Catholic Cardinals football The Catholic University Cardinals football team represents the Catholic University of America in National Collegiate Athletic Association ( NCAA ) Division III college football competition as a member of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference ( ODAC ) . The team played its first game in 1895 and was a major college team in the first half of the 20th century , into the 1940s . The football program was put on hiatus during World War II , and then discontinued shortly afterwards . In 1965 , football returned to the university at the club level , and , in 1977 , re - entered NCAA competition as part of Division III . The Cardinals have participated in the Division III playoffs three times in the late 1990s and have secured two ODAC championships . History . Catholic ' s first known intercollegiate football game came on Thanksgiving Day , November 28 , 1895 , in Emmitsburg , Maryland . They faced Mount Saint Mary ' s , of which six of the eleven Catholic players were alums . A contemporary article in " The Mountaineer " , the Mount Saint Mary ' s student newspaper , described it as being " rather warm for hard foot - ball playing , and consequently neither team seemed to play with much snap or vim . " The Mountaineers scored a touchdown immediately before halftime to take a 4 – 0 lead . Catholic recovered a blocked field goal attempt and ran it back 92 yards for the equalizing score . Mount Saint Mary ' s later pulled away with a safety and a touchdown with two - point kick . The final result was 12 – 4 . In the 1920s , the Catholic " Red and Black " became known as the " Cardinals " , sometimes expanded to the " Flying Cardinals " or , less often , the " Fighting Cardinals " . Brookland Stadium opened on October 4 , 1924 , and helped to increase the prominence of the football team . In 1930 , Catholic secured former Minnesota assistant Arthur " Dutch " Bergman as their new head coach . During his tenure , Bergman scheduled teams farther afield such as , , , and . In 1935 , the Cardinals finished the regular season with a 7 – 1 record . The Catholic defense recorded three shutouts , allowed only 34 points , and no rushing touchdowns . The performance impressed the Orange Bowl committee enough for it to extend an invitation to play against Mississippi . During the game , Bill Adamaitis caught a pass for the first touchdown and then threw for another score . He became the first of only three players to score both receiving and passing touchdowns in the same Orange Bowl . Ole Miss responded when Ned Peters ran for a 67 - yard touchdown for a 13 – 6 halftime mark . In the second half , the Cardinals blocked a punt and returned it 20 yards for the score . Ole Miss recorded two more touchdowns , but missed the penultimate extra point , which proved Catholic ' s margin of victory , 20 – 19 . In 1939 , Catholic achieved five shutouts in its 8 – 1 regular season record , and secured its second bowl game appearance . They faced Tempe Normal Teacher ' s College ( now Arizona State ) in the 1940 Sun Bowl . The result was a scoreless stalemate , unusual in the fact that the teams had scored a total of 512 points during the season . After the game , both coaches claimed to have the superior team to the media . Dixie Howell of Tempe said , " I believe we had the better team . . . and would have won if we had gotten a break at the right time . " Bergman responded , " Tempe is a fast , powerful team , but we didn ’ t play our top game by any means . . . I think we are capable of beating Tempe six days out of the week . " From 1941 to 1946 , football was discontinued due to World War II . Bergman finished his career at Catholic with a 59 – 31 – 4 record as the winningest coach in school history . He later coached the Washington Redskins in 1943 , when they made an NFL playoff appearance . When the team was resurrected after the war , the Cardinals could not replicate their previous success . In four seasons , three different coaches posted a combined 7 – 18 – 2 record . The team was disbanded in 1950 . A trial game was played against Saint Peter ' s College in 1965 , and football revived the following year at the club level . In 1977 , varsity football returned to Catholic with its entry into NCAA Division III competition . In 1997 , the Cardinals under head coach Tom Clark made their first appearance in the Division III playoffs , losing 44 – 33 against Trinity . They returned to the playoffs in 1998 , where they lost to Lycoming College , 49 – 14 , In 1999 CUA returned to the Old Dominion Athletic Conference ( ODAC ) and that season they secured the conference championship with a 6 – 0 conference record and made their third consecutive NCAA playoff appearance . They lost those NCAA playoffs to Western Maryland College ( now called McDaniel College ) 20 - 16 . In 2008 , the Cardinals finished 4 – 2 in the ODAC and earned a four - way share of the conference title . Catholic earned a bid to the ECAC Southeast Bowl against Johns Hopkins and won , 18 – 17 . It was the first postseason victory for the Cardinals since 1936 . In 2011 , Catholic ' s quarterback Greg Cordivari won the Melberger Award , for Division III ’ s top football player in the nation . Rivalry games . An important rivalry in Cardinals ' history has been the game against the Georgetown Hoyas , where the Steven Dean Memorial Trophy was in dispute . The series started at Brookland Stadium in 1976 and the last game was played in 1993 at Cardinal Field , with a 9 - 9 - 0 record .