The San Francisco Dons football program were the intercollegiate

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team for

University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...

located in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The team competed in

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

as a Division II Independent football program. The school's first football team was fielded in 1917. The program disbanded in 1982.

1951 season

Compared to local rivals Santa Clara and Saint Mary's, USF's football teams were historically not as strong. However, the 1951 Dons entered college football lore by fielding a team that would go undefeated and produce three

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) Hall of Famers ( Gino Marchetti,

Ollie Matson Ollie Genoa Matson II (May 1, 1930 – February 19, 2011) was an American Olympic medal winning sprinter and professional American football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) from 1952 to 1966. Drafted into the N ...

Bob St. Clair Robert Bruce St. Clair (February 18, 1931 – April 20, 2015) was a professional American football player. Because of his eccentricities, his teammates nicknamed him "The Geek".Graham Kislingbury"Bob St. Clair: The King of Kezar" ''Corvallis Gaz ...

), (

Dick Stanfel Richard Anthony Stanfel (July 20, 1927 – June 22, 2015) was an American football player and coach with a college and professional career spanning more than 50 years from 1948 to 1999. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a pla ...

, also in the

Pro Football Hall of Fame The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coach ...

, having been a senior the year prior bringing the total for the 1950 team to four members enshrined), five who were selected to the

Pro Bowl The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

in their careers and eight in total who played in the NFL. The

Sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

and Gator Bowls all considered inviting the Dons. However, all three were located in the South. Only the Orange Bowl was willing to invite the Dons, and then on the condition that Matson and Burl Toler, the Dons' only black players, were excluded. Although the football program was in severe financial straits (it was shut down after the season), the Dons turned down the bid. As a result, USF's finest football team ever was to be its last in Division I. Football made a brief comeback as a Division II sport from the 1960s to the early 1980s, but USF has not fielded a varsity team since 1982. The coach, Joe Kuharich, at times, would delegate recruiting responsibilities to his freshman coach, Brad Lynn. Lynn had little to offer prospective players in the way of scholarship inducements beyond tuition and room and board in an old ROTC barracks. However, Lynn would take recruits to the highest hill on campus and gesture out towards the sweeping panorama of San Francisco saying, "THIS is your campus." Only a handful of players from that 1951 team had been considered blue-ribbon prospects in high school. Two of the team's best players, Toler and guard Louis (Red) Stephens, had not even played high school football. Marchetti was a high school dropout who had played only sparingly when he was in school. The 1951 Dons were honored during the 2008 Fiesta Bowl and were the subject of the 2014 documentary '' '51 Dons''.

Notable former players

Notable alumni include: * Gino Marchetti *

Burl Toler Burl Abron Toler Sr. (May 9, 1928 – August 16, 2009) was an American football official in the National Football League (NFL) for 25 seasons from 1965 NFL season, 1965 to 1989 NFL season, 1989. He served as a field judge and head linesman through ...

Year-by-year results

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:San Francisco Dons Football American football teams established in 1917 American football teams disestablished in 1982 1917 establishments in California 1982 disestablishments in California