Cal Poly Mustangs The Cal Poly Mustangs ( also Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly SLO ) represent California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo , California in intercollegiate athletics . They field twenty teams including men and women ' s basketball , cross country , golf , soccer , swimming and diving , tennis , and track and field ; women ' s - only indoor track , softball , and volleyball ; and men ' s - only baseball , football , and wrestling . The Mustangs compete in NCAA Division I ; they are primarily members of the Big West Conference and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation , but the football team plays in the Big Sky Conference and the men ' s swimming and diving and wrestling teams are associate members in the Pacific 12 Conference . Teams . Basketball . The Mustang basketball team had its most successful year in 2007 , when the team came within one win in the Big West tournament of getting into the NCAA basketball tournament Cross Country . The men ' s cross country team has finished in the top 25 in the nation four of the past five years . In 2012 , Coach Mark Conover and his men ' s squad collected its second straight Big West Conference title and 12th in the past 15 seasons . Their last national placing was in 2008 , when they finished 23rd at the National Cross Country Championships . Also in 2012 , the women ’ s program nabbed its first Big West Conference crown since 2001 . Football . Mustang Football plays in the Big Sky Conference , competing in the Football Championship Subdivision . Prior to joining the Big Sky Conference in 2012 , the team competed in the Great West Conference and is the first Great West Football Conference participant in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs . Each year Cal Poly plays rival UC Davis in the annual Battle for the Golden Horseshoe . Soccer . The Cal Poly Mustangs men ' s soccer team has had success in recent years . In 2008 , Coach Paul Holocher led his team to a 3rd place in the Big West and a spot in the NCAA Division I tournament . They went on to beat UCLA and ended up losing to UC Irvine in the 2nd round . Cal Poly soccer has a strong fan base , averaging over 3 , 000 fans per match in 2010 . In 2011 , collegesoccernews . com chose Cal Poly vs . UC Santa Barbara as the No . 1 rivalry in college soccer . Since 2007 , the rivalry matches have regularly drawn upwards of 8 , 000 fans to watch the matches . Volleyball . The women ' s volleyball team has been one of the school ' s best sports programs in recent years and in the 1980s . In 2007 the team captured its second straight Big West title by posting a 15 – 1 conference record and a 23 – 8 record overall , and made it to the third round of the playoffs before losing to Stanford in the Sweet 16 . The team also went 23 – 6 in 2006 . Wrestling . The wrestling program at Cal Poly competes as a member of the Pacific - 12 Conference ( Pac - 12 ) which is traditionally one of the strongest conferences in college wrestling . Cal Poly has had two wrestlers ( Tom Kline & Mark DiGirolamo ) win the NCAA Wrestling Championship and 46 wrestlers earn All - American honors . In addition to the program ' s success at the NCAA Championships the program has crowned one champion at the National Collegiate Open Wrestling Championship . Blue - Green rivalry - UC Santa Barbara . In the Blue - Green Rivalry the Cal Poly Mustangs and the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos compete in 16 sports . Each winner receives one point per win ( regular season ) with two points awarded to the series winner in baseball and softball , and the overall winner is announced each spring . Using games to promote the campuses ' sustainability and recycling efforts is believed to be the first of its kind in college athletics . The rivalry fits the colors of sustainability ( blue and green ) as well as those of UCSB ( blue ) and Cal Poly ( green ) .