Football was first played on Ivy League campuses as far back as the 1820s, but it was a kicking game more like soccer. It wasn't until the 1870s that the game began to take its current shape, after a standardized set of rules was agreed upon, borrowing from the English Rugby code. The game as we know it evolved over the next 40 years, with key innovations such as the line of scrimmage, the down-and-distance system, and the legalization of the forward pass.
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