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2023 Ferris State vs Grand Valley State

Ferris State Football In 2023: What To Know About The Bulldogs

Ferris State Football In 2023: What To Know About The Bulldogs

The Ferris State football team returns to action in 2023 as a member of the GLIAC. Here’s what to know about the program.

Sep 8, 2023 by Matt Cannizzaro
Highlights: Ferris State Vs. GVSU

Ferris State enters the 2023 season with much momentum, having convincingly captured the 2021 and 2022 NCAA Division II national championships.

Last year, the Bulldogs opened their season with five consecutive wins, before losing a 22-21 heartbreaker to rival Grand Valley State, but FSU rallied back. 

The Bulldogs closed the season with nine straight victories, including a 41-14 trouncing of Colorado School of Mines for the national title.

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This year, Ferris State will look to become the second school to win three consecutive Division II national titles. North Alabama did it from 1993-1995.

The GLIAC again includes seven teams and returns three programs that finished with winning records in 2022. That includes Grand Valley State, which went 12-1 overall and claimed the GLIAC title with a 6-0 record. Ferris State’s regular-season loss to GVSU left the Bulldogs second at 5-1.

GLIAC football action will be streamed live on FloFootball and the FloSports app, including all of Ferris State’s GLIAC games.

Here’s What To Know About Ferris State Football.

What Year Did Ferris State Start Playing Football?

Evidence in the Ferris State photo archives shows a varsity football team in 1896, but notes suggest organized football at the school around that time was sporadic.

The football team’s first official season in action was 1900, and the squad was 1-4. Through 1945, there were a handful of years where the school did not field a team, but play has been uninterrupted since 1946 (except for 2020, due to COVID-19).

In What Division Of College Football Does Ferris State Play? 

Ferris State plays football in the NCAA Division II.

How Many Times Has Ferris State Football Made It To The Playoffs?

On the way to winning the NCAA Division II national title in 2022, Ferris State made the Division II Playoffs for the eighth consecutive year and 13th time overall. The first five came consecutively from 1992-1996.

The Bulldogs are 26-11 in the playoffs and have advanced to the national quarterfinals, or better, in each of the last six seasons. Ferris State was the national runner-up in 2018, losing to Valdosta State in the championship game.

When Did Ferris State Football Join The GLIAC?

Ferris State was a charter member of the GLIAC, which was founded in 1972 and began competition for the 1972-1973 school year. 

When the GLIAC eliminated football for the 1990 season, Ferris State moved to the Midwest Intercollegiate Football Conference with other members of the GLIAC and members of the Heartland Football Conference.

The MIFC merged with the GLIAC in 1999, and the conference resumed its sponsorship of football that fall. The Bulldogs have been back in the GLIAC since the merger.

Has Ferris State Football Ever Won The GLIAC title?

Ferris State has won the GLIAC title six times, including three of the last four seasons played and five of the last eight. 

Ferris State won the title outright in 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2021, and shared it in 1999 (Northwood) and 2015 (Ashland).

*The GLIAC did not play in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the GLIAC was on hiatus from 1990-1998, Ferris State came into its own, winning the MIFC title five times (four outright) from 1992-1996.

Who Is The Ferris State Football Head Coach?

Tony Annese has been the head football coach at Ferris State since December 2011, when he was announced as the 13th head coach in the team’s long history. He is 115-17 in 11 seasons of play.

Annese wasted no time raising the bar for the Bulldogs, leading them to a 7-4 mark in his debut season (2012) and then to an 8-3 record the following year. In 2014, he was named the regional and GLIAC Coach of the Year, after leading his team to its first GLIAC title since 1999.

The success and accolades continued, as Ferris State added conference titles in 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2021, along with national championships in 2021 and 2022.

Prior to arriving at Ferris State, Annese spent three years at Grand Rapids Community College, where he helped his squad to the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II national championship in 2009 and 2011.

Annese also enjoyed 25 years of success coaching at the high school level. Across four schools as a head coach, he won nearly 200 games and led his teams to three state titles. 

Annese played college football at Alma College in Alma, Michigan, and graduated from the school in 1983.

Who Is Ferris State Football’s Biggest Rival? 

As two of the hottest teams in Division II football in recent years, the longtime rivalry between Ferris State and Grand Valley State University has heated up, too.

The annual regular-season meeting between Grand Valley State and Ferris State is known as the Anchor-Bone Classic, and GVSU holds a 30-22-1 advantage all-time.

Heading into the 2022 edition, GVSU hadn’t won since 2016, and the teams took the field against each other and the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country for the first time in nearly 20 years. Ferris State, the defending Division II national champion, held the top spot.

Grand Valley State won the matchup, 22-21, and it catapulted the Lakers to the top of the GLIAC standings and the conference title. 

The loss ended a 19-game winning streak for Ferris State and an unbeaten regular-season run of 43 victories that dated to 2017. 

Ferris State ended up finishing second in the 2022 conference standings at 5-1, after winning the title the previous three seasons of play (there were no games in 2020).

Since 2002, the winner of the Anchor-Bone Classic also takes home the Anchor Bone Trophy. Grand Valley State won the first nine meetings with the trophy on the line, before Ferris State took control of things.

The Bulldogs avenged the 2022 loss a few weeks later, eliminating Grand Valley State from the Division II Playoffs (24-21) and going on to claim the Division II national title for the second consecutive year.

Where Do The Ferris State Bulldogs Play Football?

The Ferris State football team plays its home games at Top Taggart Field and has done so since 1957.

The field is named after Top Taggart, who starred for Ferris State as a halfback and then became the team’s first official varsity football coach in 1912. A business man, he also served on the school’s Board of Control and played many roles in the growth and success of Ferris State.

He was on-site for the 1957 dedication ceremony for the football facility, and he died in 1968. He was inducted into the Ferris State Bulldog Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002.

A crowd of 12,661 fans attended Ferris State’s 22-21 loss to Grand Valley State in 2022, marking the largest crowd to ever watch a Bulldogs home game in Big Rapids.

Where Is Ferris State University?

Ferris State University is in Big Rapids, Michigan. 

In 1884, husband and wife Woodbridge Nathan Ferris and Helen Frances (Gillespie) Ferris opened the Big Rapids Industrial School, which moved to a more permanent location nearby in 1885. Around the same time, the school’s name changed to Ferris Industrial School.

The school grew and moved again in 1894, and the name was changed to the Ferris Institute in 1899.

The athletic teams didn’t receive their nickname, the Bulldogs, until 1931.

In 1950, Ferris Institute became a state college. In 1963, the name was changed to Ferris State College. In 1987, the school became Ferris State University.

Notable Ferris State Alums

Former General Motors chief Harlow Curtice, former Michigan governor Frank Fitzgerald, politician Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, Beach Boys guitarist Al Jardine, actor Shawn Christian, actor Jeff Hephner and MLB umpire Jeff Kellogg.

In 2018, Zach Sieler became the first Ferris State player in history to be selected in the NFL Draft. He was chosen by the Baltimore Ravens in the seventh round.

Ferris State Football Schedule 2023