Northwestern began their inaugural season of intercollegiate play in 1904–1905, losing their first game to University of Chicago 19–34.

[4][5] Although Northwestern had great success in the early part of the 20th century, it has spent most of the time since World War II in the bottom half of the Big Ten.

The Wildcats were retroactively selected as the 1930–31 national champion by both the Helms Athletic Foundation and the Premo-Porretta Power Poll,[6] and have won only one other conference title, in 1933.

It has only finished above fourth place twice since World War II, and did not have a winning record in conference play from 1968 until 2017.

[14] In 1998, two former players were charged and convicted for sports bribery, having been paid to shave points in games against three other Big Ten schools during the 1995 season.