Muhlenberg college

History:

Football was Muhlenberg’s first official varsity sport, debuting in 1900, and has had two periods of extraordinary achievement: one in the mid-1940s and one today.

The Mules won the mythical small college championship in 1946, defeating St. Bonaventure in the Tobacco Bowl at Lexington, Kentucky, to wrap up a 9-1 season. Muhlenberg duplicated that record the following year, losing only to Temple by a single point, but turned down an invitation to the Tangerine Bowl (the forerunner of today’s Capital One/Florida Citrus Bowl). The coach for those two great teams was

Centennial Conference Standings, 2000-2011 School W-L Pct Johns Hopkins 62-23 .729 MUHLENBERG 59-26 .694 Dickinson 48-37 .565 Moravian 20-22 .476 McDaniel 40-45 .471 Ursinus 40-45 .471 Franklin & Marshall 36-49 .424 Gettysburg 36-49 .424 Susquehanna 6-12 .333 Swarthmore 2-5 .286 Juniata 3-39 .071

football Hall-of-Famer Ben Schwartzwalder, who went on to coach legends such as Jim Brown and Ernie Davis at Syracuse.

The current Mules earned five consecutive postseason bids, two to the ECAC Championships (2000 and 2001) and three to the NCAA Championships (2002, 2003 and 2004). In 2002, Muhlenberg reached double digits in wins for the first time in program history and advanced to the second round of the NCAAs.

The 2007 team was the first to go undefeated in program history, winning the Centennial Conference championship outright, setting a school record with 11 wins and earning a national top-10 ranking. In 2008, Muhlenberg repeated as CC champion and rose to No. 2 in one national poll. In all, the Mules have won or tied for seven CC titles in the last 11 years.

The sport’s storied history includes nine Centennial Conference championships, one ECAC championship, 26 All-Americans and 16 Academic All-Americans.