History UsefulNotes / CollegiateAmericanFootballConferences

There will be two FCS independents in the 2024 season--Merrimack and Sacred Heart, both of which left the NEC for the non-football MAAC. The only FCS indy in 2023, Kennesaw State, joins Conference USA for 2024 and beyond. Delaware will play one final season in CAA Football, though without playoff eligibility, before following KSU to CUSA in 2025.

Though the MVFC and MVC are separate entities, they share a very close relationship. The two leagues have six members in common[[labelnote:*]]Illinois State, Indiana State, Missouri State, Murray State, Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois[[/labelnote]], and along with the Pioneer Football League (see below), which includes two other MVC members[[labelnote:*]]Drake and Valparaiso[[/labelnote]], operate out of the same office complex in UsefulNotes/StLouis. The four Dakotas schools are members of the now non-football Summit League, another one of the precursor leagues alluded to in the previous paragraph. Murray State, which joined the MVC in 2022, played the 2022 football season in its previous all-sports home of the Ohio Valley Conference before joining the MVFC in 2023.\\\

The latest membership change was announced in 2023, when Western Illinois left the Summit League for the OVC, playing one last season in the MVFC before joining the Big South–OVC alliance in 2024.

->'''Current schools:''' Houston Christian[[labelnote:*]]formerly Houston Baptist, changed its name in 2022[[/labelnote]], Incarnate Word, Lamar, [=McNeese=][[labelnote:*]]its formal name includes "State", but it no longer uses that word in its athletic branding[[/labelnote]], Nicholls[[labelnote:*]]ditto[[/labelnote]], Northwestern State, Southeastern Louisiana, Texas A&M–Commerce\\

Formed in 1963, the '''Big Sky Conference''' is one of the better FCS conferences. Popular among Western schools seeking easy wins, though two of its teams have delivered upsets over ranked FBS programs (Eastern Washington against Oregon State in 2013, Montana against Washington in 2021). The MedalOfDishonor in this respect would however go to North Texas, which ended up on the wrong end of a [[CurbStompBattle 66–7 shellacking]] by Portland State in 2015. At the Mean Green's ''homecoming''.[[note]]The loss, the largest ever by an FBS team to an FCS team, was so humiliating that North Texas fired its head coach on the spot.[[/note]] It's also known for having another oddly-colored field, in this case Eastern Washington's red field, nicknamed [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Inferno"]]. Idaho State's ICCU Dome[[note]]"ICCU" is an abbreviation for Idaho Central Credit Union.[[/note]] (originally the Minidome and later Holt Arena) is the oldest on-campus domed stadium in America, built in 1970. Two other conference teams play in domes: Idaho (the Kibbie Dome,[[labelnote:*]]One of the rejected names for it was the [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Palouse Pea Palace.]] Before it picked up a corporate sponsorship in 2023 and officially became the [=P1FCU=] Kibbie Dome, it also had an {{overly long|Name}} official name of William H. Kibbie–ASUI Activity Center. Both names would be even longer if they were spelled out (respectively Potlatch No. 1 Federal Credit Union and Associated Students of the University of Idaho).[[/labelnote]] built in 1975) and Northern Arizona (the Walkup Skydome, built in 1977, not because of extreme heat, as you might guess, but because of the cold temperatures and heavy snow in Flagstaff, which sits at an elevation of 6,900+ feet). NAU's stadium, at 6,980 feet, has the highest elevation of any in FCS, and is second only to Wyoming in all of D-I. Montana State has won national championships at the NAIA (1956)[[note]]Technically a shared title with St. Joseph's (Indiana), since the game ended in a scoreless tie[[/note]], D-II (1976), and FCS (1984) levels, making it the only team to win titles in three different classifications.\\\

See UsefulNotes/PowerFiveConferences. For Notre Dame, which is a non-football member of the Power Five Atlantic Coast Conference, see the "FBS Independents" folder.

