History UsefulNotes / CollegiateAmericanFootballConferences

The only school playing as an FCS independent in 2023 is Kennesaw State, which remains in the ASUN but isn't part of the United Athletic Conference since it started an FBS transition in advance of its 2024 move to C-USA.

'''Arriving schools:''' Robert Morris (2024)\\

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, but given that their new full-time home has only one other football-sponsoring school (Pioneer League member Marist), either or both may stay in NEC football. 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.\\\

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, but given that their new full-time home has only one other football-sponsoring school (Pioneer League member Marist), either or both may stay in NEC football. 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.\\\

'''Overall Win Record:''' 721-539-51 (.569)\\

Given that Gardner–Webb will be the Big South's only representative in the alliance in 2024, it's possible that the alliance may end up evolving back to OVC football... stay tuned.

->'''Current schools:''' Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham (football only), Georgetown (football only), Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh\\

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). 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, but given that their new full-time home has only one other football-sponsoring school (Pioneer League member Marist), either or both may stay in NEC football. 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.\\\

'''Departing schools:''' Bryant (2024)\\

In an attempt to attract new football members, the Big South announced a football alliance with the ASUN Conference in 2016. With defections since 2014 of its biggest football schools, the Big South was in danger of losing its status as an FCS conference, as 6 members are needed for a league to maintain its automatic playoff berth. Under its terms, any current member of either league that added football or upgraded from non-scholarship to scholarship football had a guaranteed football home in the Big South.[[note]]The offer also applied to any future members, as long as they're located within the current geographic footprint of the two leagues.[[/note]] It has held on since then, regularly swapping members to meet minimum requirements for operation. However, with the ASUN starting football in 2022 (taking two Big South football members with it) and Hampton moving on to the CAA, the Big South was put on the clock to restore its football membership to the "magic number" of 6... and its task got harder when North Carolina A&T announced it would move to CAA Football in 2023 (with the rest of its sports joining in 2022). However, it was able to lure Bryant as a new football-only member in time for the 2022 season. Still later, Campbell announced that it too would leave for both sides of the CAA in 2023, and Bryant announced it would join CAA Football in 2024.\\\

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 will add Western Illinois, which became a full OVC member in 2023.

Two full MEAC members, Coppin State and Maryland Eastern Shore, don't play football. Since 2017, five football schools have left the conference—Hampton for the Big South in 2018; Savannah State for D-II in 2019 (after having only upgraded from D-II in 2010); and three schools in 2021, with Bethune–Cookman and Florida A&M leaving for the SWAC and North Carolina A&T for the Big South. Needless to say, these moves raised serious questions about the future of MEAC football. Reportedly they've had talks with some possible D-II upgraders.[[note]]Specifically HBCU schools Kentucky State and Virginia State, though one rumor is that they've also contacted some D-II PWI (primarily White institutions) schools.[[/note]] Howard had all-sport membership offers from the CAA and NEC in 2022, but turned both conferences down, while Chicago State, a non-football school[[labelnote:*]]For now. They've launched a fundraising campaign that could possibly have them fielding a football team in 2025.[[/labelnote]]currently without a conference, offered themselves up as a member but got voted down by the league's chancellors.[[note]]CSU isn't an HBCU school, but it's long had a Black-majority student body and is part of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.[[/note]] Also in 2022 the MEAC announced an agreement with the NEC to place MEAC schools as associate NEC members in three sports (baseball and men's and women's golf) that the MEAC doesn't sponsor, leading to speculation that it might be the first step toward a full merger of the leagues; watch this space.

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). 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, but given that their new full-time home has only one other football-sponsoring school (Pioneer League member Marist), both are likely to stay in NEC football.\\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Jackson State; Florida A&M hosts Prairie View A&M in the 2023 SWAC championship game\\

Depending on definitions, CAA Football member Villanova (otherwise a Big East member) has a claim to the most NCAA D-I team titles of any FCS school, with 21 in all,[[note]]13 in cross country (9 women's, 4 men's), 4 in men's track & field (3 indoor, 1 outdoor), 3 in men's basketball, and one FCS title in 2009.[[/note]] though Yale has a separate claim to this honor.[[note]]The NCAA credits Yale with 29 titles in all, surpassing Nova. However, only 9 of these were actually awarded by the NCAA. The other 20 are men's golf titles awarded by the National Intercollegiate Golf Association before the NCAA launched its own men's golf championship in 1939. The NCAA recognizes pre-1939 NIGA titles as its own.[[/note]] The CAA suffered a significant blow in the 2021 realignment saga when James Madison, which had spent the last 20 years openly seeking an FBS move, was announced as a future member of the Sun Belt Conference. While JMU initially planned to join the Sun Belt in 2023, the move was pushed forward to 2022 after the all-sports CAA chose to enforce a provision in its bylaws stating that any school that announces its departure can be banned from the conference's postseason tournaments.[[labelnote:*]]JMU was still eligible for the 2021 CAA Football title because that league's bylaws lacked said provision. The all-sports CAA has since changed its bylaws on this point, no longer banning departing members from its conference tournaments.[[/labelnote]] The CAA reloaded shortly thereafter, bringing football member Stony Brook into the all-sports league and also poaching Campbell, Hampton, Monmouth, and North Carolina A&T for both sides of the league and Bryant for football only to expand its football membership to 13 effective in 2022, 15 in 2023, and 16 in 2024. (A&T joined the all-sports CAA in 2022 but didn't join for football until 2023.) That said, reports have emerged that Delaware will start a transition to FBS in 2024 and join Conference USA in 2025, though it's not official yet.

Depending on definitions, CAA Football member Villanova (otherwise a Big East member) has a claim to the most NCAA D-I team titles of any FCS school, with 21 in all,[[note]]13 in cross country (9 women's, 4 men's), 4 in men's track & field (3 indoor, 1 outdoor), 3 in men's basketball, and one FCS title in 2009.[[/note]] though Yale has a separate claim to this honor.[[note]]The NCAA credits Yale with 29 titles in all, surpassing Nova. However, only 9 of these were actually awarded by the NCAA. The other 20 are men's golf titles awarded by the National Intercollegiate Golf Association before the NCAA launched its own men's golf championship in 1939. The NCAA recognizes pre-1939 NIGA titles as its own.[[/note]] The CAA suffered a significant blow in the 2021 realignment saga when James Madison, which had spent the last 20 years openly seeking an FBS move, was announced as a future member of the Sun Belt Conference. While JMU initially planned to join the Sun Belt in 2023, the move was pushed forward to 2022 after the all-sports CAA chose to enforce a provision in its bylaws stating that any school that announces its departure can be banned from the conference's postseason tournaments.[[labelnote:*]]JMU was still eligible for the 2021 CAA Football title because that league's bylaws lacked said provision.[[/labelnote]] The CAA reloaded shortly thereafter, bringing football member Stony Brook into the all-sports league and also poaching Campbell, Hampton, Monmouth, and North Carolina A&T for both sides of the league and Bryant for football only to expand its football membership to 13 effective in 2022, 15 in 2023, and 16 in 2024. (A&T joined the all-sports CAA in 2022 but didn't join for football until 2023.) That said, reports have emerged that Delaware will start a transition to FBS in 2024 and join Conference USA in 2025, though it's not official yet.

Idaho rejoined the Big Sky in 2014 (after an 18-year absence) but without its football team, which (as mentioned above) returned to the Sun Belt; however, after the Sun Belt decided to drop Idaho after 2017, the school decided to take up the Big Sky's standing invitation to return its football team to that league. The Vandals became the first team ever to voluntarily drop from FBS to FCS without extenuating circumstances.[[note]][=McNeese=] and Yale chose to take the drop when the rest of their respective conferences were bounced to I-AA in 1982.[[/note]] Southern Utah left the Big Sky in 2022 to join the WAC and its revived football league.\\\

Depending on definitions, CAA Football member Villanova (otherwise a Big East member) has a claim to the most NCAA D-I team titles of any FCS school, with 21 in all,[[note]]13 in cross country (9 women's, 4 men's), 4 in men's track & field (3 indoor, 1 outdoor), 3 in men's basketball, and one FCS title in 2009.[[/note]] though Yale has a separate claim to this honor.[[note]]The NCAA credits Yale with 29 titles in all, surpassing Nova. However, only 9 of these were actually awarded by the NCAA. The other 20 are men's golf titles awarded by the National Intercollegiate Golf Association before the NCAA launched its own men's golf championship in 1939. The NCAA recognizes pre-1939 NIGA titles as its own.[[/note]] The CAA suffered a significant blow in the 2021 realignment saga when James Madison, which had spent the last 20 years openly seeking an FBS move, was announced as a future member of the Sun Belt Conference. While JMU initially planned to join the Sun Belt in 2023, the move was pushed forward to 2022 after the all-sports CAA chose to enforce a provision in its bylaws stating that any school that announces its departure can be banned from the conference's postseason tournaments.[[labelnote:*]]JMU was still eligible for the 2021 CAA Football title because that league's bylaws lacked said provision.[[/labelnote]] The CAA reloaded shortly thereafter, bringing football member Stony Brook into the all-sports league and also poaching Campbell, Hampton, Monmouth, and North Carolina A&T for both sides of the league and Bryant for football only to expand its football membership to 13 effective in 2022, 15 in 2023, and 16 in 2024. (A&T joined the all-sports CAA in 2022 but didn't join for football until 2023.)

The only school playing as an FCS independent in 2023 is Kennesaw State, which remains in the ASUN but won't be part of the United Athletic Conference since it's starting an FBS transition in advance of its 2024 move to C-USA.

The '''University of Massachusetts Amherst''' is its state's flagship public school, located in the western half of the state (just north of [[UsefulNotes/{{Basketball}} Springfield]]) and notable for its massive library. Its football team became independent by default, being effectively kicked out of MAC football after 2015. The Minutemen had been a quite successful FCS program, even winning a national title in 1998, but had little success after moving to FBS and MAC football in 2012; they and Texas State are the only FBS programs to never play in an FBS bowl game, and Texas State is now bowl-eligible in 2023.[[note]]Technically, Jacksonville State, James Madison, and Sam Houston count as well, but being brand new to the FBS, they aren't even eligible to qualify for a bowl game until 2024, so it wouldn't be fair to include any of them unless they miss out in 2024.[[/note]] After four seasons, they left to an uncertain future, with no FBS conference in their region willing to take them in. They've become a fixture in ESPN's "Bottom 10" as "[=UMess=]" and went completely winless in a COVID-shortened 2020 season.

'''Overall Win Record:''' 518-600-38 (.465)\\

'''Overall Win Record:''' 577-632-50 (.478)\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Montana State and Sacramento State (co-champions); Sacramento State received the automatic playoff bid\\

'''Reigning champions:''' Big South: Gardner–Webb; OVC: Southeast Missouri and UT Martin (co-champions); SEMO received that conference's automatic playoff bid\\

'''Reigning champion:''' New Hampshire and William & Mary (co-champions); W&M received the automatic playoff bid\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Yale\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Howard and North Carolina Central (co-champions); NC Central received the Celebration Bowl berth\\

'''Reigning champion:''' South Dakota State (has clinched at least a share of the 2023 title, and assured of the autobid)\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Saint Francis\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Holy Cross\\

'''Reigning champion:''' St. Thomas; Davidson received the automatic playoff bid[[note]]St. Thomas is ineligible for the playoffs until completing its D-I transition in 2025.[[/note]]\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Furman (has clinched the 2023 title outright)\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Nicholls (has clinched at least a share of the 2023 title, and assured of the autobid)\\

'''Reigning champion:''' Jackson State\\

'''Reigning champions:''' Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, and Eastern Kentucky (ASUN co-champions); Abilene Christian and Stephen F. Austin (WAC co-champions); EKU received the shared ASUN–WAC automatic playoff bid\\

Founded in 1986 as the football-only Colonial League, it became the '''[[PatrioticFervor Patriot League]]''' in 1990 when it added other sports. Basically an "Ivy League Lite"—its members are relatively small[[note]]only Boston University, which no longer has a football team, has over 10,000 undergrads[[/note]], academically strong schools, though not quite at the Ivy level. The league was actually founded to give the Ivies a chance to fill out their football schedules with schools that shared their academic focus. The conference did not allow athletic scholarships at all until permitting them for basketball in 1996 (allegedly to keep Holy Cross from jumping ship). Scholarships were extended to all non-football sports in 2001, but football scholarships were not allowed until 2013[[note]]Fordham actually started giving them out in 2010, which created the scenario where they were still a member of the league but were ineligible for the league title and their opponents' games against them didn't count towards their league records. Once the other schools started giving them out, they were eligible once again and won the title in 2014.[[/note]], and Georgetown still doesn't award football scholarships. Unlike the Ivies, the Patriot League participates in the FCS postseason. The league has only reached the championship game once: Colgate in 2003. They lost [[CurbStompBattle 40–0]] to Delaware.[[note]]Before the league was formed, Lehigh played in the 1979 championship game, losing 30–7 to Eastern Kentucky.[[/note]] It's also home to the most-played and longest continuous rivalry in all of college football, namely Lafayette–Lehigh. The Leopards and Mountain Hawks played their 158th game in 2022, and have played at least once in each season since 1897.[[note]]From their first matchup in 1884 to 1901, they played twice in each season except in 1891, when they played ''three'' times, and 1896, when they didn't play at all. They didn't play in calendar 2020 thanks to COVID-19, but played during the Patriot League's rescheduled spring 2021 season.[[/note]]\\\

Formed in 1970, the '''Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)''' is a conference of HBCU institutions. Like the MAC and Sun Belt in FBS, its colleges are often scheduled as easy wins. Savannah State, in particular, was criticized for regularly agreeing to play in vastly one-sided games against powerhouse schools, where they inevitably [[CurbStompBattle lost by over 70 or 80 points]] before dropping back to D-II in 2019. Due to a distinct lack of success in the FCS playoffs (no national championships[[note]]Florida A&M was an independent when it won the 1978 title[[/note]] and just 5 playoff wins total), it decided in 2015 to not participate in the playoffs[[note]]Kind of. If a non-champion is good enough, they enter the FCS playoffs as an at-large selection, like North Carolina A&T in 2017.[[/note]] (for the second time in the FCS era), opting instead for the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta, pairing its champion and the SWAC (below) champion (the MEAC and SWAC champs had previously squared off in the Heritage Bowl from 1991-99). On a happier note, the MEAC was involved in the biggest point-spread upset in NCAA football history in 2017, which happened, appropriately enough, in UsefulNotes/LasVegas, when Howard, a 45-point underdog, beat UNLV 43–40.\\\

Two full MEAC members, Coppin State and Maryland Eastern Shore, don't play football. Since 2017, five football schools have left the conference—Hampton for the Big South in 2018; Savannah State for D-II in 2019 (after having only upgraded from D-II in 2010); and three schools in 2021, with Bethune–Cookman and Florida A&M leaving for the SWAC and North Carolina A&T for the Big South. Needless to say, these moves raised serious questions about the future of MEAC football. Reportedly they've had talks with some possible D-II upgraders.[[note]]Specifically HBCU schools Kentucky State and Virginia State, though one rumor is that they've also contacted some D-II PWI (primarily White institutions) schools.[[/note]] Howard had all-sport membership offers from the CAA and NEC in 2022, but turned both conferences down, while Chicago State, a non-football school (though the school has launched a fundraising campaign that could possibly have it fielding a football team in 2025)[[note]]CSU isn't an HBCU school, but it's long had a Black-majority student body and is part of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund[[/note]] currently without a conference, offered themselves up as a member but got voted down by the league's chancellors. Also in 2022 the MEAC announced an agreement with the NEC to place MEAC schools as associate NEC members in three sports (baseball and men's and women's golf) that the MEAC doesn't sponsor, leading to speculation that it might be the first step toward a full merger of the leagues; watch this space.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1200px_ivy_league_logosvg.png]]

'''Reigning champion:''' Incarnate Word and Southeastern Louisiana (co-champions); Southeastern Louisiana received the automatic playoff bid\\

The '''University of Notre Dame''' is the most famous Catholic university in the country, in no small part because it hosts the most famous remaining football independent and arguably the best-known program in the nation, notably being featured in high-profile sports {{biopic}}s like ''Film/KnuteRockneAllAmerican'' and ''Film/{{Rudy}}''. Notre Dame itself features some of the most distinctive iconography in sports, from the oldest marching band in the nation to the giant mural of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesburgh_Library Jesus signaling a touchdown]] that overlooks the stadium from across campus to the fanbase that makes every game day [[{{Oireland}} look like St. Patrick's Day]]. It is a common joke (with a ring of truth to it) that certain American Catholics hold greater reverence for the Fighting Irish's polished golden helmets than any other aspect of their faith. The program's national following was built over decades of football success, including having produced seven Heisman winners and more [[FlawlessVictory undefeated seasons]] (11),[[note]]Technically, a few other schools could claim to have equaled or surpassed this tally, but only by counting 19th century seasons where they played only a handful of games.[[/note]] College Hall of Fame players (48), consensus All-Americans (105), and NFL draft picks (522) than any other college program as of 2022. The Irish are also second to their longtime rival USC in producing Pro Hall of Famers (12[[note]]The Pro Hall counts Notre Dame with 13 alumni, but one of them was longtime San Francisco 49ers owner Ed [=DeBartolo=] Jr., a Notre Dame alum who didn't play football and was inducted as an owner.[[/note]] to the Trojans' 14).\\\

See UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootballPower5Conferences. For Notre Dame, which is a non-football member of the Power Five Atlantic Coast Conference, see the "FBS Independents" folder.

