The 1917 Davidson Wildcats football team represented Davidson University in the 1917 college football season. Led by third year coach Bill Fetzer, the Wildcats competed as a member of the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SAIAA). Despite a record of 6–4 (1–2 SAIAA), some would call Davidson the second best southern team that year. Davidson defeated Auburn 21 to 7, in one of the great upsets in Southern football history, and scored the most on the 1917 Georgia Tech Golden Tornado, for many years considered the greatest football team the South ever produced, in a 32 to 10 loss. Following the Auburn game the Davidson team was first referred to as "the Wildcats.