The top level of NCAA Division I football, also known as FBS or occasionally by its former designation of "I-A" (pronounced "one-A"). The 10 conferences in FBS are the ones most casual football fans think of when they hear the term "college football", particularly the "Power Five" conferences that receive the heaviest media attention and are guaranteed at least one bid in the "New Year's Six" bowl games. The remaining "Group of Five" are generally made of smaller schools that don't receive as much national attention. For more on the Power Five programs (except for Notre Dame), see [[UsefulNotes/PowerFiveConferences their dedicated page]]. For more on the schools in the Group of Five (sans [=UMass=] and [=UConn=]), see [[UsefulNotes/GroupOfFiveConferences their page]].

The '''University of Connecticut''' has enjoyed significant success in several sports since the late 1990s, most notably men's and women's basketball, respectively claiming 6 and ''11'' national titles. In fact, [=UConn=] has more official national team titles than any other Group of Five school, with 24 in all (the others being 2 in men's soccer and 5 in women's field hockey).[[note]]Though not the most in D-I outside the Power Five--that distinction belongs to Denver, a school that last played football team in 1960. It has 24 titles in skiing alone, and also has 10 in men's ice hockey and one in men's lacrosse.[[/note]] Football is another story entirely. While the Huskies had enjoyed off-and-on regional success in the small-college ranks and later in I-AA/FCS, that didn't continue after their move to FBS in 2002 (though they did share a couple of Big East titles).\\\

The '''University of Connecticut''' has enjoyed significant success in several sports since the late 1990s, most notably men's and women's basketball, respectively claiming 6 and ''11'' national titles. In fact, [=UConn=] has more official national team titles than any other Group of Five school, with 23 in all (the others being 2 in men's soccer and 5 in women's field hockey).[[note]]Though not the most in D-I outside the Power Five--that distinction belongs to Denver, a school that hasn't had a football team since 1961. Its 24 skiing titles alone place it ahead of any Group of Five school; it also has 9 in men's ice hockey and one in men's lacrosse.[[/note]] Football is another story entirely. While the Huskies had enjoyed off-and-on regional success in the small-college ranks and later in I-AA/FCS, that didn't continue after their move to FBS in 2002 (though they did share a couple of Big East titles).\\\

The '''University of Connecticut''' has enjoyed significant success in several sports since the late 1990s, most notably men's and women's basketball, respectively claiming 5 and ''11'' national titles. In fact, [=UConn=] has more official national team titles than any other Group of Five school, with 23 in all (the others being 2 in men's soccer and 5 in women's field hockey).[[note]]Though not the most in D-I outside the Power Five--that distinction belongs to Denver, a school that hasn't had a football team since 1961. Its 24 skiing titles alone place it ahead of any Group of Five school; it also has 9 in men's ice hockey and one in men's lacrosse.[[/note]] Football is another story entirely. While the Huskies had enjoyed off-and-on regional success in the small-college ranks and later in I-AA/FCS, that didn't continue after their move to FBS in 2002 (though they did share a couple of Big East titles).\\\

Formed in 1981, the '''Northeast Conference''' (or '''NEC''') did not sponsor football until 1996. It is in the lower tier of FCS, largely because it restricts football scholarships to a shade over two-thirds of the FCS maximum (45 instead of 63). As of the 2023 season, the only full NEC members that don't play football are Fairleigh Dickinson[[note]]The D-I program at the school's "Metropolitan" campus in Teaneck, New Jersey, that is. The "Florham" campus thirty miles away in Madison is a member of the D-III Middle Atlantic Conference and ''does'' play football.[[/note]] and Le Moyne (see below). Chicago State joins this group in 2024, though as noted in the MEAC folder it is exploring adding FCS football. Until fairly recently, those ranks included three other schools: LIU Brooklyn, Mount St. Mary's, and St. Francis Brooklyn.[[note]]Formally St. Francis College ("Saint" officially abbreviated).[[/note]] First, Long Island University merged the Brooklyn athletic program with the D-II LIU Post program (which did play football) into a single D-I LIU program effective in 2019–20. The football team that played as the LIU Post Pioneers in 2018 accordingly became the LIU Sharks. As for Mount St. Mary's, it left the NEC in 2022 for another non-football league, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. St. Francis Brooklyn shut down its entire athletic program at the end of the 2022–23 school year, and the conference quickly replaced them with Le Moyne, a longtime D-II Jesuit school in suburban Syracuse, New York, whose signature sport is lacrosse. Merrimack and Sacred Heart announced their departure for the MAAC effective in 2024, and both chose to become FCS independents for at least 2024. The NEC shored up its football numbers for 2024 by bringing back Robert Morris, which had been in NEC football from its start in 1996 until leaving after the 2019 season, as a football associate, and picking up D-II upgrader Mercyhurst.[[note]]Both RMU and the other football associate, Duquesne, are (or will be) NEC members in an additional sport. Duquesne is also a member in the niche sport of women's bowling, while RMU will join for men's lacrosse at the same time it joins for football.[[/note]]\\\

