The Samford Bulldogs football program is 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 Samford University located in

Homewood, Alabama Homewood is a city in southeastern Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. It is a suburb of Birmingham, located on the other side of Red Mountain due south of the city center. As of the 2010 census its population was 25,167, and in 2019 th ...

. The team competes at the

NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

(FCS) level as a member of the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly ...

(SoCon). Samford's first football team was fielded in 1902. The team was known as the Howard Bulldogs through the 1965 season when Howard College was renamed as Samford University. Howard was located in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

prior to 1957. Since 1958, the Bulldogs have played their home games at

Seibert Stadium Seibert Stadium is a 6,700-seat multi-purpose stadium in Homewood, Alabama. It is home to the Samford University Bulldogs college football team. The facility opened in 1958 and is named for F. Page Seibert, who in 1961, donated money for the com ...

, which now has a seating capacity of 6,700, in Homewood. Chris Hatcher has served as Samford's head coach since the 2015 season.

History

Classifications

* 1937–1971: NA * 1972:

NCAA College Division The NCAA College Division was a historic subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) consisting of member schools competing at a lower level of college sports. The NCAA initially divided schools into a College Division and a ...

* 1973:

NCAA Division III NCAA Division III (D-III) is a division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that choose not to offer athletic scholarships to their stu ...

* 1974–1983: no program * 1984–1988: NCAA Division III * 1989–present: NCAA Division I–AA/FCS

Conference memberships

* 1902–1905: Independent * 1906–1931:

Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) was one of the first collegiate athletic conferences in the United States. Twenty-seven of the current Division I FBS (formerly Division I-A) football programs were members of this conferen ...

* 1931–1954:

Dixie Conference The Dixie Conference was the name of two List of college athletic conferences, collegiate athletic leagues in the United States The first operated from 1930 until the United States' entry into World War II in 1942. The second conference to use the ...

* 1955–1972: Independent * 1973: NCAA Division III independent * 1974–1983: ''No program'' * 1984–1988: NCAA Division III independent * 1989–2002: NCAA Division I–AA independent * 2003–2007:

Ohio Valley Conference The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Southeastern United States, Southeastern United States. It participates in NCAA Divisi ...

* 2008–present:

Conference Championships

The Bulldogs have won 4 conference championships, with three coming in the

and two in the

. † Co-champions

Division I-AA/FCS Playoffs results

The Bulldogs have appeared in the I-AA/FCS playoffs six times with an overall record of 3–5.

Notable former players

Bobby Bowden Robert Cleckler Bowden (; November 8, 1929 – August 8, 2021) was an American college football coach. Bowden coached the Florida State Seminoles of Florida State University (FSU) from 1976 to 2009 and is considered one of the greatest college ...

James Bradberry James Bradberry IV (born August 4, 1993) is an American football cornerback for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Samford and was drafted by the Carolina Panthers in the second round o ...

Cortland Finnegan Cortland Temujin Finnegan (born February 2, 1984) is a former American football cornerback. He played college football at Samford, and was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the seventh round of the 2006 NFL Draft. Finnegan also played for the ...

* Jimbo Fisher * Scott Fountain * Jeremy Towns * Ahmad Gooden *

Devlin Hodges Devlin Patrick "Duck" Hodges (born April 12, 1996) is a former American football quarterback. He played college football at Samford, after playing at Mortimer Jordan High School. He was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free ...

* Michael Pierce * Nate Schenker *

Jaquiski Tartt Jaquiski Tartt ( ; born February 18, 1992) is an American football safety who is a free agent. He played college football at Samford and was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in the second round of the 2015 NFL Draft. Early years Tartt attend ...

* Corey White * Nick Williams

Future non-conference opponents

Announced schedules as of December 8, 2022.

References

External links

* {{Southern Conference football navbox American football teams established in 1902 1902 establishments in Alabama