Bucknell won the first Orange Bowl, 26–0, over the Miami Hurricanes on January 1, 1935.

The Bucknell football team was established in 1883 after a group of students from Lafayette College journeyed west to play a group of students from the University at Lewisburg, as Bucknell University was then called.

On October 10, 1925, Bucknell played George Washington at home on the day that Christy Mathewson was buried in Lewisburg.

In 1989, the newly renovated Christy Mathewson–Memorial Stadium was renamed in Mathewson's honor.

Bucknell football celebrated its seventh-straight winning season in 2001.