->'''Current schools:''' Central Connecticut, Duquesne (football only), LIU, Robert Morris (football only), Saint Francis,[[note]]The one in Pennsylvania; see below for a former conference mate. Formally Saint Francis University ("Saint" spelled out).[[/note]] Stonehill, Wagner\\

Formed in 1981, the '''Northeast Conference''' (or '''NEC''') did not sponsor football until 1996. It is in the lower tier of FCS, largely because it restricts football scholarships to a shade over two-thirds of the FCS maximum (45 instead of 63). As of the 2023 season, the only full NEC members that don't play football are Fairleigh Dickinson[[note]]The D-I program at the school's "Metropolitan" campus in Teaneck, New Jersey, that is. The "Florham" campus thirty miles away in Madison is a member of the D-III Middle Atlantic Conference and ''does'' play football.[[/note]] and Le Moyne (see below). Chicago State joins this group in 2024, though as noted in the MEAC folder it is exploring adding FCS football. Until fairly recently, those ranks included three other schools: LIU Brooklyn, Mount St. Mary's, and St. Francis Brooklyn.[[note]]Formally St. Francis College ("Saint" officially abbreviated).[[/note]] First, Long Island University merged the Brooklyn athletic program with the D-II LIU Post program (which did play football) into a single D-I LIU program effective in 2019–20. The football team that played as the LIU Post Pioneers in 2018 accordingly became the LIU Sharks. As for Mount St. Mary's, it left the NEC in 2022 for another non-football league, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. St. Francis Brooklyn shut down its entire athletic program at the end of the 2022–23 school year, and the conference quickly replaced them with Le Moyne, a longtime D-II Jesuit school in suburban Syracuse, New York, whose signature sport is lacrosse. Merrimack and Sacred Heart announced their departure for the MAAC effective in 2024, and both chose to become FCS independents for at least 2024. The NEC shored up its football numbers for 2024 by bringing back Robert Morris, which had been in NEC football from its start in 1996 until leaving after the 2019 season, as a football associate.[[note]]Both RMU and the other football associate, Duquesne, are (or will be) NEC members in an additional sport. Duquesne is also a member in the niche sport of women's bowling, while RMU will join for men's lacrosse at the same time it joins for football.[[/note]]\\\

The 2023 season was the first in which Merrimack, which joined the conference in all sports from D-II in 2019, was eligible for the FCS playoffs. Stonehill, which made the same move in 2022, is ineligible until 2026. The latter replaced Bryant, which left for the non-football America East Conference in 2022 and parked football in the Big South, thereby becoming part of the Big South–OVC football alliance in 2023 (and moving from there to CAA Football in 2024).

'''Notable Historic Players:''' Knute Rockne, Curly Lambeau, George Gipp, Jack Chevigny, The Four Horsemen (Harry Stuhldreher, Jim Crowley, Don Miller, Elmer Layden), Buck Shaw, Frank Leahy, "Jumping" Joe Savoldi, Bill Shakespeare, Wayne Millner, Lou Rymkus, Angelo Bertelli, Frank Danciewicz, Johnny Lujack, George Connor, Leon Hart, Frank Tripucka, Johnny Lattner, Ralph Guglielmi, Paul Hornung, George Izo, Nick Buoniconti, Daryle Lamonica, John Huarte, Alan Page, Kevin Hardy, Rocky Bleier, Bob Kuechenberg, Joe Theismann, Walt Patulski, Dave Casper, Steve Niehaus, [[Film/{{Rudy}} Rudy Ruettiger]], Joe Montana, Rusty Lisch, Dave Waymer, Greg Bell, Allen Pinkett, John Carney, Steve Beuerlein, Tim Brown, Ricky Watters, Allen Rossum, Rick Mirer, Derek Brown, Jeff Alm, Bryant Young, Ron Powlus, Jeff Faine, Jerome Bettis, Justin Tuck, Brady Quinn, J.J. Jansen, Jimmy Clausen, Michael Floyd, Manti Te'o, Harrison Smith, Zack Martin, Sam Hartman\\