The "Black Knights" nickname was only officially adopted in 1999, in reference of their black uniforms; prior to that, they had just been known as [[ShapedLikeItself the Cadets]], and their mascot is a mule. Army is a member of the Patriot League (see FCS section below) for (most) non-football sports, as is Navy; outside of football, the academy is known for its very competitive lacrosse team, which won eight pre-NCAA national titles. Outside of a relatively brief membership with C-USA, Army has been a football independent through all of its history and is the only service academy that is still unaffiliated. It won't be for long; it is set to join Navy as a football-only American member in 2024.\\\

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uconn.png]]

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/CollegiateAmericanFootballPower5Conferences their dedicated page]].

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:American Athletic Conference ("The American")]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_american.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' ''Charlotte'', ''East Carolina'', ''Florida Atlantic'', ''Memphis'', Navy (football only), ''North Texas'', Rice, SMU, South Florida, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, UTSA\\
'''Departing schools:''' SMU (2024)\\
'''Arriving schools:''' Army (2024, football only)\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Michael Aresco\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Tulane\\
'''Website:''' [[https://theamerican.org theamerican.org]]

The '''American Athletic Conference''' (or just '''AAC''' or '''The American''' to avoid confusion with the ACC) was known as the Big East Conference before 2013. The Big East began life as a basketball conference and is more known for that sport rather than football, but the membership of national title contender Miami and other string programs like Virginia Tech and Boston College made it a power in the '90s and an AQ conference in the BCS era. Then the ACC stole all three teams in 2004-05. The conference rebounded somewhat until the early 2010s: West Virginia left for the Big 12 in 2012; Syracuse (a founding member) and Pittsburgh left for the ACC in 2013, as did non-football member Notre Dame; the next year, Louisville left for the ACC, and Rutgers left for the Big Ten. The seven non-FBS schools also [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere left at that time]], buying the "Big East" name (it fits the basketball schools much better than the expanded football footprint).\\\

The handful of teams left over adopted the "American" name, and while they were granted an AQ berth in the last year of the BCS system, they were essentially "relegated" down to the second-tier of FBS, forming the current Power/Group of Five dynamic. However, the conference has done a good job of rebuilding ever since, with their champion frequently sitting as the highest ranked Group of Five team at the end of the season. Temple joined for football in 2012 and all other sports in 2013; Houston, Memphis, SMU, and UCF also joined in '13; and East Carolina, Tulane, and Tulsa joined in '14. Navy joined for football only in '15, allowing the league to launch a football championship game.\\\

[=UConn=] left in 2020 to join the reconfigured Big East (with football becoming an FBS independent) and three of the conference's most high-profile programs—Cincinnati, UCF, and Houston—left for the Big 12 in 2023. Shortly after those schools' departure was announced in 2021, The American launched a massive raid of Conference USA (the ''third'' by The American or the original Big East), with six of that league's 14 members (Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, UTSA) making the move in 2023. This brought The American to 14 members in both football (with Navy as a football-only member) and non-football sports (with Wichita State as a full member without football). SMU will leave for the ACC in 2024, with Army (yet ''another'' former C-USA member, though only in football) set to take its place in football, joining its fellow service academy as a football-only member.

%% !!!Charlotte 49ers
%% [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/charlotte_51.png]]
%% ->'''Location:''' Charlotte, NC\\
%% '''School Established:''' 1946\\
%% '''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1946-48)[[note]]Did not field a football program from 1948-2012.[[/note]], FCS Ind. (2013-14), C-USA (2015-22), American (2023-)\\
%% '''Overall Win Record:''' 45–92 (.328)\\
%% '''Bowl Record:''' 0–1 (.000)\\
%% '''Colors:''' Green and white\\
%% '''Stadium:''' Jerry Richardson Stadium (capacity 15,314)\\
%% '''Current Head Coach:''' Biff Poggi\\
%% '''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Brad Lambert, Will Healy\\
%% '''Notable Historic Players:''' \\
%% '''National Championships:''' 0\\
%% '''Conference Championships:''' 0

%% !!!East Carolina Pirates
%% [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/east_carolina.png]]
%% ->'''Location:''' Greenville, NC\\
%% '''School Established:''' 1907\\
%% '''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1932-46, 1962-64, 1977-96), North State (1947–61), SoCon (1965-76), C-USA (1997-2013), American (2014-)\\
%% '''Overall Win Record:''' 449–435–11 (.508)\\
%% '''Bowl Record:''' 10–11 (.476)\\
%% '''Colors:''' Purple and gold\\
%% '''Stadium:''' Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium (capacity 51,000)\\
%% '''Current Head Coach:''' Mike Houston\\
%% '''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Clarence Stasavich, Pat Dye, Bill Lewis, Steve Logan, Skip Holtz, Ruffin McNeill\\
%% '''Notable Historic Players:''' David Garrard, Chris Johnson, Justin Hardy, Zay Jones, Dwayne Harris\\
%% '''National Championships:''' 0\\
%% '''Conference Championships:''' 7 (1976, 1991-92, 1994-95, 2008-09)

!!!Navy Midshipmen
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/navy_7.png]]
->'''Location:''' Annapolis, MD\\
'''School Established:''' 1845\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1879-2014), American (2015-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 733-593-57 (.551)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 12–11–1 (.521)\\
'''Colors:''' Navy blue and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium (capacity 34,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Brian Newberry\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Gil Dobie, George Welsh, Paul Johnson, Ken Niumatololo\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Joseph "Bull" Reeves, Ed Sprinkle, Clyde Scott, George Welsh, Frank Gansz, Joe Bellino, Roger Staubach, Napoleon [=McCallum=], Keenan Reynolds, Malcolm Perry\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 (1926)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 0[[note]]Won five Lambert Trophies for "Best Team in the East" as an independent (1943, 1954, 1957, 1960, 1963)[[/note]]

The '''United States Naval Academy''''s football team is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin; its athletes are all officers-in-training that hold the rank of midshipmen. Like its {{interservice rival|ry}} Army, Navy has a very old and decorated football history, in part because one of its multiple stringent requirements for recruits is athletic participation. Navy football used to be a strong program, even winning a national title in 1926, before the allure of pro football careers greatly weakened its recruiting power. The school's performance plummeted in the mid-1960s, shortly after the team produced two Heisman winners, HB Joe Bellino and QB Roger Staubach, who both had to serve in Vietnam before they could begin playing for the NFL. After underperforming for several decades, the program returned to winning in the 21st century, helped by the record-setting rushing offenses of Paul Johnson and Ken Niumatololo, particularly when led by dual-threat QB Keenan Reynolds (2012-15). After well over a century as an independent, Navy joined The American in 2015; however, the program's main priority year in-and-out remains defeating Army in the final game of the season.\\\

A live goat named Bill is used as the team mascot. Bill's been a regular target of kidnappings by Army cadets, who have a slightly higher success rate then many other schools due to the nature of their schooling but face much steeper potential costs, since Bill is technically the property of the most powerful military on Earth. Outside of their fellow military academies, Navy maintains strong rivalries with Notre Dame and nearby Maryland. Navy's non-football sports mainly play in the FCS Patriot League, also home to Army.

%% !!!North Texas Mean Green
%% [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/north_texas.png]]
%% ->'''Location:''' Denton, TX\\
%% '''School Established:''' 1890\\
%% '''Conference Affiliations:''' Lone Star (1932-1947), GCC (1948-1956), MVC (1957-1974), SLC (1975-1995), BWC (1996-2000), Sun Belt (2001-2012), C-USA (2013-2023), American (2023-)\\
%% '''Overall Win Record:''' 524–516–33 (.504)\\
%% '''Bowl Record:''' 3–10 (.231)\\
%% '''Colors:''' Green and white\\
%% '''Stadium:''' DATCU Stadium (capacity 30,850)\\
%% '''Current Head Coach:''' Eric Morris\\
%% '''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Odus Mitchell, Hayden Fry, Darrell Dickey\\
%% '''Notable Historic Players:''' "Mean" Joe Greene, Patrick Cobbs, Lance Dunbar, Mason Fine, Abner Haynes\\
%% '''National Championships:''' 0\\
%% '''Conference Championships:''' 24 (8 Lone Star - 1932, 1935-36, 1939-41, 1946-47; 5 Gulf Coast - 1950-52, 1955-56; 2 Missouri Valley - 1958-59; 1 Southland - 1983; 4 Sun Belt - 2001-04)

!!!Rice Owls
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rice_9.png]]
->'''Location:''' Houston, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1912[[note]]As "[[OverlyLongName William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art]]" (short form Rice Institute), became "William Marsh Rice University" in 1960[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1912-14), SWC (1915-96), WAC (1996-2004), C-USA (2005-22), American (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 486-645-32 (.432)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7-6 (.538)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and gray\\
'''Stadium:''' Rice Stadium (capacity 47,000, can be expanded to 59,000, once held 68,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Mike Bloomgren\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' John Heisman, Jess Neely, Bill Peterson, Todd Graham\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Tobin Rote, Billy Howton, King Hill, Frank Ryan, Tommy Kramer, Jarett Dillard\\

'''Conference Championships:''' 8 (7 SWC - 1934, 1937, 1946, 1949, 1953, 1957, 1994; 1 C-USA – 2013)

'''Rice University''' is one of the most prestigious private universities in the U.S., but its football team has not been nearly as competitive on the gridiron for several decades. A charter member of the Southwest Conference, the Owls were very competitive in the region for several decades under the long tenure of Hall of Fame coach Jess Neely (1940-66), including being involved in one of the most memorable games in college football history, a defeat of Alabama in which one of the Tide ran off the bench to tackle a Rice player mid-play. However, the small and highly academically selective school (smallest by admissions of any FBS school save for Tulsa) was unable to keep pace with the other powers of the SWC as the sport evolved, and it failed to post a winning season from 1964-91, including going completely winless in '82 and '88. The SWC dissolved shortly after Rice finally broke this streak; the underperforming program was understandably not brought along to the Big 12, and while it has performed relatively better since landing in C-USA, it is still nowhere close to the power it once held. It's one of the six schools that left C-USA in 2023 for The American—ironically, at the same time its crosstown rival Houston left The American for the Big 12.\\\

Despite not being very good at football for a long time, Rice still had major influence on the sport and even American culture in a few respects. Built near the heart of downtown Houston before the city had a big enough population to support a pro sports team, the school at one point had aspirations for being as big a deal in Houston as the Texas Longhorns had become in Austin. In 1950, they built the massive Rice Stadium on-campus, which served as the biggest venue in the city in the decades before the construction of the Astrodome. The stadium famously was where UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy delivered his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech, where he compared the challenges of space travel to Rice facing Texas in football, and it even hosted Super Bowl VIII, one of just three college venues to do so. However, the construction of new venues in Houston (including one by UH) and the steep decline of the program has caused the facility to fall into an increased state of disrepair; the upper deck has been off-limits for years, and even then sellouts are rare.

!!!SMU Mustangs
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smu.png]]
->'''Location:''' [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex University Park, TX]][[note]]a separate city contained within the Dallas city limits; all locations in University Park have a Dallas mailing address[[/note]]\\
'''School Established:''' 1911\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' TIAA (1915-17), SWC (1918-95)[[note]]Did not play in 1987-88.[[/note]], WAC (1996-2004), C-USA (2005-12), American (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 526-566-54 (.482)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7-10-1 (.417)\\
'''Colors:''' Red and blue\\
'''Stadium:''' Gerald J. Ford Stadium (capacity 32,000)[[note]]Not ''that'' UsefulNotes/GeraldFord; the President's middle name was Rudolph. Also, the stadium namesake often goes by "Gerry".[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Rhett Lashlee\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Hayden Fry, Bobby Collins, June Jones, Forrest Gregg\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Doak Walker, Kyle Rote, Raymond Berry, Forrest Gregg, Don Meredith, Eric Dickerson, David Stanley, Sean Stopperich, Josh [=McCown=], Trey Quinn\\
'''National Championships:''' 3 (1935, 1981-82)[[note]]The '80s titles were both granted by a single selector due to the school being under probation for recruiting violations.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 11, all in the SWC (1923, 1926, 1931, 1935, 1940, 1947-48, 1966, 1981-82, 1984)

'''Southern Methodist University''' was founded as the flagship university of the Methodist church's southern branch, though it filed to split from the formal control of the church in 2019.[[note]]Internal schisms in the church led many to fear that more conservative leadership would arise and seek to enforce their beliefs, particularly anti-LGBTQ+ ones, on the long-nonsectarian school.[[/note]] The Dallas-based school is otherwise most famous for being the home of the UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush presidential center and for its unique football history. The Mustangs were once a powerhouse, notably claiming a national title in 1935, producing Heisman-winning back Doak Walker in 1948, and claiming another two titles in the early '80s under coaches Ron Meyer and Bobby Collins. However, SMU fell to near irrelevance almost immediately after those dominant seasons thanks to the infamous "death penalty" issued in 1987. For the first and only time in its history, the NCAA decided to terminate the SMU football program after it was discovered that the school had been paying the players on its national-title contending team out of a slush fund while under probation for other issues. The program was barred from all play in 1987 and from home games in 1988, but the school decided not to play at all in the latter season due to inability to field a remotely competitive team. The Mustangs immediately plummeted to the college football basement when they returned thanks to the heavy sanctions, and they spent decades struggling to even get above the .500 mark. SMU managed its first 10-win season in over 30 years in 2019.\\\

For most of its history, SMU played in the Cotton Bowl (aka "The House That Doak Built") across town. After playing there for over forty years, the Mustangs moved into the Dallas Cowboys' stadium in 1978, just in time for their run of remarkable success; their equally remarkable fall from grace forced them to return to their much smaller on-campus stadium and the increasingly outdated Cotton Bowl before building their current home in 2000.[[note]]Like Houston did a decade-plus later, SMU tore down its on-campus stadium to build its current one.[[/note]] The consequences of the penalty ensured that SMU was left behind after the dissolution of the SWC. The school has been constantly campaigning to rejoin their former conference mates, only to be left out of the Big 12 during each realignment. This has been incredibly frustrating, as the Mustangs first had to watch hated crosstown rival TCU and geographically distant West Virginia join in 2012, then saw three fellow members of their own conference (including Houston) successfully apply in 2021. For a short time in 2023, SMU was heavily linked with a move to the Pac-12, which had been rocked by the impending departure of mainstays UCLA and USC for the Big Ten. However, with the Pac on the verge of folding entirely, that came off the table... only for SMU to become linked with a move to the ACC. SMU's ridiculously wealthy alumni base allowed the school to make the ACC an offer that eventually proved too good to pass up—SMU will not take any ACC media revenue for its first ''nine years'' of conference membership.[[note]]In summer 2023, the school's AD, president, and board chairman (the last being a billionaire in his own right and also a major booster) convinced a group of 12 major boosters [[https://sports.yahoo.com/inside-smus-pursuit-of-the-power-five--its-a-couple-hundred-million-dollars-im-not-losing-sleep-over-it-125139541.html to fill most, if not all, of the gap]] left by not taking conference media revenue. The room, which included two scions of the wealthy Hunt family (Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark and his uncle Ray) and SMU's stadium namesake Gerry Ford, had a combined net worth of more than $15 billion.[[/note]] This was enough for the ACC to give the Mustangs their long-sought power conference invite effective in 2024.

