Saint Mary's Gaels football


The Saint Mary's Gaels football program was the intercollegiate American football team for Saint Mary's College of California, located in Moraga, California, east of Oakland. The team competed in NCAA Division I-AA as an independent from 1993 through 2003.
The school's first football team was fielded in 1892, and it was nationally prominent in the 1930s and 1940s, winning the Cotton Bowl in January 1939 and losing in the Sugar Bowl in January 1946. That 1945 team won its first seven games and was ranked seventh in the AP poll entering the bowl game. Many home games of this era were played at Kezar Stadium in
The football program was dropped after the 1950 revived as a club sport, and returned to varsity status in 1970, and moved up to Division II
In order to keep its overall athletics program at Division I, football was required to cease or move up to Division I-AA by 1993. After eleven seasons as an I-AA independent, Saint Mary's ended its football program on March 3, 2004, citing budgetary reasons.

Notable players