History

main: History of American football

The American experience with the rugby-style game that led directly to present-day college football continued in 1874 at a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between Harvard University and Montreal's McGill University. The McGill team played a rugby union-style game, while Harvard played under a set of rules that allowed greater handling of the ball than soccer. The teams agreed to play under compromise rules. The Harvard students took to the rugby rules and adopted them as their own.

Walter Camp, known as the "Father of American Football", is credited with changing the game from a variation of rugby into a unique sport. Camp is responsible for pioneering the play from scrimmage (earlier games featured a rugby scrum), most of the modern elements of scoring, the eleven-man team, and the traditional offensive setup of the seven-man line and the four-man backfield. Camp also had a hand in popularizing the game. He published numerous articles in publications such as Collier's Weekly and Harper's Weekly, and he chose the first College Football All-America Team.

Even after the emergence of the NFL, college football remained extremely popular throughout the U.S. Although the college game has a much larger margin for talent than its pro counterpart, the sheer number of fans following major colleges provides a financial equalizer for the game, with Division I programs — the highest level — playing in huge stadiums (four of which have seating capacity exceeding 100,000). In many cases, the college stadiums employ bench-style seating (as opposed to individual seats with backs and arm rests). This allows them to seat more fans in a given amount of space than the typical professional stadium, which tends to be a bit more luxurious. Overall, college football draws greatly more attendees than its professional counterpart.

College athletes, unlike professionals, are not permitted by the NCAA to be paid salaries. Many do receive scholarships and financial assistance from the university.

Injuries

As research has shown, collegiate athletes are more susceptible to catastrophic injury, such as brain and quadriplegic injuries, than athletes at the high school level, particularly when it comes to football. Statistics state that 1 in every 100,000 players will suffer from a catastrophic injury. According to research published in the November 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, enhanced injury prevention instruction, improved equipment and protective gear, and revision of sport regulations has been put into effect in order to lower the number of players at risk. In addition, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has banned the form of tackle referred to as "spearing" from the game due to concerns over head and neck injuries related to head down contact.