Northwestern

The Northwestern Wildcats football team represents Northwestern University as an NCAA Division I college football team and member of the Big Ten Conference based near Chicago in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern began playing football in 1882. Its football mascot is the Wildcat, a term coined by a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1924, after reporting on a football game where the players appeared as "a wall of purple wildcats". Northwestern Football is also known as "Chicago's Big Ten Team" with its proximity and ties to Chicago.

The Wildcats have won three Big Ten championships or co-championships since 1995, and have been "bowl eligible" five times between 2015 and 2020. Northwestern consistently ranks among the national leaders in graduation rate among football teams, having received the AFCA Academic Achievement Award four times since 2002. The Wildcats have played their home games at Ryan Field (formerly Dyche Stadium) since 1926.

Ryan Field is a stadium in the central United States, located in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago. Near the campus of Northwestern University, it is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the Northwestern Wildcats of the Big Ten Conference. It is the only FBS stadium without permanent lighting, and its current seating capacity is 47,130.

Opened 97 years ago in 1926, it was named Dyche Stadium for William Dyche, class of 1882, Evanston mayor from 1895 to 1899 and overseer of the building project. The stadium was renamed Ryan Field in 1997 in honor of the family of Aon Corporation founder Patrick G. Ryan, who was then the chairman of Northwestern's board of trustees. The renaming was made by the other members of the board in recognition of the Ryan family's leadership and numerous contributions to Northwestern, including the lead gift to the Campaign for Athletic Excellence, Northwestern's fundraising drive for athletic facilities.