!!!South Florida Bulls
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/usf.png]]
->'''Location:''' Tampa, FL\\
'''School Established:''' 1956\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1997-2002), C-USA (2003-04), Big East (2005-12), American (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 161-148 (.521)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6-4 (.600)\\
'''Colors:''' Green and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Raymond James Stadium (capacity 65,890)[[note]]Shared with the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Alex Golesh\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Skip Holtz\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Bill Gramática\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 0

Like its greatest rival UCF, the '''University of South Florida''' (aka USF) has a young football program that saw a rapid rise through the conference ranks thanks in part to its massive growth in student population.[[note]]The university has also greatly bolstered its academic reputation; in 2023, it became a member of the Association of American Universities, an elite organization of top research universities (69 in the US, two in Canada).[[/note]] Founded in 1997 as a Division I-AA program, the school made the leap to I-A in 2001 and soon developed a reputation for upsetting ranked schools; a string of such upsets in 2007 saw the school go all the way to #2 in the mid-season rankings before quickly falling back to Earth. The team has been mostly decent but inconsistent ever since. The Bulls play out of the NFL Buccaneers' stadium, and light up their distinctive mushroom-shaped water tower bright green after every victory. They may not be long for sharing with the Bucs; the USF board has approved a preliminary budget for a new on-campus 35,000-seat stadium that's penciled in for 2026, though the final costs won't be set until some time in 2024, before which time USF can back out without penalty.

!!!Temple Owls
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/temple_0.png]]
->'''Location:''' UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}, PA\\
'''School Established:''' 1884[[note]]As a night school based out of Grace Baptist Church; chartered as "The Temple College of Philadelphia" in 1888, accredited and took current name in 1907[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1894-1959, 1970-90, 2005-06),[[note]]Did not play in 1906 or 1918-21[[/note]] Middle Atlantic Conference (1960-69), Big East (1991-2004, 2012), Mid-American Conference (2007-11), American (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 485-614-52 (.444)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 3-6 (.333)\\
'''Colors:''' Cherry and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Lincoln Financial Field (capacity: 68,532)[[note]]Shared with the Philadelphia Eagles[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Rod Carey\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pop Warner, Bruce Arians, Matt Rhule\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Creator/BillCosby, Joe Klecko, Paul Palmer, P.J. Walker\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 2 (Middle Atlantic Conference - 1967, American - 2016)

'''Temple University''' is an urban school in Philadelphia best known for its basketball program, one of the winningest in the nation that last won a national title [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut in 1938, the year before the NCAA Tournament began]]. Its football program has been a historic underperformer most known as the last HC stop for Pop Warner and a springboard for a few other coaches to go on to bigger and better things. In many ways, the football program has been a massive hindrance for Temple; it was booted from the Big East in 2004 due to the team's poor performance, was brought back in during the conference's disintegration in 2012, then was forced to join The American rather than the basketball-oriented Big East due to still having the football team few people wanted. The team managed to see a resurgence in the mid-2010s with a few ranked appearances before its coaching staff was mostly drained by other programs. The Owls (named as a reference to the school's history as a night school) have shared the field of the NFL's Eagles since the '70s. Incidentally, Temple is the only full football-playing American Conference member to have never been in Conference USA.[[note]]The same is true for football-only member Navy and non-football full member Wichita State.[[/note]]

!!!Tulane Green Wave
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tulane.png]]
->'''Location:''' UsefulNotes/NewOrleans, LA\\
'''School Established:''' 1834[[note]]As a state school, "Medical College of Louisiana" and later just "University of Louisiana". Closed during the Civil War and was later essentially bought out by Paul Tulane in 1884, becoming one of the few state schools to go private. Since privatization, its formal name has been "Tulane University of Louisiana".[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1893-94, 1966-95), SIAA (1895-1921), [=SoCon=] (1922-32), SEC (1933-65), C-USA (1996-2013), American (2014-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 553-671-38 (.453)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7-8 (.467)\\
'''Colors:''' Olive green and sky blue\\
'''Stadium:''' Yulman Stadium (30,000 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Willie Fritz\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Clark Shaughnessy, Mack Brown, Buddy Teevens, Tommy Bowden\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Eddie Murray, Shaun King, J.P. Losman\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (1 SIAA - 1920; 4 [=SoCon=] - 1925, 1929-31; 3 SEC - 1934, 1939, 1949; 1 C-USA - 1998, 1 American – 2022)

'''Tulane University''' is an old urban private school in New Orleans, initially founded as a state school prior to being privatized in the late nineteenth century. Its football program used to be competitive with the big teams in the South, but the administration chose to deemphasize athletics in the mid-1950s, and left the SEC after the 1965 season. Tulane's final school year in the SEC did see the Green Wave integrate the conference, but in baseball instead of football—Stephen Martin walked onto the baseball team in 1966, becoming the first African American to play any SEC sport.[[note]]The first black SEC football and men's basketball players arrived on campus later in 1966, respectively at Kentucky and Vanderbilt. However, under then-current NCAA rules they weren't eligible for varsity sports until 1967–68, and while each school brought in two black players, only one integrated his program. See the Kentucky Wildcats description in the "Power 5" page for more details.[[/note]] The team has been a bottom-feeder since this deemphasis, save for a completely unexpected undefeated run under Tommy Bowden in 1998 that landed him the job in Clemson the next year and an equally unexpected conference championship in 2022. The latter season marked arguably the greatest single-season turnaround in college football history, as the Green Wave finished the prior year 2–10 and ended 2022 12–2 after beating USC and its Heisman winner in the Cotton Bowl.\\\

Besides that, the school was most notable for its on-campus stadium, a venue that was the birthplace/longtime home of the Sugar Bowl and hosted three Super Bowls and the New Orleans Saints in that team's early years. The aging stadium was condemned in 1974, the year the Saints' Superdome opened; the Wave moved in and played there for decades (except in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans[[note]]Like the Saints, the Green Wave were forced to play elsewhere that year; however, unlike the Saints, which split their home schedule between Baton Rouge and San Antonio after playing their first "home" game in New Jersey, the Green Wave played six "home" games in five different stadiums across Louisiana and one in Alabama[[/note]]) before the Saints' owners helped pay for the construction of a new stadium in 2014; the playing surface is known as Benson Field, after late owner Tom Benson and his widow and current owner Gayle. Their mascot and logo is a literal anthropomorphic green tidal wave with an adorable angry face nicknamed WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}}.

!!!Tulsa Golden Hurricane
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tulsa.png]]
->'''Location:''' Tulsa, OK\\
'''School Established:''' 1892[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, though unlike most schools that push back their founding dates, they go with a ''later'' one—specifically when the "Presbyterian School for Girls", located in Muskogee and founded in 1882, added a college department known as "Henry Kendall College". The school relocated to Tulsa in 1907. In 1918, the Methodist Church sought to open its own [=McFarlin=] College in Tulsa, but when it became clear that Tulsa then couldn't support two competing colleges, the Methodists agreed to merge their proposed college into Kendall College in 1920, with the merged school taking the current name.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1895-1913, 1986-95),[[note]]From 1903–07, only played in 1905; also didn't play in 1911.[[/note]] OCC[[labelnote:*]]Oklahoma Collegiate Conference, which existed from 1929-73[[/labelnote]] (1914-28), Big Four[[labelnote:*]]a short-lived Oklahoma-centric league not related to the Big Eight or Big 12[[/labelnote]] (1929-32), MVC (1935-85), WAC (1996-2004), C-USA (2005-13), American (2014-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 643-526-27 (.549)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 10-13 (.435)\\
'''Colors:''' Old gold, royal blue, and crimson\\
'''Stadium:''' Skelly Field at H. A. Chapman Stadium (capacity 30,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kevin Wilson\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Francis Schmidt, Glenn Dobbs, John Cooper, Todd Graham\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Tommy Thompson, Glenn Dobbs, Hardy Brown, Jerry Rhome, Billy Anderson, Howard Twilley, Bob St. Clair, Jim Finks, [[Series/DrPhil Phil McGraw]], Drew Pearson, Steve Largent, Dennis Byrd, Gus Frerotte\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 35 (5 OCC - 1916, 1919-20, 1922, 1925; 3 Big Four - 1929-30, 1932; 25 MVC - 1935-38, 1940-43, 1946-47, 1950-51, 1962, 1965-66, 1973-76, 1980-85; 2 C-USA - 2005, 2012)

The '''University of Tulsa''' is probably most notable for having the smallest undergraduate enrollment of any FBS school, with slightly less than 3,200 at last count. Despite that fact, they've become the QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to their cash cow instate counterparts Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Their peak came in TheForties, when they played in five consecutive New Year's Day bowls and achieved a #4 final ranking in 1942. Their star player in that era, Glenn Dobbs, returned to the school as AD and HC immediately after his pro career and the year after his former team went completely winless; he devised an offense that shattered NCAA passing records in the '60s. The program further served as the launch pad for John Cooper's career in the late '70s and early '80s. They've mostly underperformed since then, though they rode an era of strength in the 2000s to jump to C-USA.\\\

Why is a team on the Oklahoma prairie called the Golden Hurricane? They originally had the more climatologically appropriate nickname of the Golden Tornadoes, but when they found out that Georgia Tech [[TheyStoleOurAct sometimes used that name as well]], they switched to a more tropical storm.

!!!UAB Blazers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uab.png]]
->'''Location:''' Birmingham, AL\\
'''School Established:''' 1969[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, when it became an autonomous university within the newly formed University of Alabama system. However, UAB's roots date to 1936, when the University of Alabama (as in Tuscaloosa) established its "Birmingham Extension Center". In 1966, the BEC became the "University of Alabama College of General Studies"; two months later UA merged the CGS with its medical school, which had moved from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham in 1945, to create the "University of Alabama in Birmingham". The current formal name was adopted in 1984, when the preposition "in" was replaced with "at".[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1991-98), C-USA (1999-2022)[[note]]Did not play in 2015-16.[[/note]], American (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 168-179-2 (.484)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 3–3 (.500)\\
'''Colors:''' Forest green and old gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Protective Stadium (capacity 47,100)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueNotoriousFigures Trent Dilfer]]\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Watson Brown, Bill Clark\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Music/SamHunt\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 2 (C-USA – 2018, 2020)

The '''University of Alabama at Birmingham''' is one of the youngest institutions in Division I sports, having only started its athletics program in 1978. When it comes to football, it's most notable for its tumultuous recent history, which saw the program fold, unexpectedly come back to life, and experience even more unexpected success after its return. UAB initially focused on men's basketball and began football on the D-III level in 1991. UAB was one of a group of schools that was forcibly reclassified as I-AA (now FCS) when the NCAA ruled that D-I members had to play all sports at that level (for more details, see the Pioneer Football League in the FCS section). Deciding that if they had to be D-I, they might as well operate fully-funded, they moved to I-A (now FBS) in 1996, the year after they became a C-USA charter member, though they wouldn't play C-USA football until 1999. Up into the 2010s, they were generally mediocre, with only one bowl appearance (a loss to Hawaii in the 2004 Hawaii Bowl).\\\

UAB had one ''huge'' factor holding it back: its governance. UAB's president reports to the UA system's governing board... which, historically, has been packed with members that (allegedly) put Tuscaloosa first.[[note]]Among them being one Paul Bryant Jr., as in The Bear's son.[[/note]] The system board opposed UAB adding football in the first place and threatened to shut the program down in 2002. Four years later, it blocked UAB's planned hire of Jimbo Fisher as its new head coach before he went on to great success at other institutions. Still later, it killed a planned project to add new practice turf ''that a donor had fully funded'', and never acted on a plan to build a new practice facility. Some of its members went so far to publicly hint that UAB shouldn't have an athletic program ''at all''. UAB's home of Legion Field was one of the South's most storied stadiums but was increasingly decrepit and was too large for the program, even after the third deck was closed for safety reasons. The system board killed a plan to build a new stadium. All this culminated in a financial review, commissioned in 2013 and published in 2014, that concluded that football was a drain on UAB and should be shut down. The numbers in said report were shady at best and closer to BlatantLies, but UAB's president nonetheless shut the program down in a move that was widely seen as motivated by in-state politics. This in turn led to a firestorm of criticism in both traditional and social media, along with a massively successful fundraising drive that led to the reinstatement of football shortly thereafter; the Blazers started play again in 2017. [[https://www.underdogdynasty.com/uab-blazers/2015/4/7/8210575/uab-spring-football-preview-part-one-the-history See]] [[https://www.underdogdynasty.com/2015/4/8/8207655/uab-spring-game-preview-part-two these]] [[https://www.underdogdynasty.com/2015/4/9/8207661/uab-spring-game-preview-part-three articles]] [[https://www.underdogdynasty.com/2015/5/7/8496321/uab-football-the-machine-alabama-board-of-trustees-paul-bryant for the]] [[https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/6/2/8702385/uab-football-return whole sordid story]]; ''all'' of them are worth a look.\\\

The return of UAB football has been one of college football's biggest feel-good stories of recent years, with the Blazers qualifying for bowl games every season since their return (though COVID-19 scrapped their planned 2020 bowl game) and winning C-USA titles in 2018 and 2020. Equally significantly, the political pressure on the UA system board led them to let the Blazers move into a new (and smaller) city-owned stadium on the grounds of the downtown convention center that opened in October 2021. Later that month, UAB was announced as one of the six C-USA members moving to The American in 2023. However, they made their move without the coach responsible for their recent rise—Bill Clark, who came to UAB in 2014 and oversaw their so-far-triumphant return from the dead, retired shortly before the 2022 season due to a deteriorating back.

!!!UTSA Roadrunners
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/utsa.png]]
->'''Location:''' San Antonio, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1969[[note]]While the school was formally established at that time, it did not start classes until 1973, and only with graduate students. The first undergraduates (juniors and seniors) were not admitted until 1975, and freshmen were not admitted until 1976.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' FCS Ind. (2011), WAC (2012), C-USA (2013–22), The American (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 75–71 (.513)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 0–4 (.000)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue, orange, and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Alamodome (capacity 36,582)[[note]]Standard capacity for UTSA games; expandable to 64,000 if needed.[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jeff Traylor\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Larry Coker\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Frank Harris\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 2 (C-USA – 2021-22)

The '''University of Texas at San Antonio''' makes for an interesting contrast with UAB, given that both schools were (formally) founded in 1969 as secondary campuses of university systems featuring historic football superpowers and left C-USA for The American in 2023. However, unlike UAB, UTSA was founded completely from scratch and has had nothing approaching the tumultuous football history of its Alabama counterpart.\\\

With its location in one of the largest cities of its football-crazed state, and also one with no direct competition from a pro or major-college team,[[note]]the city's only major pro team ''in any sport'' is the [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation Spurs]][[/note]] it made its first moves toward a program in the late 2000s, eventually starting up in 2011. The early-2010s conference realignment and access to a stadium that had originally been built for pro football opened the door for them to play their first season as an FCS independent, move to the WAC for its second transitional season, and join C-USA when the WAC's football side imploded. The Roadrunners were able to attract Larry Coker of Miami Hurricanes fame as their first HC. Their first-ever game drew 56,743, the highest attendance ever for an NCAA team's first game, and they averaged 35,521 in their first season, also a record for a startup college football team. The Roadrunners soldiered on as a decent but inconsistent team until the arrival of current coach Jeff Traylor sparked a rapid ascent, with a breakout 2021 season much like that of Coastal Carolina a year prior but with memes more focused on [[WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadRunner the mascot]] than mullets. The Roadrunners head to The American off consecutive C-USA titles... though of the four FBS teams to have appeared in at least one bowl game without a win, they have played in the most such games.[[note]]Four for UTSA, three for South Alabama, one each for Charlotte and Louisiana–Monroe.[[/note]] ''Meep meep.''

