College Sports Established
1898

Location
Lafayette, Louisiana

College Name
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Collegiate History
1973 - Present / NCAA Division I
1971 - 1973 / University Division of the NCAA

Conference History
1991 - Present / Sun Belt Conference
1987 - 1991 / American South Conference
1983 - 1987 / Independent
1971 - 1982 / Southland Conference

Nickname
Ragin Cajuns - The university states that "Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns" is the nickname of the school's athletic teams.

Founded in 1898 as Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute (SLII), the school adopted Bulldogs as a team nickname in 1921. The nickname persisted when the school was renamed Southwestern Louisiana Institute (SLI) in 1921 and the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL) in 1960.

The university's 1963 football team was unusually strong in homegrown talent; 35 of its 39 players were from Louisiana, with 30 from within 100 miles of Lafayette. As a result, coach Russ Faulkinberry changed the team's nickname to the Raging Cajuns, a nod to the ethnic group based in south Louisiana. (The team went 4–5. The name change also ended a longstanding nickname overlap with the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.

The term Raging (or Ragin') Cajuns had been used in a number of contexts before 1963, including as the nickname of the Louisiana-based U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Squadron VMF-143. The team changed the nickname from "Raging" to "Ragin'" in 1967 and formally adopted it for all athletic teams in 1974.

Briefly in 1984, USL's name became the University of Louisiana, but was reverted to University of Southwestern Louisiana via court challenge. In 1999, it became the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette) and maintained the Ragin' Cajuns nickname.

NCAA Championships
Baseball 0

Men's Basketball 0

Women's Basketball 0

Football 0

Soccer 0