2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team
American college football team season
The 2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team represented the University of Saint Francis, located in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the 2017 NAIA football season. They were led by head coach Kevin Donley, who served his 20th year as the first and only head coach in the history of Saint Francis football. The Cougars played their home games at Bishop John D'Arcy Stadium and were members of the Mid-States Football Association (MSFA) Mideast League (MEL). The Cougars finished an undefeated regular season as the defending national champions. They finished 1st in the MSFA MEL division and received an automatic bid to the NAIA playoffs.
The 2017 postseason saw the Cougars return to the national championship game. They successfully defended their national title with a 24–13 victory over Reinhardt (GA). The back-to-back championships is a feat that was completed for only the 5th time in NAIA football history. The undefeated season was the first in the Cougars' 20-year history.
Schedule
Game summaries
9/2/2017 - The #1-ranked Cougars opened their title defense with a road victory over Jamestown (ND).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team” is american college football team season. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Saint, Francis and Cougars, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american college football team season” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48843408. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team primary sources, 2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team archive and Saint research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “2017 Saint Francis Cougars football team” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.