rugby while Harvard played a game more like soccer. In the second of three games, the team agreed to play under modified rules of the Rugby Football Union.

The new running game was met with great enthusiasm and was adopted by Harvard, Yale, princeton, and Columbia. In 1876, representatives from these four schools met in Springfield, Mass. to develop a set of rules for a running game and formed the Intercollegiate Football Association.