 The first game featured a 2–7 Boston College team led by Mark Kamphaus against the 8–1 Army Black Knights.The originators of the game were Aidan J. Prendergast and Jim O'Brien.Prendergast, who is a former President of the Irish American Football Association conceived the idea of bringing a major NCAA game to Ireland in the mid 1980s and started pitching the idea on both sides of the Atlantic.