PROSPECT CENTRAL: High School Football: Ranking 50 yrs of No. 1 Recruits!!! (c/o 1972-2021)

Prospect-Central: Class of 1972 - 2021

Written by: Prospect-Central

As you can well imagine, there have been many variations and rules for the game of "Football" throughout time. American football evolved in this country from soccer and rugby, but it was still highly unorganized in its early development. Eventually a set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Wal ter Ca mp, the "Father of American Football", would ultimately help shape the game that we know today.

November 6, 1869, is widely regarded as the date when the first American football game was played, even though it bore little resemblance to the game that would be developed in the following decades. Rutgers University would defeat Princeton 6-4, but it consisted of two 25 player teams attempting to score by advancing the ball into the opposing team's goal with their feet, head, hands, or sides. Throwing or carrying the ball was not allowed, but there was still plenty of physical contact between players. And therein lies the theme of any form of football throughout its existence; "Physical Contact."

Walter Camp: 1859 - 1925

Forms of traditional football was played throughout Europe and beyond since antiquity. If you ever played "Kill the man with the ball" as a kid growing up, then you have a general idea of how these games were played, the only difference is people could really die playing this type of football. As far back as the 14th century there was always one form or another of "Mob Football".

These archaic forms of Medieval football were chaotic and had few rules. They were usually played between neighboring towns and villages, involving an unlimited amount of players on opposing teams. They would clash in a heaving mass of people struggling to drag an inflated pig's bladder by any means possible to markers at each end of a town. The only rule was in trying to advance the ball towards the goal, the outcome cannot lead to manslaughter or murder. Sounds like a decent rule to me (smh). These antiquated games went into sharp decline by the 19th century when Highway Act 1835 was passed, banning the playing of football on public highways (lol).

Although there are some mentions of Native Americans playing football-like games, modern American football has its origins from the traditional football played in Europe for many centuries before America was settled by Europeans. Early games appear to have much in common with the traditional "Mob Football" played in England, but the games remained largely unorganized until the 19th century, when intramural games of football began to be played. The first organized varieties of football in this country very much resembled the games played in English public schools, where according to legend in 1823, William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it during a school football match, thus creating a new style of play in which running with the ball was preferred instead of kicking.

Football soon began to be played at colleges and universities in the United States. Each school played its own variety of football. For example, students at Princeton University played a game called "Ballown" as early as 1820 and Harvard had a tradition known as "Bloody Monday", which began in 1827 and consisted of a mass ballgame between the freshman and sophomore classes. Needless to say, both the town police and college authorities agreed that Bloody Monday had to go and by 1860 football was banned from being played at Harvard University. It would take nearly a dozen years before the prestigious Ivy League school would play football again.

Boston, Massachusetts is home to much of our country's history and the origins of high school football can be traced back almost 160 years to Beantown. The Oneida Football Club, founded in Boston in 1862, was the first organized team to play any kind of football in the United States. The game played by the club, known as the "Boston Game", was an informal local football variety that later took hold at Harvard University and was an important precursor to American football.

Oneida Football Club: Nov. 21, 1925; Boston Common

The team consisted of a group of 16 Boston secondary school students from relatively elite public schools in the area; 13 players from Dixwell High School, two from the English High School of Boston, and one from Boston Latin. They played in the oldest city park in the country, Boston Common and from 1862 to 1865, during the middle of the Civil War, they never lost a game or even gave up a single point!

The pioneer period for American football was between 1869 to 1875, and there were many different rules and variations during this era. From 1876 to 1893 college football slowly began to take shape, when representatives from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia standardized a new code of rules based on the rugby game first introduced to Harvard in 1874. From 1894 to 1932 college football programs, rules committees, and conferences began to be established throughout the country.

There were obviously a few key dates during this time period, most notably in 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt almost had to abolish the game for good. Despite all the rule changes, the game remained as violent as ever, resulting in 19 fatalities nationwide that year alone. As a result, 62 colleges and universities met in New York City on December 28, 1905, to discuss rule changes to make the game safer. The most important rule change as you can well imagine was the introduction to the legal forward pass in 1906. These proceedings ultimately led to the formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later named the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

On November 12, 1892, Pudge Heffel finger was paid $500 to play a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association in a match against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. This is the first recorded instance of a player being paid to participate in a game of American football. Despite the game having a strict sense of amateurism at the time, and direct payment to players was frowned upon, professional play became increasingly common, and with it came rising salaries, unpredictable player movement, and illegal payments to college players who were still in school. On September 17, 1920, The Nati onal Foot ball Lea gue (NFL) was founded in Canton, Ohio and aimed to solve these problems. At the time it was known as the American Professional Football Association and its main goals were to end bidding wars over players as well as prevent the use of college players. By 1922, the NFL had established itself as America's premier professional football league.

Parade Magazine: 1963 HS Football All-America Team

The National Federation of State High School Associations (N F H S) was also founded in 1920 and is an umbrella organization for state-level organizations that manage high school sports, including high school football. The NFHS publishes the rules followed by most local high school football associations and was key in establishing high school football throughout the country.

A few more important dates in regards to the modern era of American football; 1932 first NFL playoff game, 1933 first NFL championship game, 1934 introduction to the AP poll, 1935 Heisman Trophy award was created, 1936 first NFL draft (University of Chicago's Jay Ber wan ger was both the first Heisman Trophy recipient and the first ever NFL draft pick), 1939 first televised football game, 1946 professional football was reintegrated, 1960 American Football League (AFL) was founded, 1963 Pro Football Hall of Fame was established, 1967 the first Super Bowl was played between the NFL's Green Bay Packers & AFL's Kansas City Chiefs, 1970 AFL & NFL merged into one league, 1998 college football's Bowl Championship Series (B C S) was created, and in 2014 the College Football Playoffs (C F P) were established, with the Ohio State Buckeyes winning the first ever national championship.

The most important date in regards to this article however, might just be 1963. That's when the first annual Parade High School Football All-America Team was selected. Parade's All-America team was just one of the publications used in putting together this list of the No. 1 high school football recruits over the past 50 years. As you can well imagine, there have been many opinions as to who exactly was the best high school football player in the nation during any given year, but a plethora of resources were used in trying to determine the consensus No. 1 recruit from each class (you can find all of the resources used at the bottom of this article).

Since there are 6 current NFL players, plus 4 collegiate and one high school player incorporated throughout these rankings, this is obviously a fluid list as a player could theoretically move up or down depending on how the rest of his career plays out. Please note; these rankings are based solely on a players professional career as opposed to their high school & college careers. The future potential of a few players was also taken into consideration with these rankings.

So...with that being said, here are Prospect-Central's rankings of the No. 1 high school football recruits over the past 50 years!!! Click players name for social media feed, Wikipedia page, stats, info, videos.