Wofford

Benjamin Wofford was a Methodist minister who lived from 1780 to 1850 and who spent much of his life in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  He was married twice (his first wife died in 1835), and each of his wives was quite wealthy.  He also seems to have been quite careful in terms of managing his money.  And, as far as I could tell, he had no children.  As a result, he was left with a pretty nice fortune and no one to leave it to.  When he died, his will stated that he had left $100,000 ($2.7 million today) to start a school of "literary, classical, and scientific education in my native district of Spartanburg."  Four years later, Wofford College began.  It remains on the same campus (which was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974) to this day.  According to U.S. News, Wofford ranks 64th on the list of National Liberal Arts Colleges.

Wofford is a very small school, with only 1,588 undergraduates.  Although Wofford has fielded football teams since 1889, they spent most of that time playing other small colleges.  They were an NAIA school until 1988-89, and then they played in Division II of the NCAA until the 1997-98 school year.  Since then, they have been in Division I-AA as a member of the Southern Conference.  The rise of Wofford football coincides with the coaching career of Mike Ayers, who took over the Wofford program in 1988 (its first year in D-II), and who has gone 171-115-1 since then.  The Terriers have finished in the Top 25 of I-AA in nine of the last 13 seasons.  Last year they went 9-4, finished 9th in the country, and lost to eventual national champion North Dakota State in a heartbreaker -- 14-7 on the road -- in the I-AA quarterfinals.  So they were pretty good.

This will be the Terriers' first attempt to win the Unofficial College Football Championship.