Quakers

Philadelphia built its identity on medicine, law and trade before it ever built a football team, but by the 1870s the university sitting inside the city had already started producing one. The Quakers took the field for the first time in 1876, and within two decades the program had become one of the sport's early powers, taking national titles in 1894, 1895 and 1897, then again in 1904, 1907 and 1908, with a final one in 1924.

Franklin Field opened in 1895 and is still the oldest operating football stadium in the country. Its original concrete stands went through a $44 million restoration finished in September 2023, and the ground now holds 52,958.

Chuck Bednarik came through the program and went on to become the first overall pick in the NFL draft, and his name is the one most attached to Penn among the university's football alumni; Bert Bell, who later ran the NFL as commissioner, is another. Once the Ivy League began keeping its own championship since 1956, Penn won it 18 times, with the run of titles through the 1980s and 1990s carrying the program's reputation into the modern era.

What the Quakers have not done since is win a national championship, or anything resembling one — the last of those came in 1924, and everything since has been measured against the Ivy League table alone.