The SLC has two full non-football members in New Orleans and Texas A&M–Corpus Christi. It added D-II upgrader Texas A&M–Commerce in 2022, and its football future was further secured when Incarnate Word, which had announced a move to the Western Athletic Conference and its newly reestablished football league, backed out of that move and stayed in the SLC. As noted above, the SLC and OVC entered into a scheduling partnership, though it didn't keep the OVC from announcing its plans to merge its football league with that of the Big South. The SLC had announced plans to adopt a new name in the near future, but took a half-step away from them, unveiling a new logo in 2023 but keeping its name.

Founded in 1963, the '''Southland Conference''' (or '''SLC''') was a strong lower level conference in its early years (then-league member Louisiana Tech won the initial NCAA D-II championship in 1973), before moving to the major college level in 1975. The Independence Bowl began in 1976 as a postseason home for the Southland's champion. In 1982, the league moved to I-AA after most of its members failed to meet the requirements for I-A membership ([=McNeese=] did meet the requirements but voluntarily reclassified with the rest of the conference). Long considered one of the top FCS leagues, five schools left following the spring 2021 season. One of the departing schools, Sam Houston, won the FCS title on its way out. Another one of the departing schools, Lamar, decided that its destination of the WAC wasn't as good of a fit as it thought; it originally planned to return to the SLC in 2023, but wound up returning for 2022.\\\

'''Arriving schools:''' UTRGV (non-football WAC member adding football in 2025)\\

The '''United Athletic Conference''' is the newest FCS conference, created in December 2022 by the announcement that the '''ASUN Conference''' (or '''Atlantic Sun''') and '''Western Athletic Conference (WAC)''' would merge their football leagues. The league used the placeholder name of "ASUN–WAC Football Conference" before unveiling its new name in April 2023. The ASUN initially contributed Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, and North Alabama, with the WAC contributing schools from Texas and Utah, namely Abilene Christian, Southern Utah, Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton, and Utah Tech. Due to scheduling commitments, the UAC played only a 6-game schedule in 2023. It was set to move to a full round-robin in 2024, but that was before D-II upgrader West Georgia was announced as joining in that season. On top of that, WAC member UTRGV will add football in 2025 (after an exhibition-only season in 2024).[[note]]A 9-game conference schedule is viable for FBS programs, which have 12-game regular seasons, but FCS programs are limited to 11 games in most seasons.[[/note]] While media reports indicated that the new football conference planned to move en masse to FBS in the near future, neither conference mentioned an FBS move. In any event, stay tuned.

The WAC currently has five non-football members in California Baptist, Grand Canyon, Seattle, UTRGV,[[labelnote:*]]Texas–Rio Grande Valley[[/labelnote]] and Utah Valley. While Chicago State left the WAC in 2022, the conference welcomed two schools at that time. Southern Utah is a full member with football, while UT Arlington (which ''had'' been in the WAC for one year in the 2010s) returned as a non-football member. UTRGV initially announced it would start an FCS football program no later than 2024, but instead made that an exhibition year before full varsity play in 2025.\\\

->'''Current schools:''' Central Connecticut, Duquesne (football only), LIU, Merrimack, Robert Morris (football only), Saint Francis,[[note]]The one in Pennsylvania; see below for a former conference mate. Formally Saint Francis University ("Saint" spelled out).[[/note]] Stonehill, Wagner\\

