Also I'm pretty sure they were invited into the ivy league but rejected the offer.

They also played the first college football game against Princeton and are regarded as the first football national champions

I'm pretty sure this is an urban myth. I have yet to find any evidence beyond a Crimson article from 1953 saying alumni and the president at the time supported petition to join the sports league at the time and a failed attempt to merge with Princeton 200 years ago.

This myth likely stemmed from the fact that Rutgers shares the same pedigree as the other Ivy League schools and has a history that is as rich as them. (As evidenced in the linked Wikipedia article). If Rutgers decided to private instead of becoming a land grant (publicly funded) school, then they may very well have become one of the Ivy League schools.

It may also have to do with both RU and Princeton being in the same (small) state, to have two Ivies… or IV, as their football designation was, if I remember somewhat.

They would have been named Duke University instead but they didn't say yes to taking the money from the Duke family. The current Duke University said yes and got their name changed. If you are from Duke, know that your university was second on Duke's mind. Later a man by the name of Henry Rutgers did get the school to say yes to his money and name.

They won that game!It is a shame that they don't playprinceton anymore. They were fun games. You could always tell, which school a person went to. Haha 😂. Go knights

College football started there as well.

That are also the only State University that doesn't have the name of the state in it.