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The First Game
The very first game of intercollegiate football was played between Rutgers and Princeton. -
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Continued Growth
Teams were fielded from Princeton, Yale, Rutgers, Columba and Stevens Tech for the 1872 season. -
The Standardization of Rules
Football Becomes Standardized On this day, representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Rutgers met at a hotel in New York City named Fifth Avenue Hotel to work out the first set of rules for intercollegiate football. -
The 1873 Season Begins
the 1873 season was marked by the addition of another team, as well as having no decided champion. -
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First Collegiate Confrence
Harvard, Columbia and Princeton form the Intercollegiate Football Association. -
Yale Joins the IFA
Although Yale was not an original memeber of the IFA due to a despute regarding the number of players on each team, they later joined in 1879. -
The First Rule Changes
New rules were intoduced which reduced team sized from 15 to 11 players, established the Line of Scrimmage and the snap. -
Field Size Established
A rule chagned required all football fields to be a 120 yards by 53 and 1/3rd yards. -
Down-and-DIstance Rules Established
More rules were added, which requried teams to move the ball 5 yards within 3 downs in order to maintain posession. -
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First All-American Team Selected
The firstCollegiate All-American Team was selected. The team consisted of 3 players from Yale, 3 players from Harvard and 5 players from Princeton. -
First Professional Player
William "Pudge" Heffelfinger took a payment of $500 ($13,000 in 2014 dollars) to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association. -
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The IAA is Formed
62 schools met in order to establish rules promoting player safety. These schools formed the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which later became known as the NCAA. -
Foward Pass Introduced
A rule change legalized the foward pass, though it went relatively unused for years. -
First Forward Pass is Thrown
The very first forward pass was thrown by Bradbury Robinson, though it fell incomplete. -
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APFA Formed
The American Professional Football Association, which later changed its name to the National Footvball League, is formed. It originally consisted of 14 teams, of which only 2 still exist today. -
Green Bay Joins the APFA
The Green Bay Packers joined the APFA in 1921, though they had been a team since 1919. The Packers have the record for longest use of an unchanged team name. -
Popularity in the South
Football became wildly popular in the south in the 1930's. Two major rivalries are formed at this time, Auburn and Georgia, and Virginia and North Carolina. -
NFL's First Playoff Game
The Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartants both held the same record at the end of the 1932 season, which prompted the NFL to hold its first playoff game. The Chicago Bears won 9-0. -
First Televised Game
NBC broadcasted [the first professional football game](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Football_League_on_television#From_infancy_to_national_success) on television. It was a match between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers. -
NFLPA is Formed
The National Football League Players Association is formed by Creighton Miller in order to help protect professional players. -
AFL is Formed
Texas Business man Lamar Hunt (center) lead the formation of the first major rival to the National Football League, which was known as the American Football League. -
The Super Bowl
The first AFL-NFL Championship Game is played between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Cheifs. The offical name of the game was changed to the Super Bowl in 1970. The Packers won 35-10. -
Super Bowl III
The Baltimore Colts and the New York Jets met in Super Bowl 3. The Jets were seen as the underdog, as they were from the AFL which was viewed as a weaker league. Joe Namath and the Jets pulled off a shocking upset against Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts, winning 16-7. This gave the AFL some credibility as a competitive league to the NFL. -
AFL-NFL Merger
Originally being announced on June 8, 1966, 1970 was the year the AFL and NFL merged to form what we know now as the NFL. The leagues formed the confrences we have now that makes up the NFL, with the AFL becoming the AFC and the original NFL becoming the NFC.