Formed in 1981, the '''Northeast Conference''' (or '''NEC''') did not sponsor football until 1996. It is in the lower tier of FCS, largely because it restricts football scholarships to a shade over two-thirds of the FCS maximum (45 instead of 63). As of the 2023 season, the only full NEC members that don't play football are Fairleigh Dickinson[[note]]The D-I program at the school's "Metropolitan" campus in Teaneck, New Jersey, that is. The "Florham" campus thirty miles away in Madison is a member of the D-III Middle Atlantic Conference and ''does'' play football.[[/note]] and Le Moyne (see below). Chicago State joins this group in 2024, though as noted in the MEAC folder it is exploring adding FCS football. Until fairly recently, those ranks included three other schools: LIU Brooklyn, Mount St. Mary's, and St. Francis Brooklyn.[[note]]Formally St. Francis College ("Saint" officially abbreviated).[[/note]] First, Long Island University merged the Brooklyn athletic program with the D-II LIU Post program (which did play football) into a single D-I LIU program effective in 2019–20. The football team that played as the LIU Post Pioneers in 2018 accordingly became the LIU Sharks. As for Mount St. Mary's, it left the NEC in 2022 for another non-football league, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. St. Francis Brooklyn shut down its entire athletic program at the end of the 2022–23 school year, and the conference quickly replaced them with Le Moyne, a longtime D-II Jesuit school in suburban Syracuse, New York, whose signature sport is lacrosse. Merrimack and Sacred Heart announced their departure for the MAAC effective in 2024; Sacred Heart decided to become an FCS independent for at least 2024, while Merrimack has yet to announce an affiliation for that season. The NEC further shored up its football numbers for 2024 by bringing back Robert Morris, which had been in NEC football from its start in 1996 until leaving after the 2019 season, as a football associate.[[note]]Both RMU and the other football associate, Duquesne, are (or will be) NEC members in an additional sport. Duquesne is also a member in the niche sport of women's bowling, while RMU will join for men's lacrosse at the same time it joins for football.[[/note]]\\\

The 2023 season was the first in which Merrimack, which joined the conference in all sports from D-II in 2019, is eligible for the FCS playoffs. Stonehill, which made the same move in 2022, is ineligible until 2026. The latter replaced Bryant, which left for the non-football America East Conference in 2022 and parked football in the Big South, thereby becoming part of the Big South–OVC football alliance in 2023 (and moving from there to CAA Football in 2024).

As of February 2024, there is one confirmed FCS independent; Sacred Heart will play as such after having left the NEC for the non-football MAAC. Merrimack, which made the same conference move as Sacred Heart, has not announced its future football affiliation. The only FCS indy in 2023, Kennesaw State, joins Conference USA for 2024 and beyond. Delaware will play one final season in CAA Football, though without playoff eligibility, before following KSU to CUSA in 2025.

The end of the line for Chicago as a football power came when Robert Maynard Hutchins became the university's president in 1929. Hutchins believed that universities should be squarely focused on classical education, and had disdain for things he regarded as distractions to pure academics, like vocational majors, activities, fraternities and sororities, and ''especially'' athletics. Hutchins forced Stagg to retire against his will, then squeezed the football program by eliminating athletic scholarships, refusing to establish a physical education major, and forcing the team to forego spring practices by changing the academic calendar. After years of struggle under this de-emphasis of athletics, the school finally dropped its football team entirely in 1939, clearing the way for their now-vacant stadium to be used as the site for the world's first ever artificial nuclear reactor. Chicago was the most successful defunct program in NCAA football history... for about 22 years. In 1963, the university brought football back first as a club sport, then as a D-III program. They've never come close to their heights of the early 20th century, but did have a run of success in the University Athletic Association conference in the '90s-'00s including five conference titles.

Three new members arrived in 2022, although only one of them plays football. Little Rock, a non-football Sun Belt member for over 30 years, saw the writing on the wall with the SBC's coming football expansion and moved to the OVC. Two D-II upgraders, football-sponsoring Lindenwood (out of the St. Louis area) and non-football Southern Indiana, also arrived. While all this was going on, the OVC and the Southland Conference, another league that experienced major membership losses, announced a football scheduling alliance for 2022 and 2023... but then the OVC and Big South announced their more comprehensive football alliance. In 2024, the alliance adds Western Illinois, which became a full OVC member in 2023. WIU is probably most notable for its nickname of Leathernecks—which ''does'' come from [[SemperFi the Marines]], with permission.[[note]]In 1927, the Marines' parent organization, the Department of the Navy, okayed Western's use of the nickname, as well as the Marine seal and bulldog mascot. The team's HC and AD at the time, Roy Hanson, was a highly decorated Marine veteran of World War I, and was serving as a Marine reservist. WIU's football stadium bears his name.[[/note]]\\\