<P> Modern North American football has its origins in various games, all known as "football", played at public schools in Great Britain in the mid-19th century . By the 1840s, students at Rugby School were playing a game in which players were able to pick up the ball and run with it, a sport later known as Rugby football . The game was taken to Canada by British soldiers stationed there and was soon being played at Canadian colleges . </P> <P> The first documented gridiron football match was played at University College, a college of the University of Toronto, November 9, 1861 . One of the participants in the game involving University of Toronto students was (Sir) William Mulock, later Chancellor of the school . A football club was formed at the university soon afterward, although its rules of play at this stage are unclear . </P> <P> In 1864, at Trinity College, also a college of the University of Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland and Frederick A. Bethune devised rules based on rugby football . Modern Canadian football is widely regarded as having originated with a game played in Montreal, in 1865, when British Army officers played local civilians . The game gradually gained a following, and the Montreal Football Club was formed in 1868, the first recorded non-university football club in Canada . </P> <P> Early games appear to have had much in common with the traditional "mob football" played in Great Britain . The games remained largely unorganized until the 19th century, when intramural games of football began to be played on college campuses . Each school played its own variety of football . Princeton University students played a game called "ballown" as early as 1820 . A Harvard tradition known as "Bloody Monday" began in 1827, which consisted of a mass ballgame between the freshman and sophomore classes . In 1860, both the town police and the college authorities agreed the Bloody Monday had to go . The Harvard students responded by going into mourning for a mock figure called "Football Fightum", for whom they conducted funeral rites . The authorities held firm and it was a dozen years before football was once again played at Harvard . Dartmouth played its own version called "Old division football", the rules of which were first published in 1871, though the game dates to at least the 1830s . All of these games, and others, shared certain commonalities . They remained largely "mob" style games, with huge numbers of players attempting to advance the ball into a goal area, often by any means necessary . Rules were simple, violence and injury were common . The violence of these mob - style games led to widespread protests and a decision to abandon them . Yale, under pressure from the city of New Haven, banned the play of all forms of football in 1860 . </P>

Number of college football teams in the us