The WPI Engineers football team represents

Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is a Private university, private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1865 in Worcester, WPI was one of the United States' first engineering and technology universities and now has 14 ac ...

(WPI) in the sport of

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 wi ...

. The Engineers compete in

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Thir ...

(DIII) of the

National Collegiate Athletics Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...

(NCAA) and the

NEWMAC The New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Member institutions are located in the northeastern United States in the states of Connecticut and ...

. WPI's football program is one of the oldest in the country. The team has been coached by Chris Robertson since the 2010 season. WPI plays its home games at

Alumni Stadium Alumni Stadium is a football stadium located on the lower campus of Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, approximately west of downtown Boston. It is the home of the Boston College Eagles. Its present seating capacity is 44,500. Offic ...

, located on the campus in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

, with a capacity of 2,000.

History

Prior to competing in collegiate football, WPI played association football (now known as the sport of soccer) from 1874 to 1876 and American rugby from 1877 to 1881. Starting in 1882, WPI attempted to play football as a sport. It was not until 1885 that the football team was taken seriously. The 1887 season was the first in which the team competed as a varsity sport. Following their outstanding performance in the 1888 season, the Engineers were invited to join a football league of small New England colleges, but the faculty refused the idea and barred the team from playing any away games. The Institute's opinion of football would improve by the turn of the century and give more support to the team.

Bowl games

WPI has appeared in four

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...

s and has a 2–2 record.

References

External links

* American football teams established in 1887 1887 establishments in Massachusetts {{collegefootball-stub