[[folder:Conference USA (C-USA)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c_usa.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' FIU[[note]]Florida International[[/note]], ''Jacksonville State'', Liberty, ''Louisiana Tech'', ''Middle Tennessee'', New Mexico State, ''Sam Houston'',[[labelnote:*]]though its formal name includes "State", it dropped that word from its athletic branding in 2020[[/labelnote]] UTEP, Western Kentucky\\
'''Arriving schools:''' ''Kennesaw State'' (2024)\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Judy [=MacLeod=]\\
'''Reigning champion:''' UTSA\\
'''Website:''' [[https://conferenceusa.com conferenceusa.com]]

'''Conference USA''' (or just '''C-USA''') is one of the newer conferences, formed in 1995 by a merger of the Metro and Great Midwest Conferences, two non-football leagues; competition began immediately except in football, which started in 1996. They had been gaining some prestige as of late, throwing off the "SEC-Lite" nickname that came from the initially similar geographical footprint with the more prominent conference. However, they were raided by the then-Big East once that conference started losing members to other leagues in the early 2010s. Houston, Memphis, SMU, and UCF all left C-USA in 2013 for what would become The American. East Carolina, Tulane, and Tulsa made the same move in 2014, while Western Kentucky joined C-USA from the Sun Belt at that time. The following year, C-USA senior executive Judy [=MacLeod=] was promoted to commissioner, making her the first woman to head an FBS conference. Old Dominion, a former FCS (see below) school, joined C-USA in 2013 and joined the conference's football side in 2014; it became a full FBS member in 2015. Also becoming a full FBS member at that time was Charlotte, which began football in 2013 in the FCS.[[note]]The NCAA requires all newly created D-I football programs to play in the FCS for at least two years, even if the school is already in a FBS conference.[[/note]] As of the 2023 season, probably the highest-profile member is newcomer Liberty. In 2021, the young program of UTSA broke out and earned consecutive conference championships, though it left the conference right after the second championship (see immediately below). Also of note: Old Dominion, which left in 2022, was one of three FBS schools that didn't play in the [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID]]-affected 2020 season and the only non-independent team among them.\\\

In fall 2021, C-USA was on the brink of collapse due to massive raids by two other conferences. First, The American announced that Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA would move to that league in 2023. Soon after The American's raid, Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss accepted invitations to the Sun Belt Conference and left immediately in 2022. C-USA responded by announcing that then-current FBS independents Liberty and New Mexico State, plus FCS upgraders Jacksonville State and Sam Houston, would join in 2023, with another FCS upgrader, Atlanta-area school Kennesaw State, set to join in 2024.

!!!FIU Panthers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fiu.png]]
->'''Location:''' Miami, FL\\
'''School Established:''' 1965\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' FCS Ind. (2002-04), Sun Belt (2005-12), C-USA (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 84-162 (.341)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 2-3 (.400)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Riccardo Silva Stadium (capacity 20,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Mike [=MacIntyre=]\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Mario Cristobal, Butch Davis\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' \\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 1 in Sun Belt (2010)

The Panthers of '''Florida International University''' merit a mention on this page as currently [[MedalOfDishonor the worst FBS team]] in terms of program win record. The public university in Miami is relatively young itself, and its football program is even younger, only starting play in 2002. They fast-tracked their move to the FBS level in just three years but bottomed out with a winless 2006 season most memorable for a bench-clearing brawl against Miami. The following year, the school hired the first Cuban-American HC in D-I history, Mario Cristobal, reflecting its predominantly Cuban-American student body. Cristobal built the program up to its first winning seasons and a conference championship but was fired after a backslide. The program has been unstable and generally losing ever since, winning just one game across the 2020 and '21 seasons. Their biggest competition is the similarly named and young South Florida-based program at Florida Atlantic.

!!!Liberty Flames
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/liberty_93.png]]
->'''Location:''' Lynchburg, VA\\
'''School Established:''' 1971[[note]]as "Lynchburg Baptist College"; became "Liberty Baptist College" in 1977 and Liberty University in 1985[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (NAIA 1973–80; D-II 1981–87, I-AA 1988–2001, FBS 2018-22), Big South (2002-17), C-USA (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 286-254-4 (.529)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 3–1 (.750)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue, white, and red\\
'''Stadium:''' Williams Stadium (capacity 25,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jamey Chadwell\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Turner Gill, Hugh Freeze\\
'''Notable Historic Players:'''\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 8, all in the FCS Big South (2007–10, 2012–14, 2016)

One of the more recent additions to FBS football, and also the youngest university in FBS, '''Liberty University''' began its life in 1971 as an offshoot of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, home of divisive pastor Jerry Falwell (Sr.). The school immediately developed a reputation as a StrawmanU of the St. Jim Jonestown variety and a headquarters for the evangelical branch of conservative politics. Considerable change did come under Falwell's son and successor as president, Jerry Jr., as the university became somewhat less legalistic and dramatically grew to become the largest university in the Group of Five, and close to the largest in all of FBS... with a caveat. LU's actual on-campus enrollment is around 16,000, but it has an ''enormous'' online operation, pushing its total enrollment over 130,000 (second in FBS to Arizona State). However, the younger Falwell's tenure ended in 2020 after a particularly embarrassing sex scandal and allegations of questionable financial dealings, leaving the school in an awkward spot.\\\

As for football, Liberty joined the FBS independent ranks in 2018 after moderate success in FCS. The Flames, rumored for years to be looking at an upgrade from FCS (and also lobbying heavily for an invite from the Sun Belt), pulled the trigger on the move in 2017. The NCAA gave Liberty a waiver from its transition rules, which normally require that a school have an invitation from an FBS conference before starting the transition. 2019 was the Flames' first season as full FBS members, and they won bowls in each of their first three seasons of eligibility, joining Appalachian State as the only other school to have done so. With Conference USA having been raided to within an inch of its life in 2021, Liberty became attractive to that league, and it joined in 2023.

!!!New Mexico State Aggies
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/new_mexico_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' Las Cruces, NM\\
'''School Established:''' 1888[[note]]Founded as "Las Cruces College"; became "New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts" (aka New Mexico A&M) the next year before adopting the current name in 1960.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1893-1930, 1962-70, 2013, 2018-22), Border (1931-61), MVC (1971-82), Big West (1983-2000), Sun Belt (2001-04, 2014-17), WAC (2005-12), C-USA (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 446-665-30 (.404)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 4-0-1 (.900)\\
'''Colors:''' Crimson and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Aggie Memorial Stadium (capacity 30,343)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jerry Kill\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Warren B. Woodson, Charley Johnson, Hal Mumme\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Charley Johnson\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 4 (2 Border - 1938, 1960; 2 Missouri Valley - 1976, 1978)

'''New Mexico State University''' is another example of a school with a strong men's basketball program that struggles to find relevance in football. The undisputed peak of the program came in 1960, when they went undefeated under Hall of Fame coach Warren B. Woodson and QB Charley Johnson.[[note]]The program went undefeated several times before then... in an era where they had truly terrible competition and played half their games against high schools.[[/note]] However, the Aggies (represented in mascot form by a pistol-wielding cowboy) have fallen off hard since Woodson's departure in 1967, with only five winning seasons and two completely winless ones in that half-century-plus span. They're a frequent member of ESPN's "Bottom 10" as "Whew Mexico State", living mostly in the shadow of New Mexico in their own state and even UTEP (a team bad enough to ''also'' frequently appear in the Bottom 10 as "UTEPID") in their immediate region. They have put up three completely winless seasons since moving to the major college ranks in the 1930s and, before their C-USA move, [[ButtMonkey had the worst win record of any of the FBS indies]], which they became after being kicked out of Sun Belt football in 2017, shortly after their first bowl appearance since 1960. The Aggies also chose not to play in 2020 (though they pieced together two games against FCS teams in spring 2021, making them the only FBS team to play in the spring). With NMSU's then-current all-sports home of the Western Athletic Conference relaunching FCS football in 2021 with visions of returning the conference to FBS, it was thought that NMSU would stay put in that league. However, with C-USA suddenly depleted after the 2021 realignment shuffle, NMSU became an attractive option (even for UTEP, which had reportedly been reluctant to share a conference with NMSU), so the Aggies moved there in 2023. Despite their overall futility, the Aggies enter the 2023 season as the only current FBS team to have never lost in a bowl appearance (they did tie once).

!!!UTEP Miners
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/utep.png]]
->'''Location:''' El Paso, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1913[[note]]As "Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy", then University of Texas Department of M&M in 1918, Texas College of M&M in 1921, Texas Western College in 1948, and UTEP in 1966.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1914-34, 1962-67), Border (1935-61), WAC (1968-2004), C-USA (2005-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 411-626-28 (.399)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 5-10 (.333)\\
'''Colors:''' Dark blue, orange, and silver\\
'''Stadium:''' Sun Bowl (capacity 46,670)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Dana Dimel\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Mike Price\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Don Maynard, Chuck Hughes, Ed Hochuli, Jordan Palmer\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 2 (1 Border - 1956; 1 WAC – 2000)

The '''University of Texas at El Paso''' is a unique American university known for its majority Hispanic student population and its distinct Tibetan monastery-inspired architecture. UTEP has played an important role in the history of college sports, most notably for its 1966 basketball team that won a national championship after assembling the first all-Black starting lineup in NCAA history (as dramatized in ''Film/GloryRoad'') and for winning 20 national championships in cross country and track and field in the 1970s and '80s. In football, however, UTEP is really only notable for its stadium, the Sun Bowl, which has a very unique location (embedded in mountains overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border) and hosts one of the oldest bowl games. While the Sun Bowl has hosted a number of very memorable games, few of them have involved its home team; the Miners are one of the worst performing teams in the FBS, with completely winless seasons in 1973 and 2017 and far fewer winning seasons than losing ones. The program's historical highlight came in 1985, when the Miners knocked off #7-ranked defending national champion BYU by a score of 23–16, often regarded as one of the biggest upsets in major college history; it was UTEP's only win that year.

!!!Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wku_4.png]]
->'''Location:''' Bowling Green, KY\\
'''School Established:''' 1906[[note]]As Western Kentucky State Normal School. The school actually can be traced back to 1876 with the private Glasgow Normal School and Business College (Glasgow being a small town one county over from Bowling Green); 1906 is when it became a public school, and even then went through numerous transformations before settling on the WKU form in 1966.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1913-25, 1942-45), SIAA (1926-42), Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference[[labelnote:*]]Now known as the River States Conference; no longer sponsors football, and currently an NAIA league.[[/labelnote]] (1946-47), OVC (1948-81, 1999-2000), I-AA Ind. (1982-88), Gateway (2001-06), FCS Ind. (2007), FBS Ind. (2008), Sun Belt (2009-14), C-USA (2015-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 606-421-31 (.587)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6-3 (.667)\\
'''Colors:''' Red and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Houchens Industries–L. T. Smith Stadium (23,776 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Tyson Helton\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Jack Harbaugh, Willie Taggart, Bobby Petrino\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Romeo Crennel, Willie Taggart, Rod Smart, Bailey Zappe\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 in FCS (2002)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 13 (1 SIAA- 1932; 9 OVC - 1952, 1963, 1970-71, 1973, 1975, 1978, 1980, 2000; 1 Gateway - 2002; 2 C-USA – 2015-16)

A longstanding Division I-AA power, '''Western Kentucky University''' rose to football prominence during the long tenure of Jack Harbaugh (Jim and John's dad) through the '90s, culminating in an FCS championship in 2002. The Hilltoppers ("Toppers" for short)[[note]]The central campus is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin atop a hill]] overlooking the Barren River valley.[[/note]] transitioned to FBS soon after, but after going winless in 2009, they returned to their past by hiring former star QB Willie Taggart to be HC; his success in reviving their prospects launched his brief sojourn into the major college ranks. Nowadays, WKU is known best for two things: its immensely productive offense that spawned FBS record-holding QB Bailey Zappe in 2021, and its mascot, an amorphous red blob known only as "Big Red". The Toppers also entered the 2023 season as the ''only'' current C-USA member to have won the conference's championship.

[[folder:Mid-American Conference (MAC)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/maction_9.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' ''Akron'', ''Ball State'', Bowling Green, ''Buffalo'', Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Miami-Ohio, Northern Illinois, ''Ohio'', UsefulNotes/{{Toledo|Ohio}}, ''Western Michigan''\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Jon Steinbrecher\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Toledo\\
'''Website:''' [[https://getsomemaction.com getsomemaction.com]]

The '''Mid-American Conference''' (or '''MAC'''), founded in 1947, is one of the two FBS conferences whose full members are all state-supported, and has probably the strangest profile of any FBS conference. On the field, it hasn't accomplished a whole lot over the decades. No MAC school has ever won a national championship, and none have ever finished higher than #10 in the polls (Miami in 1974 and 2003, Marshall in 1999). In any given week, it usually has at least one entry in ESPN's "Bottom 10".[[note]]Among the derisive nicknames the writer gives to MAC teams: Akronmonious, Boiling Green, Buffalo Bulls Not Bills, State of Kent, My Hammy of Ohio.[[/note]] Basically the entire point of the MAC is to be the little brother of the Big Ten, providing their teams (and other big-name teams) with some easy wins each year. But the MAC also has some deep tradition, with a number of notable coaches and players having passed through the conference on their way to greater things. Three MAC teams (Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Northern Illinois) won national championships on the D-II level earlier in their history. The MAC was slated to get relegated to Division I-AA in 1982, when all but two of its schools (Central Michigan and Toledo were the exceptions) failed to meet the NCAA's attendance requirement for I-A membership, but the conference successfully lobbied the NCAA to allow them to remain at the top level.\\\

The MAC has had its share of big upsets and glory over the years. 2012 was a breakout year, with several impressive wins against Big Ten teams and conference champion Northern Illinois even playing in the Orange Bowl as the final BCS Buster. They then followed it up in 2016 when Western Michigan was one of only two teams to make it through the regular season undefeated (though it lost its bowl game to Wisconsin). To more devoted college football fans, the MAC is equally known as a land where anything can happen on any night of the week, with regular games between Tuesday and Thursday, leading to the [[HashtagForLaughs #MACtion]] meme (the source of its web address). The MAC is the only Group of Five conference to regularly hold its championship game at a neutral site, having played said game at Detroit's Ford Field since 2004.\\\

Despite its reputation for on-field shenanigans, the MAC is also notable for the relative stability of its membership. Although the MAC had two changes in football-only membership during the early-2010s conference realignment cycle,[[note]]Temple to the Big East/American in 2012, and [=UMass=] joining MAC football in 2012 and leaving after the 2015 season[[/note]] it was the only FBS conference that did not gain or lose a core (i.e., all-sports) member during that time. It also has yet to have a core membership change in the 2020s. Following the American's and Sun Belt's 2021 raids on C-USA, poaching six and three members respectively, the MAC was rumored to be launching its own raid of the already weakened conference, courting Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky to expand the MAC's footprint southward, but MT decided to stay put, causing the MAC to lose interest in WKU.[[note]]The last change to the MAC's core membership was Marshall's departure for Conference USA in 2005.[[/note]]

