Football
| Guelph Gryphons | |
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| First season | 1950 |
| Athletic director | Tom Kendall |
| Head coach | Stu Lang |
| 3rd year, 13–11–0 (.542) | |
| Other staff | Kevin MacNeill (DC) Todd Galloway (OC) |
| Home stadium | Alumni Stadium (Guelph) |
| Stadium capacity | 4,100 |
| Stadium surface | Field Turf |
| Location | Guelph, Ontario |
| League | CIS |
| Conference | OUA (1980 - present) |
| Past associations | OIFC (1957-1966) CCIFC (1967-1970) OUAA (1971-1973) OQIFC (1974-1979) |
| All-time record | – |
| Postseason record | – |
| Vanier Cups | 1 1984 |
| Churchill Bowl Championships | 1 1984 |
| Yates Cups | 3 1984, 1992, 1996 |
| Hec Crighton winners | 0 |
| Current uniform | |
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| Colours | Red and Black and Gold
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| Outfitter | Russell |
| Rivals | Western Mustangs Waterloo Warriors Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks |
| Website | gryphons.ca |
The Guelph Gryphons football team has been in competition since 1950 and is considered to be the biggest sport at the university. The football team has an eight-week schedule which starts in early September to the last week of October, Followed by the OUA playoffs which run within the first three weeks of November. Unlike other sports, there are only ten schools which compete in OUA football, so there is only one division. The team usually has 60 to 80 varsity athletes however, not all will have the opportunity to play for the team. The recruitment process is very similar to other major sports at the University of Guelph. Players are generally hand-picked by coaches and scouts while they play for their respective high school teams.
The football team has won one Vanier Cup national championship in 1984, which is also their only appearance in the title game. The Gryphons are the only team with a perfect record in the Vanier Cup. The team has also won three Yates Cup conference championships, in 1984, 1992 and 1996. The team can trace their roots back to 1950 when the team played in the Intercollegiate Intermediate Football Union. Through numerous league evolutions, the Gryphons landed in the Ontario University Athletics in 1980 as a founding member and continue to play there to this day. Their current head coach is Stu Lang, who is in his second year with the team after former head coach Kyle Walters joined the Canadian Football League's Winnipeg Blue Bombers as their special teams coach.
The program has remained largely in the middle of the standings for the past eight years as the team has been at or within one game of .500 for six of those years. Recently, the team saw its best success in 2007 when they won their first two playoff games before losing the Yates Cup to the Western Ontario Mustangs. Despite making the playoffs eight times in the past 11 years, the 2007 season was the only one in which Guelph won any of their post-season games.
The Football program received a boost of energy during the winter of 2009 with the new hire of Stu Lang as head football coach.
Read more about this topic: Guelph Gryphons
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“In this dream that dogs me I am part
Of a silent crowd walking under a wall,
Leaving a football match, perhaps, or a pit,
All moving the same way.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)