PAXTON, Mass. — On a sunny Saturday this fall at Anna Maria College in central Massachusetts, 100 football players charged onto a campus field in front of cheering students and alumni.

It was a traditional autumn scene, except, in Anna Maria’s case, it was a fairly new one. Ten years ago, the college added a football program. Ever since, officials at Anna Maria have gleefully watched enrollment balloon, tuition revenue swell by almost $2 million a year and campus morale spike as pregame tailgates flourish.

“We’re not just a sleepy little school,” said Mary Lou Retelle, Anna Maria’s president. “There’s life.”

On the same afternoon, 60 miles away in Boston, what had been the football stadium for Northeastern University was idle and unoccupied. In 2009, months after Anna Maria began playing football, Northeastern stopped, eliminating its 74-year-old program. In the decade since, Northeastern has basked in its success, with applications nearly doubling, research funding almost tripling and the institution’s ranking in U.S. News & World Report’s best colleges list jumping to 40 from 96.