!!!Bowling Green Falcons
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bowling_green.png]]
->'''Location:''' Bowling Green, OH\\
'''School Established:''' 1910[[note]]Created as part of the same Ohio legislative bill that also created Kent State. It opened in 1914 as Bowling Green State Normal School, became Bowling Green State College in 1929, then BGSU in 1935.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1919-20, 1931-32, 1942-51), Northwest Ohio League (1921-30), Ohio Athletic Conference (1933-41), MAC (1952- )\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 550–414–52 (.567)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 5–8 (.385)\\
'''Colors:''' Orange and brown\\
'''Stadium:''' Doyt Perry Stadium (capacity 24,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Scot Loeffler\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Don Nehlen, Urban Meyer\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Don Nehlen, Creator/BernieCasey, Brian [=McClure=]\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 in D-II (1959)[[note]]The NCAA "College Division" didn't conduct playoffs at the time. UPI conducted a "small college" weekly poll, and Bowling Green was voted #1 in the final poll, getting 23 of 33 first place votes. The NCAA recognizes this as a national championship.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 17 (5 Northwest Ohio - 1921-22, 1925, 1928-29; 12 MAC - 1956, 1959, 1961-62, 1964-65, 1982, 1985, 1991-92, 2013, 2015)

Located 15 miles south of UsefulNotes/ToledoOhio, '''Bowling Green State University''' (they prefer "Bowling Green" as their athletic branding, but use BGSU as an abbreviation) is a well-regarded public college, especially famed for its Media Studies program. On the sports side, its signature programs are probably men's ice hockey (winning the national championship in 1984) and women's basketball. Its football team is a fairly consistent winner with several standout periods. Stadium namesake Doyt Perry, a close personal friend of Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler, notched an impressive 77–11–5 record at BGSU from 1955-64, including an undefeated season and the College Division national title in 1959, with that team's star RB Creator/BernieCasey going onto an NFL career and a later stint in Hollywood. Don Nehlen, who played QB for Perry from 1955-57, was the HC from 1968-76 and managed to schedule a number of marquee opponents for non-conference games, pulling off big upsets in the process, most famously against a ranked Purdue squad in 1972. Nehlen's replacement Denny Stolz turned the Falcons into one of the first major college teams to utilize heavy passing and multiple receiver sets, with QB Brian [=McClure=] becoming one of the first college players to pass for more than 10,000 yards in a career. More recently, BGSU gave Urban Meyer his first HC job, going 17-6 from 2001-02. They have a heated rivalry with neighboring Toledo, having played their very first varsity game against UT in 1919.\\\

BGSU made two unusual contributions to UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague history. In 1946, Cleveland Browns founder Paul Brown went to scout BGSU as a possible training camp location for his new team. While the Browns did end up hosting their first few training camps at BGSU, the school's more permanent contribution was the Browns' brown[=/=]orange color scheme, which Paul Brown was always quick to credit to BGSU's influence. Later, during the 1987 players strike, the aforementioned Brian [=McClure=] joined the Buffalo Bills replacement squad, and was the winning QB in their notorious game against the Giants in which Lawrence Taylor crossed the picket line to suit up against the "scab" players.

!!!Central Michigan Chippewas
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/central_michigan.png]]
->'''Location:''' Mount Pleasant, MI\\
'''School Established:''' 1892\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1896-1949, 1970-74), Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (1950-69), MAC (1975- )\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 643-442-36 (.590)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 4–9 (.308)\\
'''Colors:''' Maroon and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Kelly/Shorts Stadium (capacity 30,255)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jim [=McElwain=]\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Roy Kramer, Herb Deromedi, Brian Kelly\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' [[Characters/SurvivorGuatemala Gary Hogeboom]], J.J. Watt,[[note]]played one season at ''tight end'' before transferring to Wisconsin[[/note]] Dan [=LeFevour=], Antonio Brown, Eric Fisher\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 in D-II (1974)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 16 (9 IIAC - 1952-56, 1962, 1966-68; 7 MAC - 1978-80, 1990, 1994, 2006-07, 2009)

Located almost exactly in the middle of the Michigan "mitten", '''Central Michigan University''' plays the role of QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to Michigan and Michigan State, having established its own tradition and winning legacy in the shadow of its bigger brothers. Second to Miami among MAC schools in both wins and win percentage, CMU joined the conference in 1975 after winning the D-II national championship the previous season[[note]]under HC Roy Kramer, who would make an even greater impact on college football as SEC commissioner[[/note]] and quickly established itself as a power under Hall of Fame coach Herb Deromedi [[LongRunner (1967-77 as an assistant, 1978-93 as HC, 1994-2006 as AD)]]. In 2004, they made the unusual move for an FBS school of hiring an HC from the D-II level by bringing in Brian Kelly from Grand Valley State; he guided them to a conference title in three seasons before departing for numerous high profile gigs. This laid the groundwork for 2009, where the school program saw its only AP Poll rankings thanks to dynamic dual-threat QB Dan [=LeFevour=] and future NFL legend/menace Antonio Brown. The program has not come close to this peak in the decade-plus since.\\\

CMU is one of six schools who have permission from the NCAA to use a Native American nickname, since the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe has formally approved use of the name.[[note]]The other schools with NCAA permission include four who also have tribal approvals for their name--Florida State (Seminoles), Utah (Utes) and the D-II schools Catawba (Indians) and Mississippi College (Choctaws)--plus one school--D-II UNC Pembroke (Braves)--that was originally founded to educate Native Americans, has close ties with the local Lumbee tribe, and successfully convinced the NCAA to give them an exemption.[[/note]]

!!!Eastern Michigan Eagles
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eastern_michigan.png]]
->'''Location:''' Ypsilanti, MI\\
'''School Established:''' 1849[[note]]As Michigan State Normal School, then Michigan State Normal College in 1899 and Eastern Michigan University in 1959[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1891-93, 1895, 1902-19, 1926, 1931-49, 1966-75)[[note]]Did not field a team in 1944 due to WWII[[/note]], Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (1894, 1896-1901, 1920-25), Michigan Collegiate Conference (1927-30), IIAC (1950-61), Presidents Athletic Conference (1964-65), MAC (1976-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 484-616-47 (.442)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 2-4 (.333)\\
'''Colors:''' Green and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Rynearson Stadium (capacity 30,200)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Chris Creighton\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Elton Rynearson\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' George Allen, Maxx Crosby[[note]]While likely future Pro Hall of Famer Antonio Gates first played college sports at EMU, he played ''basketball'' instead of football. He left after one season for a California juco before returning to the MAC at Kent State, again for basketball only.[[/note]]\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (2 MIAA - 1896, 1925; 4 MCC - 1927-30; 3 IIAC - 1954-55, 1957; 1 MAC - 1987)

Located in Ypsilanti (the birthplace of Domino's Pizza), just east of Ann Arbor, the massive shadow of the Michigan Wolverines has always loomed large over '''Eastern Michigan University''''s football program (their stadiums are a mere 5 miles apart), but it was once a regional power under the LongRunner tenure of stadium namesake Elton Rynearson, who coached the team in various stints from 1917-48 and stayed on as AD until 1963. Most of that tenure was when the school was "Michigan State Normal College"; as EMU, the school has ''mightily'' struggled on the gridiron, from a 27-game losing streak from 1980-82 to posting exactly ''one'' winning season from 1990 to 2015 (with another winless one in 2009). That latter streak coincidentally (or perhaps not) coincided with the team changing their mascot from "Huron" (a French name for the indigenous people of the region) to the more generic Eagles. Not to mention that in 1984, the MAC presidents voted to expel EMU from the conference less than two months before the football season started. EMU fought the move and the NCAA stepped in to void the presidents' vote. Three years later, EMU won its only MAC title to date, in the process beating ''all seven'' schools whose presidents had voted for the expulsion.[[note]]In order of play: Miami, Kent State, Northern Illinois (which had left the MAC after the 1985 season), Ball State, Ohio, Toledo, Bowling Green.[[/note]] The school calls that season "college football's ultimate revenge tour".\\\

The current tenure of coach Chris Creighton, who has had four winning seasons ''just'' over .500 since his arrival in Ypsi in 2014, has by comparison been a massive improvement. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Creighton's arrival coincided with EMU becoming one of the few FBS teams to adopt a colored field, a dull gray that has contributed to the stadium's nickname: "The Factory". Fun fact: Both of Eastern Michigan's bowl victories came against San Jose State, 35 years apart.

!!!Kent State Golden Flashes
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kent_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' Kent, OH\\
'''School Established:''' 1910[[note]]As "Ohio State Normal College at Kent"; that lasted a year before switching to Kent State Normal School, then Kent State Normal College in 1915, Kent State College in 1929, and the current name in 1935.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1920-31), OAC (1932–50),[[note]]Did not play in the war years of 1943–45.[[/note]] MAC (1951-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 364-585-28 (.387)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 1–4 (.200)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Dix Stadium (capacity 25,319)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kenni Burns\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Don James\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Lou Holtz, Nick Saban, Gary Pinkel, Jack Lambert, Eric Wilkerson, James Harrison, Josh Cribbs, Julian Edelman[[note]]As noted in the Eastern Michigan description, Antonio Gates spent his last two college years at Kent State playing basketball, not football.[[/note]]\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 1 (MAC - 1972)

'''Kent State University''', a former teachers' college located 40 miles from UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}, has been a major ButtMonkey for almost all of its football history; it has just ''one'' conference title to its credit, posted four winless seasons in the 1980s and '90s, and has the lowest overall winning percentage of any FBS team that's played more than 50 seasons. It once lost something called the Refrigerator Bowl.[[note]]A bowl for small college teams played in Evansville, Indiana from 1948-56.[[/note]] The school itself is best known for the 1970 incident in which the Ohio National Guard fired on an anti-Vietnam war protest, killing four students (two protesters, two bystanders). And yet: look at that list of notable names above! There's a surprising number of former Golden Flash players who've gone on to greater success in either the NFL or college coaching. They've had just three winning seasons in this century, but the last two were memorable: In 2012 they went 11-3 and made the MAC championship game, losing in double overtime to Northern Illinois. In 2019, they finally won their first bowl game, knocking off Utah State in the Frisco Bowl.

!!!Miami [=RedHawks=]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/miami_ohio.png]]
->'''Location:''' Oxford, OH\\
'''School Established:''' 1809\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1888-1946), MAC (1947-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 713-481-44 (.594)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 8–6 (.571)\\
'''Colors:''' Red and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Yager Stadium (capacity 24,286)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Chuck Martin\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Sid Gillman, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler, Michael Haywood[[note]]Listing only head coaches; Miami assistants who went on to successful coaching careers include Jim Tressel and Sean Payton, to name just two[[/note]]\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Earl "Red" Blaik[[labelnote:*]]played three seasons before transferring to West Point during WWI[[/labelnote]], Weeb Ewbank, Paul Brown, Ara Parseghian, Paul Dietzel, Bill Arnsparger, Bo Schembechler, Clive Rush, Ed Biles, Wrestling/BrianPillman, John Harbaugh, Travis Prentice, Ben Roethlisberger, Sean [=McVay=]\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 22 (3 OAC – 1916-18, 1921; 3 Buckeye – 1931-32, 1936; 16 MAC – 1948, 1950, 1954-55, 1957-58, 1965-66, 1973-75, 1977, 1986, 2003, 2010, 2019)

'''Miami University'''[[note]]named for the Miami River Valley and the Miami tribal nation that historically calls it home[[/note]] is one of the oldest public universities in the United States and the birthplace of a great many fraternities. It is much less well-known on the national stage than the much younger Florida private school with the similar name, but it has still had a great impact on football history and is the traditional power of the MAC even with far fewer winning seasons than losing ones in the 21st century. While the [=RedHawks=] (known as the "Redskins" until 1997) have enjoyed periods of great success, with undefeated seasons in 1908, '21, '55, and '73, their ''real'' legacy is on the sideline. Miami proudly calls itself the "Cradle of Coaches" because of the great number of prominent coaches in both college and the NFL who have played and/or coached at the school.[[note]]Of the "historic" figures listed here, exactly ''one'' (Ben Roethlisberger) achieved his greatest fame as an NFL player. Travis Prentice had a forgettable NFL career; Brian Pillman had a brief NFL career before making his name in pro wrestling.[[/note]]\\\

And yes, Miami (Ohio) has played Miami (Florida), 4 times (1945, 1946, 1987, 2023), with the Florida team winning all the games (the scores were [[CurbStompBattle 54–3 in '87 and 38–3 in '23]]).

!!!Northern Illinois Huskies
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/niu.png]]
->'''Location:''' [=DeKalb=], IL\\
'''School Established:''' 1895[[note]]As "Northern Illinois State Normal School", became a Teachers College in 1921 State College in 1955, and University in 1957[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1899-1919, 1925-27, 1966-72, 1986-92, 1996), IIAC (1920-24, 1928-65), Big West (1993-95), MAC (1975-85, 1997-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 603-520-51 (.535)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 4-10 (.286)\\
'''Colors:''' Cardinal and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Huskie Stadium (capacity 24,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Thomas Hammock\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Chick Evans, Howard Fletcher\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' George Bork, Stacey Robinson, Sam Hurd, Jordan Lynch\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 in D-II (1963)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 12 (6 IIAC - 1938, 1944, 1951, 1963-65; 6 MAC - 1983, 2011-12, 2014, 2018, 2021)

'''Northern Illinois University''''s football program started out as a regional power under the LongRunner tenure of Chick Evans (HC and AD from 1929-54, AD until 1968) and produced an innovative spread shotgun offense under Howard Fletcher (1956-68) that shattered passing records and won the school the 1963 D-II championship. The Huskies struggled with the move to the major college ranks after Fletcher's retirement and underperformed for decades. A couple of bright spots were a MAC title in 1983 and Jerry Pettibone's HC tenure from 1985-90, when his high-octane wishbone attack guided the Huskies to a 9-2 record in '89, and a record-setting 73-18 upset over a ranked Fresno State squad a year later. But the decision to leave the MAC after the 1985 season hurt the program in the long run, and things had gotten so bad that they bottomed out with a winless 1997 campaign, the same year they returned to the MAC. NIU returned to power in the MAC, with their undefeated 2012 regular season under dynamic dual-threat QB Jordan Lynch making them the conference's only (and the last ever) BCS Buster. Their results in recent years have been the model of inconsistency, going from a winless COVID-impacted season in 2020 to winning the MAC the next year.

!!!Toledo Rockets
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/toledo.png]]
->'''Location:''' Toledo, OH\\
'''School Established:''' 1872[[note]]As Toledo University of Arts & Trades, then Toledo Manual Training School in 1884, Toledo University in 1914, and University of Toledo in 1968[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1917-20, 1948-51), Northwest Ohio League (1921-30), Ohio Athletic Conference (1932-47), MAC (1952-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 570-448-24 (.559)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 11-9 (.550)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue[[note]]The university used to denote the exact shade as "midnight blue", but more recently switched to "cobalt blue"[[/note]] and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Glass Bowl (26,248)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jason Candle\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Nick Saban, Gary Pinkel\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Emlen Tunnell,[[labelnote:*]]played one season before joining the US Coast Guard during WWII; transferred to Iowa after the war[[/labelnote]] Chuck Ealey, Mel Long, Gene Swick, Brett Kern\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 15 (3 Northwest Ohio - 1923, 1927, 1929; 12 MAC - 1967, 1969-71, 1981, 1984, 1990, 1995, 2001, 2004, 2017, 2022)

While Miami Ohio has the MAC's best-looking historical football ledger, the '''University of Toledo''' isn't too far behind. After starting their football history with a 145-0 loss to the now-defunct Detroit program[[labelnote:*]]now Detroit Mercy[[/labelnote]], the Rockets steadily improved. The program has four AP final poll appearances to its credit and went on a 35-game winning streak from 1969-71 under Hall of Fame QB Chuck Ealey. Nick Saban had his first HC job here, going 9-2 in 1990; he was succeeded by Gary Pinkel, who stayed a little longer before also going on to greater success. Toledo can also boast of having won the first overtime game in FBS history, a 40-37 defeat of Nevada in the 1995 Las Vegas Bowl. The Rockets' mascots are Rocky and Rocksy, whose modern iterations dress like futuristic astronauts (though the original Rocky was an anthropomorphic missile).

