Fordham had an advantage over St. John's in football, winning nearly two-thirds (9–6 record) of the head-to-head matches although the bulk of those affairs came with little pageantry as most came when the two schools were fielding D-III teams.

Fordham's football rivalry is now with its Jesuit sister schools Georgetown and College of the Holy Cross, all three playing in the Patriot League.

By the early 1980s only St. John's remained on the national stage as each of the other six schools had already transitioned to smaller D-I status or were relegated into the D-III ranks.

Fordham, having qualified into 8 NIT and 1 NCAA tournament during the 1980s and early '90s, was the strongest of the six and the only to meet St. John's regularly throughout the 20th century.

[2] The series resumed in 2009 and became heated when in 2013, St. John's sophomore, Chris Obekpa, made headlines for remarks on Fordham.

St. John's won in another blowout the following year but when Fordham turned the tables in 2015, drama spewed between the two men's basketball coaches.

[8] The sides haven't met on the court since but the rivalry continues in smaller non-revenue sports, particularly softball where the schools have consistently battled since the 2009 season.

Playing at a small school level, early opposition came from local athletic clubs, military and naval units, YMCA groups and even its own reserve team.

The school officially changed its name to Fordham University before the 1908 season and by then they had already sprinkled in a few more established teams, like NYU, Columbia, Rutgers, Princeton, Cornell and Syracuse, to their schedule.

Early in that decade they made a slight move up to what today would best be called the D-II level while mostly scheduling other elite Catholic schools like Boston College, Holy Cross, Villanova and Georgetown.

From 1929 to 1942 the Rams reeled off 14 straight winning seasons while often playing in front of near capacity crowds at the 55,000 seat Polo Grounds.

Despite leading the country in passing in 1949, and again in 1952, and almost landing a spot into the 1950 Gator Bowl, results were mixed at best during the post-war years.

Located inside two buildings within the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, and lacking a green campus, St. John's staged their home games on makeshift fields at the Prospect Park Parade Grounds.

Simply fielding a team itself proved somewhat difficult as St. John's spent those early years sporadically dropping and restarting their program.

Even defeating Fordham in 1923 and playing Holy Cross close in 1925 did little to create much in public support and in 1929 St. John's moved their home games to Dexter Field, a minor league baseball park in Woodhaven, Queens.

Although attendance improved to about 5,000 per game, football continued to lose money and the program was discontinued following the 1931 season.

Their first game back came against Manhattan College, who coincidentally, had also served as St. John's last opponent before eliminating football in 1931.

The team remained mostly successful at the club level and played for a regional championship in 1974 before finally receiving varsity status prior to the 1978 season.

Over the next decade however the "Mid-Major” ranks began disappearing as many of the former D-III schools started the slow process of building legitimate FCS programs.

The Big East began sponsoring softball the following year and during that inaugural season St. John's was once again a post-season finalist before again bowing out.

With head coach, Amy Kvilhaug returning a solid core, St. John's came back to sweep through the Big East regular season and post-season in 2015, giving them their first crown since 1982.

St. John's continued their winning ways while advancing into the Big East tournament's final round in both 2016 and 2017.

Despite another winning season in 2018, the Red Storm took a slight step back while failing to reach the conference's final round for the first time in five years.

During his first year at the helm, Guerriero guided St. John's to another Big East regular season crown in 2019 although they again came up short in the league's post-season tournament.

The Patriot League stint only lasted five years before the school again changed affiliation, this time to the Atlantic 10 in 1996.

The run of incompetence continued until head coach, Bridget Baxter, was hired to turn things around following the 2001 season.

She was replaced by former Iona head coach, Melissa Inouye, who in 2019 continued Fordham's success with another Atlantic 10 title and automatic NCAA tournament bid.