"The Foot-Ball Match", Chronicle of the first game at The Targum, Nov 1869Rutgers (in black kit) v Maryland match in 2021
The origins of Rutgers soccer trace back to the 1869 college soccer season, where the first ever collegiate soccer game was played in the United States. The then-Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) played an exhibition match that ended in a 6–4 result.[9][10] Rutgers won the game by a score of 6–4[11] In addition to being considered one of the earlier soccer games reported in the United States, these two games are considered to be the first organized American college football games to ever be played.[12][13]
Rutgers' first varsity team was fielded in 1938,[1] where they Knights competed as an independent team. Rutgers remained unaffiliated with any formal athletic conference and was considered an independent until joining the Atlantic 10 Conference as an associate soccer member in the mid-1980s. The Knights Big East Conference for soccer in 1995.[14] On July 1, 2014, Rutgers became a member of the Big Ten athletic conference, after paying an $11.5 million exit fee to the American Athletic Conference (which formed as a result of the splitting of the Big East Conference).[15][16]
^Carzo, Rocco J. "Jumbo Footprints: A History of Tufts Athletics", Medford, MA: Tufts University Gallery, 2005; summarized in Another 'Pass' At History by Tufts University eNews on 27 September 2004. Accessed 2 January 2012.
^RutgersArchived 2007-08-12 at the Wayback Machine at BigEast.org (Official Site of the Big East Conference. Published by the Big East Conference (no further authorship information available). Retrieved 12 January 2007.