[[folder:Mountain West (MW)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mountain_west.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii (football only), Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State, Wyoming\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Gloria Nevarez\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Fresno State\\
'''Website:''' [[https://themw.com themw.com]]

Formed in 1999 by a group of 8 disgruntled Western Athletic Conference schools [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere unhappy with the arrangement]] of the WAC's "super-conference" alignment, the '''Mountain West Conference''' (or '''MW''') began the CFP era as arguably the most competitive "Group of Five" conference, though The American has more recently claimed that crown and the Sun Belt is rising fast. Ironically, the MW has absorbed other former WAC schools during the realignment shakeups of the 2000s and 2010s (the most recent being San Jose State and Utah State, joining in 2013). Four of its members[[labelnote:*]]Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State[[/labelnote]] had been courted by The American after it was raided by the Big 12 in 2021, but all chose to stay put, apparently leading to that conference's raid of C-USA. The MW team most familiar to casual fans outside its region is Boise State. Like the MAC (and also the Sun Belt Conference), all of its full members are public schools—but unlike the other two named leagues, not all of the members are state-supported. It's the only FBS conference with a federal service academy as a full member, namely Air Force.[[note]]The primary home of Army, an FBS independent soon to join the American Conference for football, and established American Conference football member Navy is the FCS Patriot League.[[/note]] With the 2020s realignment stripping the Pac-12 of all but two of its 12 members so far, it's looking more and more likely that the two leftovers, Oregon State and Washington State, will join in 2024—possibly under the "Pac-12" brand—though no announcement has been made.\\\

The MW adopted football divisions once it expanded to 12 teams in 2013—Mountain (schools in the Mountain Time Zone) and West (those on Pacific Time—i.e., the California and Nevada schools—plus Hawaii). However, once the NCAA gave FBS conferences full freedom in setting up their title game pairings, the MW announced it would eliminate the divisions in 2023. It's adopting a "2–6" scheduling model, with each team having two permanent opponents and playing 6 other conference games. The 6 non-permanent opponents flip every year, and the format is organized to allow each team to play all of its non-permanent opponents once home and once away in a three-year cycle (not coincidentally, less than the standard length of a college playing career). The championship game will feature the top two teams in the conference standings.

!!!Air Force Falcons
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/air_force.png]]
->'''Location:''' USAF Academy, CO (just outside Colorado Springs)\\
'''School Established:''' 1954\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1955-79), WAC (1980-98), MW (1999-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 424-338-13 (.556)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 15-13-1 (.534)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and silver\\
'''Stadium:''' Falcon Stadium (capacity 46,692)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Troy Calhoun\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Buck Shaw, Bill Parcells, Ken Hatfield, Fisher [=DeBerry=]\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Brian Billick[[labelnote:*]]Transferred to BYU after one year when he found out he was too tall to qualify as a fighter pilot. Seriously.[[/labelnote]]\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 3 (WAC – 1985, 1995, 1998)

The youngest of the three major [[MilitaryAcademy service academies]], The '''United States Air Force Academy''' began as the QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to Army and Navy, often succumbing to EveryYearTheyFizzleOut syndrome, apart from two early standout seasons: 1958 (Cotton Bowl, #6 final poll finish) and 1970 (Sugar Bowl, #11 poll finish). Two major factors kickstarted the rise of Falcon football: the hiring of Ken Hatfield as head coach in 1979, and joining the Western Athletic Conference the next year. While the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy was introduced in 1972 to go to the winner of the series between Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Falcons didn't win it until 1982. Since then, they've won the trophy 20 times, compared to 11 for Navy and 7 for Army in that span of time. Hatfield brought the option offense with him, and the Falcons have run it ever since, even after most college teams abandoned the run-based option for looser passing or spread offenses. The option helps them deal with the stringent requirements for admission to the academy that limit the team's ability to attract top athletes. The discipline, finesse, and proactive nature of the option mesh well with military training, and after Air Force's success with the offense, Army and Navy have generally run it as well. Hatfield quickly catapulted off of his early success to take other high-profile coaching gigs, but since his departure in 1983, the program has only had two head coaches: Hall of Famer Fisher [=DeBerry=], who took the program within one game of playing for a national title in 1985, and Troy Calhoun, who took over in 2007 and has kept the team competitive in the west.\\\

Despite putting up most of its yards on the ground, Air Force lives up to its name in more ways than one. Besides its (living) Falcon mascot, its stadium near Colorado Springs has the second-highest elevation of any FBS venue (6,621 feet), and its cadets live more than 600 feet higher (7,258 feet). They also have one of the longest-standing helmet designs in any level of football, the lightning bolts that have adorned their helmets since the early years of the program, riffing on the frequent use of lightning bolts in fighter pilot insignias dating back to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Fun fact: the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague Los Angeles Chargers]] use of bolts on their helmets was directly inspired by Air Force, though the Chargers deliberately used a different design.

!!!Boise State Broncos
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boise_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' Boise, ID\\
'''School Established:''' 1932\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1933-47, 1968-69),[[note]]Began play as a junior college in 1933 and as a four-year school in 1968. No team in the war years of 1942–45.[[/note]] ICAC[[labelnote:*]]Intermountain Collegiate Athletic Conference, juco conference that lasted from 1936-84[[/labelnote]] (1948-67), Big Sky[[labelnote:*]]The Big Sky played D-II football before moving to FCS (then I-AA) upon that group's creation in 1978.[[/labelnote]] (1970-95), Big West (1996-2000), WAC (2001-10), MW (2011-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 483-180-2 (.728)*[[note]]Counting all games as a four-year institution; juco record of 200–61–9, FBS record is 263–79 (.769).[[/note]]\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 13–7 (.650)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and orange\\
'''Stadium:''' Albertsons Stadium (capacity 37,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Andy Avalos\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Chris Petersen\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Dave Wilcox[[labelnote:*]]played during the school's juco era before transferring to Oregon[[/labelnote]], Ian Johnson, Kellen Moore\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 in NJCAA (1958), 1 in FCS (1980)[[note]]2 unclaimed FBS championships (2006, 2009)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 20 (6 Big Sky – 1973–75, 1977, 1980, 1994; 2 Big West – 1999, 2000; 8 WAC – 2002–06, 2008–10; 4 MW – 2012, 2014, 2017, 2019)[[note]]does not include 15 conference titles as a junior college[[/note]]

The Broncos of '''Boise State University''' have been one of the more consistently competitive programs in the nation, often punching well above their weight class. As of 2022, BSU has the highest winning percentage of any school outside the Power Five, and when only games played as a member of FBS and its predecessors are counted, Boise State actually leads the entire pack by a healthy margin. The Broncos enjoyed great football success as a junior college, winning 15 conference titles (13 in a row) and one national title before becoming a four-year school in the late 1960s. They were regionally competitive until a surge in the early days of FCS, winning that level's national title in 1980. After some ups and downs, including a move to FBS (then I-A) in 1996, they truly emerged in the 21st century as a member of the WAC, with their coming-out party on the national stage being an epic undefeated 2006 season, capped with an overtime win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl fueled by a series of incredible trick plays. The Broncos reached even greater heights from 2008-11 with Kellen Moore at QB, going undefeated again in 2009 and becoming the first FBS team ever to win 50 games in a four-year period (before the CFP) and making Moore the winningest FBS QB ever. Moore's final season was also the Broncos' first in the MW, where they've established themselves as a regular contender and one of the more dangerous Group of Five teams, having not posted a losing record since 1997.\\\

But that probably isn't what you know Boise State for. Since 1986, the Broncos have played their home games at Albertsons Stadium on a vibrant blue artificial turf. Nicknamed "the Surf Turf", "the [[Franchise/TheSmurfs Smurf]] Turf", "the Blue Plastic Tundra", or simply "the Blue", the field was the first non-green field in American football and still the most visible. Though not the ''only'' program with a colored field, it ''does'' hold the trademark, so other schools have to get a license from Boise State if they want to color theirs. Keeping their field unique provides more than just financial benefits; the Broncos has one of the most dominant home field advantages in sports, as its blue uniforms can help to camouflage players. The program didn't lose a regular season home game from 2001-11, which led the NCAA to nearly pass a rule requiring the team wear non-blue uniforms (the school successfully campaigned to knock that down).

!!!Colorado State Rams
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colorado_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' Fort Collins, CO\\
'''School Established:''' 1870[[note]]as "Colorado Agricultural College", then as Colorado A&M (1935-57)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' CFA (1893-1908), RMAC (1909-37), Skyline (1938-61), Ind. (1962-67), WAC (1968-98), MW (1999-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 536-613-33 (.467)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6–11 (.353)\\
'''Colors:''' Green and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Canvas Stadium (capacity 41,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jay Norvell\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Harry W. Hughes, Earle Bruce, Sonny Lubick\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Glenn Morris, Jack Christiansen, Gary Glick, Bubba Baker, Kelly Stouffer, Ryan Stonehouse\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 15 (8 RMAC – 1915–16, 1919-20, 1925, 1927, 1933-34; 1 Skyline – 1955; 3 WAC – 1994-95, 1997; 3 MW – 1999-2000, 2002)

A relatively small program located in northern Colorado, '''Colorado State University''''s team has largely struggled through its history, with consecutive winless seasons in 1961-62, another in 1981, plenty more in the pre-modern era, and numerous other poor showings. The program is notable for a) having the same HC in Harry W. Hughes for over three decades (1911-41, '46), who brought them the most regional success and became namesake of their former stadium, b) briefly contending for national rankings under Sonny Lubick (1993-2007), who became namesake of the playing surface of both their former and current stadiums, and c) sporting the same ram horn helmet designs as their NFL counterparts (which they've used since 1973, when newly hired HC Sark Arslanian added to them their previously blank helmets). The school has recently poured tons of money into the program, including building a brand-new stadium in 2017 whose size greatly exceeds the largest crowd that's ever assembled to watch the Rams. The results have so far been... underwhelming.

!!!Fresno State Bulldogs
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fresno_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' Fresno, CA\\
'''School Established:''' 1911[[note]]As Fresno State Normal School, then became Fresno State College in 1949, then California State University, Fresno in 1972.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1921, 1951-52), California Coast Conference (1922-24), Far Western Conference (1925-40), California Collegiate Athletic Association (1939-50, 53-68), PCAA[=/=]Big West (1969-91), WAC (1992-2012), MW (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 636–441–28 (.588)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 16–14 (.533)\\
'''Colors:''' Cardinal red, blue and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Valley Children's Stadium, historically known as Bulldog Stadium (capacity 40,727)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jeff Tedford\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Jim Sweeney\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Henry Ellard, Jeff Tedford, Kevin Sweeney, Lorenzo Neal, Trent Dilfer, David and Derek Carr, Davante Adams\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 29 (2 California Coast - 1922-23, 4 Far Western - 1930; 1934-35; 1937, 10 CCAA - 1941-42; 1954-56; 1958-61; 1968, 6 PCAA[=/=]Big West - 1977; 1982; 1985; 1988-89; 1991, 3 WAC - 1992-93; 1999, 4 MW - 2012-13; 2018; 2022)

The Fresno State Bulldogs football team has long been one of the crown jewels in the reputation of '''California State University, Fresno'''.[[note]]The school's sports teams are ''always'' called Fresno State, ''never'' Cal State Fresno; it's an ArtifactTitle from its earlier days as Fresno State College. The university markets itself as Fresno State, although the full name does appear on formal documents such as diplomas.[[/note]] Located in Central California's football-loving San Joaquin Valley, the Bulldogs were a small college power on the West Coast through much of their history, before joining D-I in 1969 along with their longtime rivals San Diego State and San Jose State. Former Washington State HC Jim Sweeney launched them to the next level in TheEighties. Behind a series of standout [=QBs=] and a balanced offense, the Bulldogs won six titles in the old Pacific Coast Athletic Association (later renamed the Big West). A devoted fanbase (called "The Red Wave") formed around the team, leading to the construction of Bulldog Stadium on campus (after previously borrowing the local junior college's stadium for home games), which also became the home of the California Bowl (which matched the champions of the PCAA and the MAC from 1981-91). Their peak year in this era was 1985, when, led by QB Kevin Sweeney (Jim's son), the Bulldogs finished the season as the only unbeaten major college team, with an 11-0-1 record and a #16 finish in the coaches' poll. The Bulldogs are also the last FBS-level team to score over 90 points in a game, in their [[CurbStompBattle 94-17 pulverization of New Mexico]] in '91 (could've been worse, too--they led 66-7 at halftime). This success helped lead to a Western Athletic Conference invite, and they debuted in the WAC with a bang in 1992, sharing the conference title and upsetting USC in the Freedom Bowl. The conference move was a godsend, since many of Fresno's California-based Big West peers (Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Pacific) ended up dropping football in TheNineties.\\\

Because of the dwindling number of four-year college football teams in California, Fresno has a huge swath of the California juco system to itself, guaranteeing a strong talent base. After Sweeney's retirement in 1996, a number of good [=HCs=] have passed through Fresno, like Pat Hill, Kalen [=DeBoer=] and former Bulldog QB star Jeff Tedford, the current HC. But the program has also been dogged by EveryYearTheyFizzleOut syndrome. A typical Bulldog season will see them upset a Power 5 team early in the year, stall in conference play, then close out things with a loss in a winnable bowl game. They've also been at the center of the infamous "Jeff Tedford Curse", with Bulldog [=QBs=] Trent Dilfer and David Carr (the #1 overall pick) being among the biggest NFL draft busts ever. Still, they're respected as a program that almost always manages to find a way to pull off some big wins every year.\\\

The Bulldogs' 2023 home opener against FCS Eastern Washington was of note as the first FBS football game to be broadcast over linear TV exclusively in Spanish.[[note]]Specifically by [=UniMás=] in the Fresno and Bakersfield markets. English-language viewers had to go to streaming, with audio being a simulcast of the Bulldogs' (English) radio broadcast.[[/note]][[labelnote:Background]]The San Joaquin Valley has a very large Hispanic population, with the city of Fresno being about 60% Hispanic, and the university's enrollment is majority Hispanic.[[/labelnote]]

!!!Hawaiʻi Rainbow Warriors
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hawaii_8.png]]
->'''Location:''' Honolulu, HI\\
'''School Established:''' 1907[[note]]as the "College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawaiʻi"; became the University of Hawaiʻi in 1919. With the university having expanded to a statewide system in later decades, the phrase "at Mānoa", reflecting the neighborhood that hosts the campus, was added in 1972.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1909-78),[[note]]Did not play in 1912–14 or 1942–45. Dropped football after the 1960 season but reinstated it in 1962 after a new AD took over.[[/note]] WAC (1979-2011), MW (2012-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 579-484-25 (.544)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 8-6 (.571)\\
'''Colors:''' Green, black, silver, and white[[note]]Yes, not rainbow.[[/note]]\\
'''Stadium:''' Clarence T. C. Ching Athletics Complex (15,000 capacity)[[note]]Capacity was only 4,106 before a crash expansion to 10,000 in 2021. A further expansion to the FBS minimum of 15,000 started immediately after the 2021 season.[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Timmy Chang\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Clark Shaughnessy, June Jones, Todd Graham\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Jesse Sapolu, Ken Niumatalolo, Jason Elam, Nick Rolovich, Timmy Chang, Cole Brennan\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 4 (WAC – 1992, 1999, 2007, 2010)

The '''University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa''''s football team has had a proud history as the most prominent athletic representative of its island home. A bit of a novelty for most of its history because of their exotic location, it joined the Western Athletic Conference in 1979 and became competitive under [=HCs=] Dick Tomey and Bob Wagner, who led UH to a conference championship in 1992. The program's on-field peak came under the revolutionary passing offense of June Jones in the 2000s that helped [=QBs=] Timmy Chang and Cole Brennan break NCAA passing records; the latter helped the Rainbow Warriors (then just the Warriors) join the BCS Buster ranks with an undefeated 2007 regular season (though they also became the first BCS Buster to ''lose'' their bowl game, getting blown out by Georgia).\\\

However, the program is most famous for its location and the various logistical challenges it provides. With the island chain sitting nearly 2,400 miles away from the nearest airport in the contiguous United States, the team is often by ''far'' the most traveled American athletic program every year despite only playing six or seven away games. The NCAA allows Hawaiʻi and all of its home opponents to play one extra game per season in an attempt to partially offset these expenses.[[note]] This exception applies to any team that plays a regularly scheduled game in Alaska or Hawaiʻi. However, no other NCAA school in either state has a football program. From 2010–19, games at the only NCAA member in Canada, D-II Simon Fraser University, also counted; it's in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, British Columbia, about a half-hour's drive from the US border. However, they didn't play football in 2020 due to COVID-19 and played all their 2021 and 2022 "home" games in Washington state due to COVID-related border restrictions. SFU dropped football after the 2022 season.[[/note]] Until Hawaiʻi started trying to balance out its home-and-away schedule, it often played as many as 9 home games in a season! That's not to say home games are any easier. Hawaiʻi's 50,000-capacity Aloha Stadium, which had served as the team's home since 1975, has been a major concern for decades due to the architects not properly accounting for the effects of the island's climate; the ocean air led the stadium to rapidly rust, leading to the venue being essentially condemned in 2020 and forcing the team to move home games to its athletic practice field, where UH hastily erected some bleachers. They'll play home games there at least through the 2025 season, while the current Aloha Stadium is demolished and a new 30,000-seat facility is built on the site (tentatively penciled-in for a 2026 debut). With all those challenges in mind, the team's successes only stand as more impressive.

