Program Prestige · Campbell1946-1948 three-peat state titles
Campbell Junior College won three consecutive North Carolina junior-college state football championships just before the original program folded around 1950.
Campbell
2-1Coastal Athletic · Barker-Lane Stadium · 5,500 · 4,212 avg in 2026
The nationunrankedAP / Coaches
The marketno line yetvs North Carolina A&T · our model 78% Campbell · a number, not a pick
LastL 3–52 at Florida · Sat Sep 12 · Jack Butler 1 INT, 1 tackles
Nextvs North Carolina A&T · Sat Sep 19 · 6 pm ET · Barker-Lane Stadium · series 2-2, last win 2024 · Game preview
Updated Tue Sep 15 · through week 2
Program Prestige · Campbell
Blue Blood
Program outlook
Campbell football was reinstated in 2008 after a 58-year absence and has never won a conference title or reached the FCS playoffs — 2017-2019's three straight winning seasons remain the modern program's high point.
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Campbell fielded its first football team in 1925 at what was then Buies Creek Academy, winning North Carolina junior-college state titles in 1929, 1932, and three straight from 1946-1948 before the program was discontinued around 1950 amid the Korean War and opponents shifting to four-year competition. Football then went dormant for nearly six decades while Campbell became a four-year university and joined the NCAA.
The program was reinstated in 2008 as a non-scholarship Pioneer Football League member, debuting at the newly built Barker-Lane Stadium in front of a standing-room crowd of 5,845. Dale Steele went 14-41 over the first five seasons; Mike Minter took over in 2013 and coached 11 seasons (49-66), leading the move to scholarship football and the Big South Conference in 2018. Minter's 2017-2019 seasons produced Campbell's only three consecutive winning records of the modern era (6-5 each year), including a six-game winning streak in 2019 and a 27-26 near-upset at FBS Georgia Southern in the 2020 season opener, decided when a game-tying two-point conversion pass fell incomplete with 15 seconds left.
Campbell moved again in 2023, leaving the Big South for CAA Football. Braxton Harris took over as head coach in 2024 and enters 2026 as a third-year coach after going 3-9 and 2-10 in his first two seasons, retooling his defensive staff for 2026. Through 2025, Campbell's all-time record stands at 68-126 (.351); the program has yet to win a conference championship or make the FCS playoffs since its 2008 reinstatement. Tight end Julian Hill and defensive lineman Brevin Allen, both 2023 undrafted free agents, became the program's first players to make an NFL roster and to play in an NFL game, respectively.
On the field
Campbell is a young, still-rebuilding CAA program defined more by its institutional climb — non-scholarship Pioneer League to the Big South to the CAA since 2008 — than by any championship history it has yet to build.
All-time record · Campbell
Campbell has won 36% of its games since 2008 — 43% at home, 31% on the road.
69-125 all-time · 19 seasons · 2008–2026
Home
39-51
Away
27-60
Neutral
3-14
18%
2000s
42%
2010s
31%
2020s
Program memory
What this program never forgets
Most weeks vanish. These didn’t.
2008 reinstatement opener
Campbell fields its first football team in 58 years, debuting at the newly built Barker-Lane Stadium against Birmingham-Southern in front of a standing-room crowd of 5,845.
2019 six-game winning streak
Campbell wins six straight (Shaw, Davidson, Mercer, Presbyterian, Hampton, and a 49-47 triple-overtime win at Gardner-Webb), the high point of the program's only three-consecutive-winning-seasons stretch.
2020
The Georgia Southern near-upset
Opening the 2020 season at FBS Georgia Southern, Campbell pulls within 27-26 on a late touchdown, but Hajj-Malik Williams's two-point conversion pass falls incomplete with 15 seconds left.
Heartbreak
2023
Move to the CAA
Campbell leaves the Big South Conference for CAA Football, its second classification jump since the 2008 reinstatement, but posts 3-9 and 2-10 records in its first two CAA seasons under new coach Braxton Harris.
Heartbreak
Moment of the season — so far · Campbell · 2026
Moment of the season — so far · Campbell · 2026Won 49-37 at East Tennessee State
Week 1 of 2026. Won as a 7-point underdog — the result the market didn't see coming. It turned on one snap — Trey Weary to Mason Mims, a 38-point win-probability swing.
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Gameday customs
Rituals
Three gameday rituals — the ones outsiders never quite catch.
The Kivett Bell
since 2008
more
A bell that once rang from Kivett Hall to signal the changing of classes now rings at Barker-Lane Stadium after every Campbell touchdown, tying the football program to a piece of campus history predating the reinstated team by decades.
The Camel Run Tunnel
since 2008
more
Campbell invites its first-year students onto the field at the first home game of the season to form a tunnel for the Fighting Camels to run through, a welcome-class tradition tying incoming students to the football program from their first weeks on campus.
Gaylord and Gladys the Camel
since 1934
more
The university's nickname changed from the Hornets to the Camels in early 1934 (first documented in a January 13, 1934 Creek Pebbles article), and mascot Gaylord the Camel -- later joined by companion Gladys -- has represented Campbell athletics ever since. The Fighting Camels name was formally adopted for all Campbell teams in 1977. The exact origin of the camel nickname is unconfirmed; Campbell's own historians describe the popular legend (a post-1900-fire remark about the Campbell family having a 'hump') as very likely not the real reason, since 33 years passed between the fire and the name change.
Cultural identity
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