Sam Houston State Bearkats football
| Sam Houston State Bearkats | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
|||
 |
|||
| First season | 1912 | ||
| Athletic director | Bobby Williams | ||
| Head coach |
K. C. Keeler 3rd year, 33–9 (.786) |
||
| Stadium | Bowers Stadium | ||
| Seating capacity | 12,593 | ||
| Field surface | Real Grass Pro Artificial Surface | ||
| Location | Huntsville, Texas | ||
| NCAA division | Division I FCS | ||
| Conference | Southland Conference | ||
| All-time record | 500–462–34 (.519) | ||
| Bowl record | 3–1–1 (.700) | ||
| Playoff record | 17–9 | ||
| Claimed nat'l titles | 1 | ||
| Conference titles | 6 | ||
| Consensus All-Americans | 41 | ||
| Current uniform | |||
 |
|||
| Colors | White and Orange |
||
| Fight song | Bearkat Fight Song | ||
| Mascot | Sammy Bearkat | ||
| Marching band | Bearkat Marching Band | ||
| Outfitter | Under Armour | ||
| Rivals |
Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks Texas State Bobcats (inactive) |
||
| Website | GoBearkats.com | ||
The Sam Houston State Bearkats football program is the intercollegiate American football team for Sam Houston State University located in the U.S. state of Texas. The team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and are members of the Southland Conference. Sam Houston's first football team was fielded in 1912. The team plays its home games at the 12,593 seat Bowers Stadium in Huntsville, Texas. On January 23, 2014, K. C. Keeler was named the 15th head coach in Sam Houston State program history.
Sam Houston has fielded a football team since 1912 and have played continuously since 1946 following World War II. The only times the Bearkats did not field a football team were in 1918 for World War I and from 1943 to 1945 for World War II. The Bearkats competed independently from 1912 through 1923, in the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association (TIAA) from 1924 to 1931, in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) from 1932 to 1981, in NCAA Division II from 1982 to 1985 and in NCAA Division I-AA (now FCS) since the 1986 season.
The Bearkats have 11 conference championships, and have seen post-season NCAA playoff action in six seasons, with back-to-back NCAA Division I Championship game appearances in 2011–2012. Sam Houston State also has 3 bowl victories in four games, and one claimed National Championship from NAIA in the 1964 season.
Since starting the football program, the Bearkats are 498–460–34 overall through the 2015 season.
Ron Randleman is Sam Houston's and the Southland Conference's all-time winningest coach with 132 wins over a span of 23 years. Randleman also won conference Coach of the Year honors on four different occasions, in the Gulf Star Conference in 1985 and 1986, and in the Southland Conference in 1991, and 2001.
Paul Pierce coached the Bearkats to its only National Championship, and also won the 1965 Knute Rockne Little All-American Coach of the Year award.
Willie Fritz coached Sam Houston to back-to-back conference championships and back-to-back national title game appearances in only three years, while being awarded the 2011 AFCA National Coach of the Year award and the 2012 Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year award. He was also named the 2012 AFCA Regional Coach of the Year.
...
Wikipedia