!!!Nevada Wolf Pack
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nevada_1.png]]
->'''Location:''' Reno, NV\\
'''School Established:''' 1874[[note]]Originally called State College of Nevada. Moved from Elko to Reno in 1881. The school has been officially called University of Nevada, Reno since 1969. The school was branded as Nevada-Reno in athletics up until the move to the FBS level.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1896-1924, 1940-53, 1969-78), Far Western Conference (1925-39, 1954-68), Big Sky (1979-91), Big West (1992-99), WAC (2000-11), MW (2012-)[[note]]Did not play 1906-14 (briefly switched to UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion), 1918 (WWI), and 1951 (the board of regents dropped the sport, but with community and student support it was reinstated the next year)[[/note]]\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 575-511-33 (.529)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7–12 (.368)\\
'''Colors:''' Navy blue and silver\\
'''Stadium:''' Mackay Stadium (capacity 27,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Ken Wilson\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Buck Shaw, Chris Ault\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Marion Motley, Horace Gillom, Stan Heath, [[Wrestling/DickTheBruiser Bill Afflis]], Chris Ault, Tony and Marty Zendejas, Wrestling/CharlesWright, Trevor Insley, Nate Burleson, Colin Kaepernick\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 14 (3 Far Western – 1932-33, 1939; 4 Big Sky – 1983, 1986, 1990-91; 5 Big West - 1992, 1994-97; 2 WAC - 2005, 2010)

Before the rise of Marshall and Boise State, the '''University of Nevada, Reno''' was the gold standard for a team moving up to the I-A/FBS level and gaining success. While they already had a bit of a football tradition (early NFL star Marion Motley was an alum), the hiring of 30-year-old former Wolf Pack QB Chris Ault as head coach in 1976 set the team's rise in motion, as they went from a D-II independent to a national I-AA power to joining I-A in 1992 and winning a conference title in their very first season. Ault retired from coaching (twice!) to focus on his AD duties, but the Wolf Pack hit an AudienceAlienatingEra while he was gone. His return to the sidelines in 2004 gave the program a shot in the arm, aided by the launch of the Pistol offense and the arrival of QB Colin Kaepernick, who led them to their standout season in 2010 where they went 13-1 and finished at #11 in the final AP poll. After Ault retired for good in 2013, they've never quite reached the same heights but have performed modestly well. They're also notable for having a two-word singular form nickname (as opposed to the NC State Wolfpack)[[note]]In their early history, they had the much more unique nicknames of "Sagebrushers" and "Desert Wolves".[[/note]] and the odd design of their stadium (the end zone bleachers are squeezed inside the track, with the track going underneath the south end zone stands).

!!!New Mexico Lobos
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/new_mexico.png]]
->'''Location:''' Albuquerque, NM\\
'''School Established:''' 1889\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892-1930), Border (1931-50), Skyline (1951-61), WAC (1962-98), MW (1999- )\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 495-633-31 (.440)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 4–8–1 (.346)\\
'''Colors:''' Cherry red and silver\\
'''Stadium:''' University Stadium (capacity 39,224)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Danny Gonzales\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Marv Levy, Dennis Franchione\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Don Perkins, Brian Urlacher, Katie Hnida\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 4 (1 Border – 1938; 3 WAC – 1962-64)

At a school where men's basketball is the main sport, the '''University of New Mexico''''s [[GratuitousSpanish Lobo]] football team counts as TheDeterminator for the conference. They have the embarrassing distinction of being the only team who's been in the top level of college football for the entire existence of the AP poll (since 1936) to have never been ranked once, not even when they finished 10-1 in 1982 (they also got snubbed by the bowls that year). Their last conference title came when UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson was President, they've often struggled mightily on the field (with completely winless seasons in 1968 and 1987), yet they still keep plugging away. The last few decades have seen UNM occasionally become competitive, starting with the tenure of HC Dennis Franchione, who recruited future Pro Hall of Famer Brian Urlacher to the team in 1996 and ended the Lobos' 36-year bowl drought in 1997. They're also notable for fielding the first woman to play in an FBS game, placekicker Katie Hnida[[labelnote:*]]the "H" is silent[[/labelnote]], who played in a bowl game in 2002 and converted two extra points in a 2003 game.

!!!San Diego State Aztecs
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/san_diego_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' San Diego, CA\\
'''School Established:''' 1897[[note]]as "San Diego Normal School", [[IHaveManyNames followed by]] "San Diego State Teachers College" (after merging with "San Diego Junior College" in 1923), "San Diego State College" (1935), "California State University, San Diego" (1972), and finally the current name (1974).[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' SCJCC[[labelnote:*]]Southern California Junior College Conference[[/labelnote]] (1921-24), Ind. (1925, 1968, 1976-77), SCIAA (1926-38), CCAA[[labelnote:*]]California Collegiate Athletic Association, now D-II and no longer sponsors football[[/labelnote]] (1939-67),[[note]]Did not play in 1943-44.[[/note]] PCAA[[labelnote:*]]Pacific Coast Athletic Association, now known as the (D-I) Big West Conference, which also no longer sponsors football[[/labelnote]] (1969-75), WAC (1978-98), MW (1999-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 589-438-32 (.571)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 10-10 (.500)\\
'''Colors:''' Scarlet and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Snapdragon Stadium (capacity 35,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Brady Hoke\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Don Coryell\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Joe Gibbs, Creator/FredDryer, Creator/CarlWeathers, Dennis Shaw, Isaac Curtis, Herm Edwards, Brian Sipe, Dan [=McGwire=], Marshall Faulk, Donnel Pumphrey, Rashaad Penny, Matt Araiza\\
'''National Championships:''' 3 claimed in D-II (1966–68)[[note]]Then known as the NCAA College Division. At the time national champs were selected via wire service rankings; the NCAA didn't establish the D-II national championship until 1973.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 16 (2 SCIAC – 1936-37; 5 CCAA – 1950-51, 1962, 1966-67; 5 PCAA – 1969-70, 1972-74; 1 WAC – 1986; 3 MW – 2012, 2015-16)[[note]]also 3 as a junior college[[/note]]

'''San Diego State University''''s football history was initially forged in the small-college ranks. The Aztecs were generally a mediocre team with occasional flashes of brilliance until future NFL coaching great Don Coryell arrived in 1961. During his 12 seasons, he perfected the high-powered passing offense that he took to the pros, leading the Aztecs to small-college national titles in each of their final three seasons before they moved to what's now NCAA D-I in 1969, generating a huge local following in the process (the 1967 Aztecs averaged 41,030 fans per home game, still an attendance record for a non-D-I team). They were up and down for the next couple of decades after Coryell left in 1972, with a few conference titles and Marshall Faulk finishing second in the 1992 Heisman race. They bottomed out by not posting a winning season all through the 2000s, then finally bounced back to bowl eligibility throughout the 2010s.\\\

The Aztecs opened the new Snapdragon Stadium (Aztec Stadium behind the [[ProductPlacementName sponsorship]]) in 2022. After having played on campus in the Aztec Bowl[[labelnote:*]]some of whose bleachers still stand, but mostly covered up in the 1990s by the university's current basketball arena[[/labelnote]] since 1935, they moved to the Chargers' new stadium in 1967, two years before that venue also became home to MLB's Padres. The Aztecs and Chargers would share that stadium for 50 seasons (1967–2016), the longest co-tenancy between college and pro teams. After the Padres moved to a park of their own and the Chargers returned to Los Angeles, SDSU was the only tenant in an increasingly run-down venue that was far too large for its needs. Not long after the Chargers left, SDSU bought the stadium site and announced plans to redevelop it as a non-contiguous campus expansion parcel, with the 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium being the centerpiece of the development. In the meantime, they played in the [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueSoccer LA Galaxy's]] Dignity Health Sports Park nearly two hours' drive away (not counting traffic delays); coincidentally, the Chargers also played at the LA Galaxy's home ground before the opening of [=SoFi=] Stadium.[[note]]Interestingly, the Aztecs' relocation to Dignity Health Sports Park had the side effect of basically giving Cal State Dominguez Hills, a D-II school that's never had a football team, a home team for two seasons, since the stadium is actually located on its campus. Also of interest is that the Aztecs' new stadium ''also'' hosts a soccer team, namely San Diego Wave FC of the National Women's Soccer League, and will also host the city's MLS team when it starts play in 2025.[[/note]] With its location and new stadium, and the impending move of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten, SDSU was heavily linked with a Pac-12 invitation in the first part of 2023. Multiple media reports that June indicated that SDSU had given the MW notice of its intent to leave in 2024, and that the MW was treating SDSU's departure as a done deal. However, on the very day that SDSU's exit fee would have doubled, and with no Pac-12 invite (or, equally important, new Pac-12 media deal) on the horizon, SDSU told the MW it planned to stay for the time being. After hemming, hawing, and lawyering up, the MW and SDSU settled the dispute, with SDSU staying in the conference for the immediate future. Ironically, the Aztecs ended up on their feet—within weeks of that settlement, the Pac-12 imploded, losing eight more schools.\\\

San Diego State's "Aztec Warrior" mascot (adopted in 1925 after experimenting with "Normalites", "Professors", and "Wampus Cats") is one of the few in American college sports that remains based on an indigenous people group; the NCAA did not require the school to change it due to the Aztecs not having a modern day recognized tribe, but that hasn't stopped various student and indigenous groups from protesting its trope-y depiction of Aztec culture.

!!!San Jose State Spartans
[[quoteright:801:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/san_jose_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' San Jose, CA\\
'''School Established:''' 1857[[note]][[IHaveManyNames It's gone through a huge number of names]]. It was founded as Minns' Evening Normal School, then became California State Normal School and San Jose State Teachers College, then San Jose State College in 1935. In 1972, it was renamed California State University, San Jose, but the campus community ''hated'' that rebranding, so it reverted to San Jose State University in 1974, and has remained so since.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892-1900, 1921, 1925-28, 1935-38, 1950-68), California Coast Conference (1922-24), Far Western Conference (1929-34), California Collegiate Athletic Association (1940-42, 46-49), PCAA[=/=]Big West (1969-95), WAC (1996-2012), MW (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 511–533–38 (.490)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7–5 (.583)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' CEFCU Stadium, historically known as Spartan Stadium (capacity 30,456)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Brent Brennan\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Fielding H. Yost[[note]]one game only as an interim coach in 1900[[/note]], Jack Elway, John Ralston, Dick Tomey\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Willie Heston[[note]]left for Michigan along with Yost[[/note]], Billy Wilson, Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeil, Art Powell, Ron [=McBride=], Steve [=DeBerg=], Jeff Garcia\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 17 (2 Far Western - 1932; 1934, 6 CCAA - 1939-41; 1946; 1948-49, 8 PCAA[=/=]Big West - 1975-76; 1978; 1986-87; 1990-91, 3 WAC - 1992-93; 1999, 1 MW - 2020)

The oldest public university on the West Coast, and the founding campus of the California State University System, '''San José State University'''[[note]]The university itself officially uses the acute Spanish accent mark in José but accepts other outlets dropping it.[[/note]] has long been the QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to Cal and Stanford in San Francisco Bay Area college sports (despite both institutions being younger than SJSU). After sponsoring football for a few years toward the end of the 1800s, they relaunched the program in 1921, becoming a steady if not spectacular winner over the next few decades. The 1941 Spartans had the misfortune of being in UsefulNotes/{{Hawaii}} on the morning of December 7, when the Pearl Harbor attack not only canceled their scheduled game against Hawaii on December 13, but left them stranded on the islands for the next few weeks; the Honolulu police enlisted them to help patrol the beaches. SJSU also gained a "cradle of coaches" reputation. Former Spartans who went onto to coaching greatness included Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeil, and Bob Ladouceur (the coach behind the 151-game winning streak of California's De La Salle High School from 1992-2003).\\\

Their peak came in TheEighties, a decade that saw the Spartans earn seven winning seasons and three bowl bids, a string of success begun by HC Jack Elway (John Elway's father). They couldn't sustain that level of achievement in the next decade but still got an invite to the 16-school WAC expansion in 1996, even though (much like Rutgers joining the Big Ten in the future) everyone recognized that SJSU was only invited to give the league access to a Top 5 media market. In the years before joining the WAC, they struggled to hit the I-A attendance requirement (the largest attendance mark for an event at their home stadium is a Music/ZZTop concert) and their football games were broadcast on the school's student-run radio station. Despite grabbing notable coaches like John Ralston and Dick Tomey in the twilight of their careers, Spartan fans haven't had much to cheer about in the last few decades. Their best recent season came amid the bleak days of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic in 2020, winning a conference title and finishing the regular season undefeated.

