Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern University Celebrates 150 Years of Football
2/21/2026 1:46:00 PM | Football
The game was played on Campus Meadow, near present-day Deering Meadow, on February 22, 1876, in observance of Washington's Birthday holiday. Nearly 200 spectators, reporters and a brass band were in attendance for the game.
The Chicago Club and Northwestern played under the Concessionary Rules of American football, which Harvard and Yale had created the previous year. These rules blended elements of rugby and soccer, establishing standardized regulations for aspects such as ball handling and scoring. The contest marked only the second recorded game anywhere to use the emerging rules, including an oval ball and distinct touchdown scoring.
The game establishes Northwestern's football program as the oldest among the Big Ten Conference's founding members. Further, it makes Northwestern the sixth-oldest program in all of college football, with only Princeton, Rutgers, Columbia, Yale and Harvard having older histories.
Northwestern's first organized team comprised 20 students, led by team president Frank F. Casseday and captain Edward Kinman.
Augustus H. Hornsby formed the Chicago Football Club in 1875 and would assist Northwestern in forming its own team. Hornsby, a British army veteran and former rugby player, settled in Chicago in the 1870s and pioneered organized football in the city.
Below is the Chicago Tribune's account of the game:
Chicago won that afternoon's game, three goals and three touchdowns to nothing, but Northwestern earned the distinction of being the first Midwestern University to play a full game of football.Yesterday the Chicago Football Club visited Evanston to play a game against the Northwestern University students. The game was something new to the University men, and no preparation had been made for the visitors in the way of laying out the playing field. Added to this, the ground was frozen so hard that neither goal-posts or line-stakes could be set up. It was finally agreed to let the University play twenty men against the Chicago team of fifteen, and get along the best way possible under the circumstances.
At 3:15 the game was called, the Chicago Captain kicking off. The college men were evidently at sea in regard to the game, for they let Hornsby follow the ball up, and his next kick took it across the line, enabling him to get a touchdown. The try at goal was successful-first to the Chicago. Time, 1 minute 30 seconds. The second goal was a longer tussle, but finally Curtis got the ball, and after a good run touched it down. Hornsby again scored a goal from the place kick. By this time the home players were picking up some of the points of the game, and their greater number made it difficult for the Chicago men to get through such a crowded field.
L.H. Sullivan secured another touchdown, a good long run, but Hornsby failed to get the ball between the goal-posts. Before another goal was scored half time was called and ends changed. After this the original twenty players of the University team increased so alarmingly in number that getting through with the ball was an impossibility, and loose scrimmages took place over the entire field, but mainly in the University half.
C.J. Williams at last scored a goal from a free kick opposite goal. A second time the same player essayed a free kick, but from a more difficult position, and he failed, owing to the wind carrying the ball off.
The game was prolonged a quarter of an hour over the hour agreed upon, and when called the score stood 3 goals for Chicago, to nothing for the University. The latter, though beaten, have some good material to make a team from if they will practice the game under the rules.
The February 22, 1876 contest marked the first complete American football game played outside the East Coast, coming at a time when the sport was still in its infancy nationally.
More information about Northwestern's first game can be found in Northwestern's 2025 Media Guide and on HailToPurple.com.
