During their first three and a half decades of football , the Spartans competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ( NAIA ) and its forerunners , mostly against other small colleges in the south . Tampa U usually fielded competitive teams and won two Cigar Bowls , a bowl game for NAIA programs played in Tampa . The Spartans scheduled eleven games against the Florida State Seminoles in the 1940s and 1950s soon after FSU founded its football program and was playing in the lower division of college football . Tampa went 2 – 9 against the Seminoles , which the last meeting coming in 1959 . The Spartans occasionally competed against NCAA Division I programs , including the University of Florida Gators , whom they played five times ( and never defeated ) in the 1930s and 1940s . In 1963 , head coach Fred Pancoast encouraged the university to move its football program to the top tier of college football , NCAA Division I , but the university leadership did not feel that the school could support the move at the time , and Pancoast left to become an assistant with the Florida Gators . The Spartans moved from Phillips Field to newly-constructed Tampa Stadium in 1967 and became an independent Division I program beginning with the 1971 season . The Spartans continued to have success on the field , highlighted by wins over established programs Ole Miss and Miami and a 10 – 2 1972 campaign that was capped by a win in the Tangerine Bowl . The Spartans were led by star players Leon McQuay , Freddie Solomon , Noah Jackson , and John Matuszak , who was the first overall pick in the 1973 NFL Draft
independent
NCAA Division I FBS independent schools
Tampa Spartans football