Northwestern Wildcats football
No Years Coach Record Pct
1882-1890 No coach 9-6-1 .594
1 1891-1892 Knowlton Ames 7-5-5 .559
2 1893 Paul Noyes 2-5-3 .350
3 1894 A . A. Ewing 4-5 .444
4 1895-1896 Alvin H. Culver 12-6-2 .650
5 1897 Jesse Van Doozer 5-3 .625
6 1898 W. H. Bannard 9-4-1 .679
7 1899-1902 Charles M. Hollister 27-16-4 .617
8 1903-1905 Walter McCornack 26-5-4 .800
9 1908 Alton Johnson 2-2 .500
10 1909 Bill Horr 1-3-1 .300
11 1910-1912 Charles Hammett 6-10-2 .389
12 1913 Dennis Grady 1-6 .143
13 1914-1918 Fred J. Murphy 16-16-1 .500
14 1919 Charlie Bachman 2-5 .286
15 1920-1921 Elmer McDevitt 4-10 .286
16 1922-1926 Glenn Thistlethwaite 21-17-1 .551
17 1927-1934 Dick Hanley 36-26-4 .576
18 1935-1946 Pappy Waldorf 49-45-7 .520
19 1947-1954 Bob Voigts 33-39-1 .459
Head coaches
There have been 29 head coaches since the inaugural team in 1882 , with Pat Fitzgerald being the current head coach . [ 46 ]
The Northwestern Wildcats football team, representing Northwestern University, is an NCAA Division I college football team and member of the Big Ten Conference, with evidence of organization in 1876. The mascot is the Wildcat, a term coined by a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1924, after reporting on a football game where the players appeared as a wall of purple wildcats. Northwestern achieved an all-time high rank of No. 1 during the 1936 and 1962 seasons, then plummeted to extended levels of futility from the mid-1970s to 1994. Recently, under Pat Fitzgerald's leadership, the Wildcats have become a well-rounded team capable of competing with top teams across the country. The Wildcats have won three Big Ten championships or co-championships since 1995, and have been bowl eligible (a status that requires at least a .500 regular-season record) 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 Wildcats play their home games at Ryan Field (formerly Dyche Stadium) in Evanston, Illinois, since 1926.