Lessons from the History of College Football

Beware the popular press

College football is said to have begun with a match between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869. Essentially, it was a modified soccer game. At the time, each home team had its own set of rules. You went to Rutgers, you played by their code.

Princeton and Rutgers came together with Yale in 1873 to create a common rule code so that the game didn't inherently ch…