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Today is National American Football Day, celebrating the sport that evolved from a rough blend of rugby and soccer in the late 1800s.
Yale’s Walter Camp, the “Father of Football,” introduced the line of scrimmage, the down system and the snap, transforming chaos into strategy. The first college game took place in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton, and the NFL was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association with just 14 teams.
Today, football is the most-watched sport in the U.S. – even though a three-hour game contains about 11–18 minutes of actual play and over 100 commercials.