Wabash Little Giants football

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Wabash Little Giants football
First season1884
Head coachDon Morel
5th season, 32–9 (.780)
StadiumLittle Giant Stadium
(capacity: 3,550)
Field surfaceArtificial Turf
LocationCrawfordsville, Indiana
ConferenceNorth Coast Athletic Conference
All-time record703–381–56 (.641)
Conference titles13
Consensus All-Americans80
ColorsScarlet
 
Fight song"Old Wabash!"

The Wabash Little Giants football team represents Wabash College in the sport of college football at the NCAA Division III level.

History

In

1884, Wabash played its first game of intercollegiate football when it defeated a team from Butler University on October 25, 4–0.[1] The first intercollegiate game in the state took place on May 31, between Butler and DePauw University.[2] From the 1890s to the 1910s, the Wabash football team played schedules against many much larger colleges, such as Illinois, Indiana and Purdue, against whom the Little Giants occasionally won impressive upsets. For instance Wabash won all five games against Purdue between 1906 and 1911.[3]

In 1903, the Wabash football team fielded its first

Earlham, 35–0, and they lost close contests to Illinois, Notre Dame, Purdue, and Michigan Agricultural (Michigan State).[4]

The Little Giants' most prominent football game came against

home-field loss in 125 games between 1899 and 1928.[5][6] The Little Giants and Fighting Irish played several more times after that, and the last game took place in 1924.[3] Incidentally, both head coaches that season, Pete Vaughan of Wabash and Knute Rockne of Notre Dame, had played college football together for the Fighting Irish.[7][8] A further connection between the schools was College Football Hall of Fame inductee Jesse Harper, who coached Wabash from 1909 to 1912, and then Notre Dame from 1913 to 1917.[6][9] Century Milstead played for the 1921 team
.

References

  1. ^ Edwin R. Taber, Ancestry Web, retrieved June 29, 2009.
  2. .
  3. ^ a b c The Little Giants (PDF), College Football Historical Society Newsletter, vol. 19, no. 4, p. 5, August 2006.
  4. ^ The Originals of 1904, Wabash College, October 31, 2008.
  5. ^ Notre Dame Game-by-Game Results Archived 2002-10-03 at the Wayback Machine, College Football Data Warehouse, retrieved June 30, 2009.
  6. ^ a b Sideline Chatter (PDF), College Football Historical Society Newsletter, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 1, November 2006.
  7. ^ Wabash Yearly Results: 1920 Archived 2015-12-08 at the Wayback Machine, College Football Data Warehouse, retrieved June 30, 2009.
  8. ^ Little Giants, Dear Old Wabash, Wabash College, December 19, 2008.
  9. ^ Jesse Harper, College Football Hall of Fame, National Football Foundation, retrieved June 30, 2009.