The Davidson Wildcats football program is the intercollegiate American football team for Davidson College located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and are members of the Pioneer Football League. Davidson's first football team was fielded in 1897. The team plays its home games at the 6,000 seat Richardson Stadium in Davidson, North Carolina. The Wildcats are coached by Paul Nichols.

Football at Davidson began during the late 1880s in the form of club ball. The rules for the game of football were still being standardized, so the teams met before every game to set the rules straight for that particular contest. The first uniforms for the club were dark sweaters or canvas jackets with "DC" chalked on the front. The team may not have looked good and been very organized, but they played hard.

In 1897, the school organized a schedule of games against other area club teams, and the team played well considering how little experience it had. The original colors were actually pink and blue. In September 1889, the students created a Rugby Football Association. Goal posts were set up, a field was chosen and marked, and the students got the association admitted to the North Carolina Football League.

The students' true love, however, was still real football. Before any collegiate level football was even mentioned, the male students would participate in incredibly vicious inter-class football games. All four classes would play each other in these intense games, and injuries were common. One game, future professor James M. Douglas (class of 1893) broke his arm. In that same game, future president Walter Lingle (class of 1892) was knocked unconscious. Eventually, these rivalries transformed into an uncontrollable desire of the student body to begin an intercollegiate football program (Gillespie 22).

Finally, in October 1898, the faculty allowed Davidson students to participate in intercollegiate football games. The first intercollegiate game was played on November 5, 1898 against the University of North Carolina. The game was so big that a special train was chartered to take the entire school into Charlotte to cheer the team on. Luckily for the players, the school colors were changed by the student body in 1895 from pink and blue to red and black. The team lost 11–0, but the editorial in the Davidson College Magazine was entitled "Victory in Defeat" (Gillespie 22). Davidson football had officially begun.

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