When was the first college American football game played?

The roots of American football stemmed from two sports, soccer and rugby, which had enjoyed long-time popularity in many nations of the world. On November 6, 1869, two college teams played what was billed as the first college football game. The 1869 New Jersey vs. Rutgers football game was a college football game between the College of New Jersey (now the Princeton Tigers) and the Rutgers Queensmen. The game's rules were based on the London Football Association's early set of rules, which had recently become the most popular set of rules for the game of football at the time. The game, along with the schism between the FA's rules and the rules of the Rugby Football Union, set in motion the events which would lead to the development of modern American football during the following decades. The game is considered to have been the first American football game ever played, but also is seen as being the first college soccer game by some due to the rules under which the game was played more closely resembling soccer.

Rutgers won the game 6–4.

However, it wasn't until the 1880s that a great rugby player from Yale, Walter Camp, pioneered rules changes that slowly transformed rugby into the new game of American Football.