Roy Kaup, age 7, of Stuart, Neb., for his question:
WHEN WAS THE FIRST FOOTBALL GAME PLAYED?
Do you know what penalties are charged for fouls in football? A 15‑yard penalty is charged for clipping, which is committed when one player blocks another from behind. It is a five‑yard penalty for being offside, which means that a player has crossed the line of scrimmage before the ball has been snapped. A delay of the game penalty will cost a team five yards.
A game similar to soccer was played in the East in the mid‑1800s. Sometimes there were as many as 30 members playing on each team. The first college football game, using strict rules, was played on November 6, 1869 in New Brunswick, N.J. Winning the game with a score of 6 to 4 was Rutgers and losing was the College of New Jersey, which is now Princeton University.
A game played in 1874 between Harvard and McGill University of Montreal brought football closer to the game we know today. The visiting Canadians picked up the ball and ran with it. Players on the McGill team also tackled Harvard ball carriers. Harvard liked the new version of football and introduced it to other college teams in the United States. Almost immediately running, blocking and tackling became just as important as kicking had been. In 1880 rules were adopted that allowed a team to keep possession of the ball while trying to complete a first down. Also, the number of men on each team was reduced to 11. It was during the 1880s that football spread from Eastern colleges to high schools and community playgrounds throughout the East and the Midwest.
By 1900 football was played almost completely with players running, blocking and tackling. Scoring of a kick was made more difficult with a narrow goal area placed in the middle of the goal line. The ball had to be kicked into this area for a score. Later a crossbar was added.
Football became a violent game. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to ban the game if violence continued. So in 1906 some new rules were added including one which allowed a player to throw the ball forward to another back or to an end. The world's first forward pass was thrown for an 18‑yard gain by Wesleyan University against Yale in 1906.
Passing didn't become popular until 1913, however. In that year in a game between Notre Dame and Army, Notre Dame quarterback Gus Dorais threw a ball several times to a star end named Knute Rockne. Notre Dame won over a favored Army, 35 to 13. Passing helped to make football even more popular than it had been. It also let smaller, faster players compete successfully and required careful planning and the use of many different plays.