: ''For information on all Brown University sports, see

Brown Bears The Brown Bears are the sports teams that represent Brown University, an American university located in Providence, Rhode Island. The Bears are part of the Ivy League conference. Brown's mascot is Bruno. Both the men's and women's teams share th ...

'' The Brown Bears football program is the intercollegiate

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

team for

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

located in the U.S. state of

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. The team competes in the

NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...

(FCS) and are members of the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

. Brown's first football team was fielded in 1878. The Bears play their home games at the 20,000-seat Richard Gouse Field at Brown Stadium in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

. The team's head coach is James Perry, who was hired on December 3, 2018.

History

In the middle of the 1926 season, the “Iron Men” came into being when the same 11 players played against Yale for 60 minutes and a 7–0 win. The next week the same 11 players played without substitution against Dartmouth and won 10–0. Two weeks later the Iron Men played 58 minutes against Harvard, but in the last two minutes the substitutes came in to earn their letters. Brown won all its games that year until the Thanksgiving game against Colgate ended in a 10–10 tie. The famed “Iron Men” were Thurston Towle ’28, Paul Hodge ’28, Orland Smith ’27, Charles Considine ’28, Lou Farber ’29, Ed Kevorkian ’29, Hal Broda ’27, Al Cornsweet ’29, Dave Mishel ’27, Ed Lawrence ’28, and Roy Randall ’28. In the 1948 season, Brown fans were the originators of the popular "de-fense!" chant that spread to the NFL in the 1950s. Following the 1981 season, the Ivy League was reclassified to Division I-AA, today known as the

Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...

(FCS), Brown moved to Division I-AA play with the rest of the league. Brown has 607 wins, making them tied for 72nd all time in wins among division one football programs. In 1997, Phil Estes began a twenty-one year tenure as Brown's head coach, resulting in three Ivy League championships. In 2018, after two consecutive winless seasons in the Ivy League, Estes announced that he would be stepping down. Before the start of the 2020 season, the Ivy League announced that no sports would be played until January 1, 2021, at the earliest, because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. It has not yet been determined whether the football season will take place in the spring 2021 or not at all.

Championships

The Bears have no national championships, though they do have one undefeated team, the 1926 team, also known as the Iron Men of 1926, finishing 9–0–1 (and winning all three of their Ivy League games), with a 10–10 tie with Colgate in the last game of the season.

Conference championships

The Bears have won the Ivy League title four times in their history. The Bears won their first Ivy League title in 1976, sharing it with Yale while finishing 8–1 on the season, clinching the title with a 28–17 victory over Columbia. In 1999, the Bears went 9–1 (the most victories since 1926, along with a record seven game winning streak), while beating Columbia 23–6 to share the Ivy League title with Yale. In 2005, the Bears finished 9–1, beating Columbia 52–21 in their final game in order to clinch their first ever outright Ivy League title and third overall. In 2008, the Bears finished 7–3 (while losing only one Ivy League game), beating Columbia 41–10 to clinch a share of the Ivy League title, their fourth over conference title and third in nine years.

Bowl games

Brown has made one bowl appearance, garnering a record of 0–1.

Rivalries

Rhode Island

Brown leads the series with

, their in-state rival, 73–27–2.

College Football Hall of Famers

John Heisman John William Heisman (October 23, 1869 – October 3, 1936) was a player and coach of American football, baseball, and basketball, as well as a sportswriter and actor. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College, Buchtel College ...

(1887–1889, elected in 1954) *

Tuss McLaughry DeOrmond "Tuss" McLaughry (May 19, 1893 – November 26, 1974) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania (1915–1916, 1918, 1921), Amherst College (192 ...

(1926–1940, elected in 1962) *

Fritz Pollard Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard (January 27, 1894 – May 11, 1986) was an American football player and coach. In 1921, he became the first African-American head coach in the National Football League (NFL). Pollard and Bobby Marshall were th ...

(1915–1916, elected in 1954) * Eddie N. Robinson (played 1892–1895; coached 1904–1907, 1910–1925, elected in 1955) * Earl Sprackling (1908-1911, elected 1964) *

Wallace Wade William Wallace Wade (June 15, 1892 – October 7, 1986) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at the University of Alabama fro ...

(1914–1916, elected in 1955)

Notable former players

Zak DeOssie Zackary Robert DeOssie (born May 25, 1984) is a former American football long snapper of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Brown University and was drafted by the New York Giants in the fourth round of the 2007 N ...

James Develin James Rittenhouse Develin, Jr. (born July 23, 1988) is an American former professional American football, football player who was a Fullback (gridiron football), fullback. He played college football for Brown Bears football, Brown University as ...

Steve Jordan Steve, Stephen, or Steven Jordan may refer to: Music * Steve Jordan (guitarist) (1919–1993), American jazz guitarist * Steve Jordan (drummer) (born 1957), American drummer, studio musician * Steve Jordan (accordionist) (born Esteban Jordan) (193 ...

Bob Margarita Henry Robert Margarita (November 3, 1920 – July 28, 2008) was an American football halfback and coach. He was a two-time honorable mention All-American at Brown University, once rushing for 233 yards against Columbia, the fourth-highest single ...

* Sean Morey * Bill O'Brien *

Joe Paterno Joseph Vincent Paterno (; December 21, 1926 – January 22, 2012), sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions from 1966 to 2 ...

* E. J. Perry *

Kyle Rowley Kyle Rowley (born January 30, 1979) is an arena football quarterback who is currently a free agent. He also played in the former af2. He played college football at Brown. Rowley was the first quarterback to win an AFL ArenaBowl and af2 ArenaCu ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown Bears Football American football teams established in 1878 1878 establishments in Rhode Island