Tigers

The Little Giants of Wabash occupy the other side of the oldest rivalry the Wittenberg Tigers carry.

Football at Wittenberg dates to 1892, and for a small university in Springfield, Ohio, the sport has produced a return on investment out of proportion to the size of the place: five national championships, in 1962, 1964, 1969, 1973 and 1975. Thirty-four conference titles sit alongside those five, split between the Ohio Athletic Conference and the North Coast Athletic Conference as the Tigers moved from one to the other.

Charlie Green quarterbacked the side from 1962 to 1964, years that overlap the start of that championship run, before moving on to the AFL with the Oakland Raiders, the Boston Patriots and the Denver Broncos; the College Football Hall of Fame inducted him in 2002. An earlier figure, John "Stub" Brickels, graduated in 1930 as a halfback and later coached the backfield for the Cleveland Browns through their three straight AAFC championships from 1946 to 1948 — a Wittenberg name attached to a title run somewhere else entirely.

Edwards–Maurer Field holds about 3,000. The Tigers remain a Division III fixture, still built around the same rivalry that has followed them through conference changes and generations of players.