BOSTON — Football had been dead at Boston University for 13 years.

It was resurrected Sept. 25, though unofficially, through the work of 2009 Butler High graduate Nikki Bruner.

An intern with the Butler BlueSox last summer and a longtime sports enthusiast, Bruner is a sophomore studying sports management at Boston University.

After seeing a newspaper ad last year seeking student help in forming a club football team, Bruner said, "I thought it'd be good experience for me to help out."

She wound up doing much more than that.

"Without Nikki, this team's not here. It never happens. Not a chance," said Anthony Morgante, the team's coach.

Morgante is a 1987 Boston University graduate who never played football at the school. He has been coaching in the New England Football League, a semi-pro minor league, for more than a decade.

Through that league, Morgante discovered two New England universities — Maine and Vermont — that had formed club football teams, but were struggling to find opponents.

Though Boston University disbanded its football program in 1997, cries for its return have never been silenced.

Previous efforts to return some type of organized football to the school failed. On a few occasions, this one seemed doomed to the same fate.

"That's where Nikki's tenacity comes in," Morgante said. "We faced roadblocks and virtually no cooperation from the club sports department. They still won't recognize us as a team."

Bruner organized a group of volunteers through Facebook.

"It grew to 1,700 members," Bruner said. "Current students, alumni, community members — everybody climbed on board with this."

But at a March meeting, BU club sports officials told her forming a team would be "impossible."

"There was no facility available on campus, there were insurance issues, the funding wasn't going to work," Bruner said. "So we started going to work on those issues."

Bruner set up a bank account for the team, secured limited liability insurance and sent out messages to the student body for players.

Even with fundraisers, however, each player still had to pay $700 to play.

"We had 25 players, but we began losing some because of the money," Bruner said. "We did another budget, cut some costs in certain areas and cut player dues to $400."

The team, known as the Boston Terriers, is playing a six-game schedule in the Yankee Collegiate Football Conference this fall. Its first home game is Sunday against Maine.

The Terriers won their first game last weekend, 18-8, at Eastern Connecticut State.

The Terriers are playing their home games at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — MIT — located across the Charles River from Boston University. The now 33-player squad practices at a high school field twice a week.

Boston University offers 34 club sports — from ballroom dancing to rugby — but does not include the football team among them.

"We applaud their efforts and have no problem with the use of the school name because our students are involved in the activity," BU spokesman Colin Ryan said. "But it's a really expensive program and not realistic for us to include it as a club sport."

Bruner estimates the team's cost this season to be $24,000. Player dues cover only $10,000. The remaining $14,000 will be covered by donations, Morgante and Bruner.

"This thing has taken command of my life," Bruner said. "But sports are a love of mine and I'm passionate about this."