Wildcats

Abilene Christian University started life in 1906 as the Childers Classical Institute, a small church-affiliated school in West Texas, and football followed thirteen years later, in 1919. The program spent decades in the small-college ranks before the sport carried it to national attention: back-to-back NAIA National Championships in 1973 and 1977, seasons that also brought Lone Star Conference titles and remain the peak the university measures itself against.

The Wildcats moved up through the divisions gradually, and the conference silverware kept coming at each level — Lone Star Conference again in 2008 and 2010, the Western Athletic Conference in 2022, then the United Athletic Conference in both 2024 and 2025, the program's most recent title run. They now play in NCAA Division I FCS, a long climb from the Childers Classical Institute's original classrooms.

Running back Wilbert Montgomery is the name the program points to first: an NFL Pro Bowler out of Abilene Christian who was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Taylor Gabriel took a different route, going undrafted and still reaching Super Bowl LI with the Atlanta Falcons — proof the program's NFL pipeline has run through more than one kind of prospect.

Since 2017 the Wildcats have played at Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium, a 12,000-seat ground in purple and white. On the schedule, Stephen F. Austin is the name that matters most: the Lumberjacks are the rivalry Abilene Christian's supporters mark on the calendar before any other date on it.