The Wildcats are the football team of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. They compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the NCAA and play in the West Division of the Big Ten Conference.
Northwestern claims 1 national title from 1903 and 8 conference titles, including 3 Big Ten championships since 1995. The Wildcats got their nickname in 1924, when a reporter for the Chicago Tribune described the team as "a wall of purple wildcats." Northwestern maintains a local rivalry with the Fighting Illini of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
