The resurrection of Vermont football is a modern-day club sports tale because it used the Internet — a Web site, Facebook, e-mail — and because it revolved around the irrepressible force of one committed individual.

This fall, Vermont’s club football team branched out to play junior varsity teams from New England colleges, along with two games against semipro teams. The step up in talent level led to the club team’s losing its five games against the J.V. squads from N.C.A.A.-affiliated colleges like Williams, Dartmouth and Bates.

Dartmouth Coach Buddy Teevens was so impressed with the enthusiasm and passion of the Vermont players that he promised to aid their effort by shipping extra equipment and blocking sleds to the team.

Most of this year’s opponents have agreed to play Vermont again next season.

“I admire the Vermont players because they appreciate just being on the field,” Teevens said. “During the game, their kicker kept coming to our sideline to borrow a tee to kick off because he didn’t have one. Finally, I said: ‘Here, take this tee and keep it. We have four or five.’

“You should have seen his face. It was like I gave him a million bucks.”

Starting From Scratch

Two years ago, when Robert Corran, Vermont’s athletic director, first heard that a student was talking about reviving football, he thought it would be a struggle.

“I remember somebody asked me if we had any football equipment left,” Corran, a former football player and coach, said. “And I said: ‘Not anything you’d want. They don’t use single-bar face masks anymore.’