The Northwestern Wildcats football team represents Northwestern University as a NCAA Division I college football team and member of the Big Ten Conference. Founded in 1876, the Northwestern Football mascot is the Wildcat, a term coined by a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1924. The Wildcats have won three Big Ten championships or co-championships since 1995. The team plays their home games at Ryan Field in Evanston, since 1926.
About Northwestern Wildcats football in brief
The Northwestern Wildcats football team represents Northwestern University as a NCAA Division I college football team and member of the Big Ten Conference. Founded in 1876, the Northwestern Football mascot is the Wildcat, a term coined by a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1924. The Wildcats have won three Big Ten championships or co-championships since 1995, and have been \”bowl eligible\” in six out of the last seven seasons. Northwestern consistently ranks among the national leaders in graduation rate among football teams, having received the AFCA Academic Achievement Award four times since 2002. The team plays their home games at Ryan Field in Evanston, since 1926. Football made its debut at Northwestern University on February 22, 1876 during an exhibition game between NU students and the Chicago Football Club. Until Northwestern’s first intercollegiate game against Lake Forest in 1882, football was played entirely as an intramural sport. From 1882 to 1887, the team mostly practiced and did not play teams outside of NU. In 1891, with the popularity of football increasing, Sheppard Field was built at Northwestern and dedicated in 1892. In 1904, the Wildcats would add Carlisle great Jimmy Johnson as a graduate student in 1904, and the team recorded its first significant win, beating Michigan 10–8. NU’s first conference season was a huge success, posting a 46–6 win against then-powerhouse University of Chicago and finished second to Wisconsin. In 1903, Walter McCornack led NU to its first Big Ten title, losing just once in 14 games.
Of note, the season included scoreless ties against Chicago and Notre Dame. In 1925, Chicago Sun-Times writer Wallace Abbey wrote that NU was a very competitive and very competitive team. In fact, NU earned the nickname \”Wildcats after a Chicago-Times reporter wrote that was a wall of purple wildcats\”. The team finished with a 4–4 record and finished 4th in the league. In 1936, the NU team won its first game over Chicago in 15 years, beating them 23–3. In 1938, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign won their first game against Chicago, beating the team 23-3. The next year, Chicago won its seventh game against Ohio State, a highly anticipated match between Driscoll and Buckeyes star Chic Harley. In 1939, the university chose royal purple as the school’s official color. In 1941, the school chose the color of purple as its official color, and it was made the official school color in 1942. In 1945, the U.S. Army became the first major military school to host a football game in the United States. In 1951, Northwestern became a charter member of the Western Conference, the predecessor of theBig Ten. In 1956, Northwestern joined the conference and became a member of the Big Ten. The school’s first true star, John \”Paddy\” Driscolls, was a decent passer, an awful runner, and could drop kick and punt with precision. In 1916, the 1916 Northwestern team won six of the seven games they played, including its first win over Chicago.
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