Simon Fraser Clan - Football

Football

The Simon Fraser Clan football team has been competing continuously since the athletic department's inception in 1965. The Clan played by American rules while they competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics from 1965 to 2001 against other American teams. Along with other SFU teams, the football program transferred to the Canadian Interuniversity Sport and thereby switched to playing Canadian football against Canadian University teams in 2002. While playing in the CIS, SFU won their first and only Hardy Trophy conference championship in 2003 while qualifying for the playoffs twice. After playing eight seasons in the Canada West Conference of the CIS, the Clan football team began competing in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference in the NCAA's Division II in 2010.

The team also maintains a cross-town rivalry with the Vancouver-based University of British Columbia Thunderbirds as they are also the only two universities in British Columbia that field football teams. Since 1967, the two teams have competed in the Shrum Bowl, an annual game played at alternating venues with alternating rules. SFU holds a 17-15-1 series lead while also being the most recent champion having won the 2010 game at Thunderbird Stadium. Due to the two schools playing in two different leagues, the scheduling of these games has often been difficult, with no game being played in 2011, the 12th time the game hadn't been played since the game's inception.