Bucknell

Bucknell football traces to 1883, when Lafayette College students traveled to Lewisburg and beat the home team 59-0 in the program's first game. The high point came decades later: on January 1, 1935, Bucknell defeated Miami 26-0 to win the first Orange Bowl ever played, still the program's only bowl appearance. An earlier legend, Christy Mathewson, dropkicked field goals for Bucknell around 1899-1900 before leaving school to become a Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher for the New York Giants; the Bison's stadium was renamed Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium in his honor in 1989 and seats 13,100 today.

Bucknell became a founding member of the Colonial League in 1986 (renamed the Patriot League in 1990), joining Colgate, Davidson, Holy Cross, Lafayette, and Lehigh outside the full-scholarship Division I model; the Patriot League began phasing in football scholarships with the 2013 season. Under coach Tom Gadd, Bucknell won its only Patriot League football championship in 1996 (6-5 overall, 4-1 conference), part of a school-record run of seven straight winning seasons. No Bucknell team has won a league title since.

The program's best recent chance came in the COVID-shifted spring 2021 season, when Bucknell beat rivals Lafayette (38-13) and Lehigh (6-0) back-to-back to reach the first-ever Patriot League Championship Game — only to lose 33-10 to Holy Cross at home. Joe Susan (2010-2018, 38-61) and Dave Cecchini (2019-2025, 24-48) each failed to sustain a breakthrough; Cecchini was let go in December 2025 after a 5-7, injury-marked season, during which QB Ralph Rucker IV became the program's all-time leading passer. On January 1, 2026, Bucknell hired Jeff Behrman — who went 29-7 in three seasons at Division III John Carroll, reaching the 2025 NCAA semifinals, and who had earlier taken Union College from winless to a conference title — as its 28th head coach.

Away from the scoreboard, Bucknell's athletic department is the Patriot League's most decorated: the Bison have won the league's all-sports Presidents' Cup 18 times in its first 25 years, more than any other member school, and led the 2024-25 standings through the winter championship season. The question heading into 2026 is whether Behrman can finally make football match the rest of the department.