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Americans played a game called Boston Ball until May 13 or 14, 1874, when McGill came south to play a very different game at Harvard. On that day, football, as Americans came to know it, was played for the first time in America. The Harvard team liked the Canadian innovations to the game such as running with the ball, downs, forward passing, goal posts for a try, or touchdown, and tackling. The Harvard team was smitten with this new sport. They had such a hoot playing McGill’s game that the Harvard team taught the rules to its rivals at Yale the next year. Princeton was the third American school to fall for football. After that ... well, it sure caught on. Americans even played 3 down ball until 1912 or so, the game was to fast for Americans, so they added a 4th down to slow the game down.