The title was the first ever Metropolitan Athletic Conference team title captured by the Rams in the school's history. The team joined the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Hockey League, in the fall of 1970 and began playing such teams as Columbia, Fairfield and St. Johns. [6] Morris writes that during the 1930s, the Fordham University football team was running roughshod over all its opponents. During a weak period for the Eastern region as a whole however, Fordham remained unranked and was passed over during the postseason despite getting consideration from both the Orange and Gator Bowls. After 13 straight scoreless quarters Pitt broke the drought with a second-quarter field goal in their 1938 encounter won by the Panthers, 24–13. So was center Alex Wojciechowicz who later became an All-Pro with Detroit and Philadelphia. Fordham University enjoyed its best season in 1970–1971, when the squad went 26–3 under coach Digger Phelps and was ranked number nine in the nation in the AP poll. The 1950 team, which boasted wins over San Francisco and Syracuse, finished with an even stronger 8–1 record. Decades later he spent six seasons at Fordham (1927–1932) where he compiled a 34–14–4 record and also elevated the program to college football's highest level. Fordham's best finish came in its undefeated 1937 season (7–0–1) when it ended the year ranked third in the country. Barry Cantrell earned all-American honors in the high jump in 1998. In an article that appeared in the New York Tribune on October 14, 1933, Woodward, referencing football, wrote .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil.[5]. [4] The University also supports a number of club sports, and a significant intramural sports program. Toward the end of that decade Fordham made a drastic jump to move up and play within college football's major level. They also finished in first place for the third time in the last five years, have had 11 consecutive winning seasons (the longest in team history), and have qualified for the post season play every year for the last 14 seasons. Trey Landers matched his season high with 18 points, Obi Toppin also had 18 and No. The Fordham Rams are members of NCAA Division I and compete in the Atlantic 10 Conference for all sports except football. 7 Dayton beats Fordham 70-56 for 16th straight over Rams. Other wins came against Detroit in 1931, St. Mary's in 1932, a big upset over Alabama in 1933, an even bigger one over Tennessee in 1934 and another win over NYU in 1935. He amassed 817 wins as a baseball coach. Prior to that the Rams had gone a combined 88–20–12 for a .787 win percentage during their 1929–1942 glory years. Announced schedules as of December 27, 2019. So popular was Fordham, that the Cleveland NFL franchise formed in the 1930s took its nickname from the Rams of the Bronx. The following week they lost the second ever televised game to the University of Alabama, 7–6. National opponents were replaced with a more regional schedule and recruiting became more difficult as the school put more emphasis on academics. In the 2009–10 season, Fordham went 0–16 in the A-10 conference season (2–26 overall), becoming the first team to go winless in an A-10 conference season since St. Bonaventure in 1992–93. For many years the university maintained the last remaining boathouse on "sculler's row" off the river in Manhattan, along Sherman Creek, until it was destroyed by suspected arson in 1978. The Dunkel Index, another math formula, confirmed Notre Dame as the nation's top program. Fordham Crew has since been quite successful, winning several national championships. [8] Early on in the 1951 national rankings Fordham did appear in the "others receiving votes" category [9] but they were never again a bowl threat. Fordham University alumnus Chris Judge (class of 1980) was inducted into the CWPA Hall of Fame in 2010.[28]. Founded in the late 1850s, the Fordham Rose Hill Baseball Club of St. John's College (the precursor to Fordham University, and of no connection at all to St. John's University) played against St. Francis Xavier College in the first ever nine-man-team college baseball game on November 3, 1859. The Rams are coached by former Yale offensive coordinator Joe Conlin,[2] distant relative to the late Ed Conlin, Fordham's all-time leading scorer in basketball who later played seven seasons in the NBA. When up against other colleges, Fordham's main rivals were Xavier (a school that later dropped its college division but still exists as a high school and to this day is a rival of Fordham Prep), CCNY, Saint Peter's and Seton Hall. They were defeated by Chattanooga in the opening round of the 2015 playoffs. In 2010 and 2009 they placed third and fifth in the CWPA Eastern Division championship. 7 Dayton beat Fordham 70-56 Saturday for its 16th straight win over the Rams. [29] It has yet to be replaced. Aside from Notre Dame-inspired gold helmets, Crowley also brought an all-Notre Dame staff with him to Rose Hill. They again beat Sacred Heart in the 2014 playoffs before bowing to New Hampshire in the Round of 16. The Rams currently compete in the New York Metro Division. In front of 37,000 Orange Bowl fans, Miami ran roughshod over Fordham, 75–7, the Rams' single worst debacle of the 1950s. As seniors Franz and Drake (one of the first African American quarterbacks in college football) continued to put up prolific numbers in 1953 despite another losing season. [15] The Cleveland Rams later moved to Los Angeles and then to St. Louis, Missouri, before returning to Los Angeles in 2016, and are now known as the Los Angeles Rams. This included line coach Frank Leahy, who later returned to South Bend and became arguably the greatest college head coach ever. In 1937, the team went undefeated and was ranked number three nationally. [11][12] Though Fordham won the 1991 Patriot League Tournament, the NCAA did not grant the Patriot League an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament that year. NYU returned the favor the very next season by upsetting the Rams and bitterly ending Fordham's "Rose Hill to the Rose Bowl" campaign. Holy Cross leads the "Iron Major" series, 19–15. Under the leadership of past coach Reed Johnson and current coach Johnny Norfleet, the team has surged in the rankings and has qualified for the ICSA National Championship each year since 2013. The university supports hockey as a club sport. Back in those glory days and again more recently Fordham has placed many players in the NFL. [17] On December 15, 1954, Fordham scratched its football program for the fifth time, for various reasons, mainly financial. That success helped propel the team back to varsity status in 1970. In a monsoon setting, a first-quarter blocked punt through the end zone gave the Rams a 2–0 lead that held until the game's waning moments. Rivals during this era included NYU, Saint Mary's (CA), Pittsburgh, Purdue, North Carolina and West Virginia. For the first time, both the Co-ed and Women's teams qualified for College Nationals in the spring of 2014. In what would later be known as the D-III level, Fordham also reached the quarterfinals of the 1987 playoffs. The Tigers missed a last-minute field goal, and Fordham won by the lowest football score possible. They returned to LA in 2016 and are still the only NFL team named after a college one.