!!!UNLV Rebels
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unlv.png]]
->'''Location:''' Las Vegas, NV (though technically in the unincorporated suburb of Paradise)\\
'''School Established:''' 1957[[note]]Originally "University of Nevada, Southern Division", then "Nevada Southern University", then "University of Nevada, Las Vegas" starting in 1969[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1968-81), PCAA/Big West (1982-95), WAC (1996-98), MW (1999-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 250-374-4 (.401)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 2-2 (.500)\\
'''Colors:''' Scarlet and gray\\
'''Stadium:''' Allegiant Stadium (capacity 65,000)[[note]]For most of the program's existence, it played home games at Sam Boyd Stadium (previously called the Silver Bowl), located eight miles from campus, but the move of the NFL's Raiders to Las Vegas allowed UNLV to work out a joint-tenancy deal in their new domed stadium, which is much closer to campus.[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Barry Odom\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' John Robinson\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Randall Cunningham, [[Creator/DeathRowRecords Suge Knight]], Ickey Woods\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 2 (Big West – 1984, 1994)

Another case of a football team that struggles at a school where basketball is king, the '''Univsersity of Nevada, Las Vegas''' makes for an interesting contrast with Boise State. Both teams began playing at the four-year level in 1968 and became D-II powers over the next few years. In fact, Tony Knap, the coach who led BSU into the NCAA, left for UNLV in 1976. The Rebels elected to move to the I-A level in 1978 and immediately became competitive, producing a genuine star in QB Randall Cunningham, who led them to a conference title and bowl win in 1984. Things looked bright for UNLV's football future, but with coach Jerry Tarkanian's basketball program already under the NCAA's microscope, the football program was accused of various improprieties, including using ineligible players, plus several players getting into trouble with the law. Many of their wins were forfeited, and the Rebels have never really recovered from these controversies; since 1986, UNLV has had just five winning seasons. Outside of Cunningham and Cincinnati Bengals [[OneHitWonder one-season wonder]] [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueNotoriousFigures Ickey Woods]], their two most famous ex-players are better-known for non-football endeavors: ''Series/SportsCenter'' anchor Kenny Mayne was a backup QB, and Creator/DeathRowRecords mogul Suge Knight played nose guard for two seasons. The move to the newly arrived Raiders' Allegiant Stadium has given Rebel faithful some hope that they can start attracting better talent.\\\

If you're wondering- yes, the "Rebel" moniker ''is'' a reference to the Confederate States of America, invented back when UNLV was Nevada ''Southern'' in contrast to their rivals in Reno. Adding to the irony/controversy around this mascot, Nevada was given statehood ''during'' UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar to ''help'' keep Lincoln in power and defeat said rebels. Another layer of irony for all that is the fact that UNLV won the first-ever matchup between Black head coaches at the I-A[=/=]FBS level, when, under coach Wayne Nunnely, they defeated Ohio, coached by Cleve Bryant, 26-18 in 1988.[[note]]The "I-A[=/=]FBS" qualifier matters here, since in 1977, the year before the I-A[=/=]I-AA split, the SWAC (see FCS conferences below) moved up to D-I as a conference, so technically their conference games were the first Black coaching matchups at the major college level.[[/note]]


!!!Utah State Aggies
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/utah_state_aggies.png]]
->'''Location:''' Logan, UT\\
'''School Established:''' 1888[[note]]as the Agricultural College of Utah. Later renamed to Utah State Agricultural College and finally [[OverlyLongName Utah State University of Agriculture and Applied Science]] in 1957, but the school rarely uses anything but the first three words of the name.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892-1913, 1962-77, 2001-02), RMAC (1916-37), Skyline (1938-61), Big West (1978-2000), Sun Belt (2003-04), WAC (2005-12), MW (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 576-562-31 (.506)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6-10-0 (.375)\\
'''Colors:''' Aggie blue (basically navy blue) and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Maverik Stadium (capacity 25,513)[[note]]"Maverik" is not a misspelling; it's a regional chain of convenience stores.[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Blake Anderson\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Dick Romney, John Ralston\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' [=LaVell=] Edwards, Merlin and Phil Olsen, Jim Turner, Anthony Calvillo, Bobby Wagner\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 13 (3 RMAC – 1921, 1935-36; 3 Skyline – 1946, 1960-61; 5 PCAA[=/=]Big West – 1978-79, 1993, 1996-97; 2 MW – 2012, 2021)

Located about a 90-minute drive from Salt Lake City in an isolated dairy-farming valley, '''Utah State University''' has alternated between great success and mediocrity over its history. Under the three-decade tenure of Hall of Fame coach Dick Romney (a distant relative of current Utah senator UsefulNotes/MittRomney), the Aggies challenged Utah for football supremacy in the Beehive State in the years before World War II (1919-48, with BYU football as an afterthought in those years). The program peaked in 1961 when it finished with a #10 ranking led by star DT (and future NFL great, sportscaster, and actor) Merlin Olsen, who the school later named their playing surface after. However, the school's exclusion from the newly-created WAC in 1962 hobbled the program, and BYU's rise to football prominence (ironically led by former Aggie player [=LaVell=] Edwards) made USU the [[StuckInTheirShadow odd one out]] in the state, leading to it constantly bouncing around conferences. The most notable player from that era was QB Anthony Calvillo, who went on to a 20-year CFL career in which he set a North American pro record for passing yards (now held by Tom Brady). However, the program resurged in the 2010s, with three more Top 25 finishes (2012, 2018, 2021) and two conference championships.

!!!Wyoming Cowboys
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wyoming.png]]
->'''Location:''' Laramie, WY\\
'''School Established:''' 1886\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1893-1904), CFA (1905-08), RMAC (1909-37), Skyline (1938-61), WAC (1962-98), MW (1999-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 556-595-28 (.484)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 8-9 (.471)\\
'''Colors:''' Brown and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' War Memorial Stadium (capacity 30,181)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Craig Bohl\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Bowden Wyatt, Bob Devaney, Pat Dye, Dennis Erickson, Joe Tiller\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Marv Levy, Jim Kiick, Conrad Dobler, Jay Novacek, Marcus Harris, Josh Allen\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 14 (7 Skyline – 1949-50, 1956, 1958-61; 7 WAC - 1966-68, 1976, 1987-88, 1993)

The '''University of Wyoming''''s football team is the ultimate in local market domination: it's the only public four-year college in the state (and was the only four-year school ''period'' until the founding of Wyoming Catholic College in 2005). However, since the state just happens to be the smallest one in the union in population, the Cowboys have never been a major powerhouse. They were one of the worst teams in the nation in the early 20th century but became a regional power in TheFifties (posting undefeated seasons in '50 and '56) and TheSixties, peaking with a #5 finish and Sugar Bowl appearance in 1967. However, two years later, the program took a huge hit over the "Black 14" incident, in which 14 African-American players were kicked off the team after announcing their plan to wear black armbands in a game against BYU in protest of the LDS Church's (since disavowed) anti-black doctrines and practices. That episode caused Wyoming no end of recruiting problems for years, and they've fluctuated wildly ever since. Those glory years also highlighted another big issue for the school: they've never been able to hold onto any of the multiple good coaches who pass through town. Bowden Wyatt started their turnaround before leaping to jobs at Arkansas and Tennessee; Bob Devaney lasted five years, then went to neighboring Nebraska and launched the meteoric rise of the Cornhuskers. Pat Dye and Dennis Erickson likewise only lasted one year before moving on to high-profile jobs.\\\

Their [[CurbStompBattle 103-0 defeat of Northern Colorado in 1949]] holds the record for the most points in a single game by a major college team since the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Their home field at War Memorial Stadium has the highest elevation of any major college field, sitting at 7,220 feet above sea level.[[note]]The highest stadium in any division is the Mountaineer Bowl at D-II Western Colorado University, at 7,750 feet. As noted above, Air Force's cadets live at a slightly higher elevation than Wyoming's stadium, but the Falcons play several hundred feet below.[[/note]]

[[folder:Sun Belt Conference (SBC)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sun_belt.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Appalachian State, ''Arkansas State'', Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison, Louisiana, ''Louisiana-Monroe'', [[Film/WeAreMarshall Marshall]], ''Old Dominion'', ''South Alabama'', Southern Miss, ''Texas State'', Troy\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Keith Gill\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Troy\\
'''Website:''' [[https://sunbeltsports.org sunbeltsports.org]]

The '''Sun Belt Conference''', or SBC, was formed in 1976 and quickly established itself as a formidable mid-major basketball conference (its games were an early staple of live Creator/{{ESPN}} programming), but it only started sponsoring football in 2001, making it the runt among the current FBS conferences for several years. If you've ever heard of any of these schools, it's likely because (1) these are the teams typically scheduled to get slaughtered on the road to some of the traditional powerhouses (usually the geographically overlapping SEC) or (2) you saw ''Film/WeAreMarshall''. Its current lineup is sort of an all-star team of schools who'd been powerhouses at college football's lower levels before deciding to move up to the big time; 9 of its 14 teams won FCS or D-II national championships earlier in their history (many with multiple titles).\\\

Typically, when a team from a power conference is scheduling their homecoming game, this is one place where they look, as most of its teams [[ButtMonkey didn't get winning records]] and even today very few of their players go on to the pros. However, the conference has [[GrowingTheBeard grown the beard]] significantly in recent years, and [[DavidVersusGoliath the underdogs now frequently punch above their weight class]]. In Week 2 of the 2022 season, App State and Marshall ''both'' took down top-10 teams on the road (respectively Texas A&M and Notre Dame), and Georgia Southern went into Nebraska and stuck the final dagger into Scott Frost's disappointing tenure as the Huskers' HC. Nowadays, it's affectionately called the "Fun Belt".[[note]]Originally, "Fun Belt" was more a joking pejorative. But since the joining of frequent FBS millstone Appalachian State and the rise of Coastal Carolina, the nickname has lost any sense of irony, and is usually applied with complete sincerity.[[/note]]\\\

For several years, the main conference power was Troy. More recently, Arkansas State won at least a share of the conference title 5 times in a 6-season stretch under ''[[HighTurnoverRate four different head coaches]]''.[[note]]During this streak, each of the Red Wolves' first three title-winning coaches left after a single season to move to a higher-profile FBS job.[[/note]] Former FCS power Appalachian State has been dominant since its 2014 entry, earned in part due to its infamous victory over #5 ranked Michigan (see below for more details). Fellow former FCS power Georgia Southern (also below) also started strong, winning the conference title outright in their first FBS season in 2014, but had two off years in 2016 and 2017 before resurging again. The Louisiana [[RaginCajun Ragin' Cajuns]] quietly rose to contention at the turn of this decade, posting three straight 10-win seasons. And in 2020, Coastal Carolina, previously best known for its teal field, came out of nowhere to draw national attention with an unbeaten regular season.\\\

Like every other FBS conference except the MAC, the Fun Belt has gone through significant churn in the post-2010 college football landscape. One notable change that didn't involve football came in 2012 when non-football Denver, then the SBC's only private school, left. This made the SBC the other FBS league whose full members are all state-supported, a status it maintains today. The first changes that affected football came in 2013, when C-USA raided the SBC in order to replenish its numbers after having been raided by the Big East/American. FIU, Florida Atlantic, Middle Tennessee, and North Texas all left at that time. The next year saw Western Kentucky leave to join C-USA; App State and Georgia Southern join from the Southern Conference; and Idaho and New Mexico State, which had been [[TheScrappy left stranded]] to become independents when the football side of the WAC disintegrated in 2012, become football-only members (in the early 2000s, Idaho had been a football-only member and New Mexico State an all-sports member). However, Idaho and NMSU found themselves [[HereWeGoAgain stranded again]] when the Sun Belt bounced them from its football league after the 2017 season. At the time Coastal was announced as a future member, their arrival would have allowed the conference to stage a conference championship game, but only if it didn't lose any football members (read: boot out Idaho and New Mexico State). However, in 2016, a Big 12 proposal to allow all FBS conferences to stage football championship games, even if they have fewer than 12 members, was approved by the commissioners of the FBS leagues. Subsequently, the conference unanimously voted to hold a conference title game starting in 2018 (the same year Coastal became bowl-eligible). In 2017, the conference announced that the 10 football-playing schools would be divided into two divisions of five teams. Before the SBC's 2022 expansion, South Alabama played in the West Division for football despite playing in the East in all other SBC sports split into two divisions.\\\

As noted in the C-USA folder, the SBC launched its own raid of that league, poaching Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss. James Madison made the jump to FBS and joined as well. All divisional sports (including football) adopted a new dividing line along the Alabama–Georgia border. The SBC had two non-football members before its most recent expansion in Little Rock[[note]]Arkansas–Little Rock[[/note]] and UT Arlington. Both schools have considered reviving their respective football programs in recent years. Little Rock's feasibility study in 2019 had recommended against doing so, at least for now. With the conference adding four football members, they saw the writing on the wall and amicably left in 2022, with Little Rock joining the Ohio Valley Conference and UT Arlington returning to the Western Athletic Conference, where it had been a member in the 2012–13 school year.\\\

Outside of football, the Fun Belt has become a homestead for Power 5 universities whose conferences don't host men's soccer. This includes Kentucky and South Carolina from the SEC, and West Virginia and UCF from the Big 12.\\\

The SBC is also notable as the first FBS conference to hire an African-American commissioner, namely Keith Gill in 2019. Gill was followed a few months later by Kevin Warren of the Big Ten Conference.

!!!Appalachian State Mountaineers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/appalachian_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' Boone, NC\\
'''School Established:''' 1899[[note]]As Watauga Academy; became Appalachian Training School for Teachers in 1903, Appalachian State Normal School in 1925, Appalachian State Teachers College in 1929, and Appalachian State University in 1967.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1928-30, 1968-71), North State/Conference Carolinas (1931-67),[[note]]Did not play in the war years of 1943-44.[[/note]] [=SoCon=] (1972-2013), Sun Belt (2014-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 654-352-28 (.646)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6–1 (.857)\\
'''Colors:''' Black and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Kidd Brewer Stadium (aka "The Rock"; capacity 30,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Shawn Clark\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Beattie Feathers, Mack Brown, Jerry Moore\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' \\
'''National Championships:''' 3 in FCS (2005–07)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 22 (6 North State – 1931, 1937, 1939, 1948, 1950, 1954; 12 [=SoCon=] – 1986-87, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2005-10, 2012; 4 Sun Belt – 2016-19)

Nestled in the mountains of western North Carolina[[labelnote:*]]About 3300 ft/1016 m elevation; the nearest D-I school at a higher elevation is Air Force, a bit under 1300 miles/2100 km as the crow flies.[[/labelnote]], '''Appalachian State University''' is a mid-sized former teachers college best known for going into Michigan in 2007 and beating the then [[CrackDefeat fifth-ranked]] Wolverines, becoming the first FCS team ever to defeat a ranked FBS team. (It's happened six more times since.) However, App State's success goes well beyond one game.\\\

While the Mountaineers (also affectionately "Apps") enjoyed periods of success in the small-college ranks and the early years of I-AA/FCS[[note]]Their stadium is named after the coach of their 1937 season, in which their defense didn't surrender a single point during the regular season.[[/note]], they truly emerged as a national power at that level under Jerry Moore. During his 24 seasons, App State won 10 [=SoCon=] titles and peaked with three straight FCS titles in 2005–07, becoming the first school since the '40s to claim three straight national titles in D-I or its predecessors. After Moore retired at the end of 2012, the Mountaineers began a transition to FBS in 2013 and joined the Sun Belt Conference the next year. They started slow but won their last 6 games in 2014 and won at least 9 in each of the next seven seasons, a run that included shared conference titles in 2016 and 2017 plus wins in the first two Sun Belt championship games. Much like Arkansas State earlier in the decade, they saw both of the coaches who led them to title game wins immediately scooped up by more prominent FBS programs. The Apps also won bowl games in each of their first six seasons after completing their FBS transition (2015–20), a record as yet unmatched by any transitioning school. The next-longest streak of this type is Liberty's three from 2019–21.

!!!Coastal Carolina Chanticleers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/coastal_carolina.png]]
->'''Location:''' Conway, SC\\
'''School Established:''' 1954[[note]]as a junior college; it didn't become a four-year institution until 1973[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Big South (2003-15), Sun Belt (2016-)[[labelnote:*]]FCS independent and non-football Sun Belt member in 2016[[/labelnote]]\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 158–84 (.653)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 1–2 (.333)\\
'''Colors:''' Teal, bronze, and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Brooks Stadium (21,000 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Tim Beck\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Joe Moglia\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Grayson [=McCall=]\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 8 (7 Big South – 2004–06, 2010, 2012–14; 1 Sun Belt – 2020[[labelnote:*]]shared with Louisiana when the championship game was called off due to COVID-19[[/labelnote]])

'''Coastal Carolina University''', located just a hop, skip, and jump from the tourist mecca of Myrtle Beach, started its life as a junior college in the 1950s, became a two-year extension of the University of South Carolina in 1960, and expanded into a four-year school in the 1970s before separating from USC (with that school's blessing) in 1993. However, football didn't start up until 2003. The Chanticleers (affectionately known as the "Chants", with the rooster a cheeky play on the Gamecocks the school spun off from) soon emerged as a strong contender in the FCS Big South Conference, and the program grew even more in the 2010s under Joe Moglia, a former CEO of discount brokerage TD Ameritrade who oversaw Coastal's move to FBS and the Sun Belt Conference after the 2015 season. After spending 2016 as an FCS independent and non-football Sun Belt member, the Chanticleers joined Sun Belt football in 2017.\\\

After joining the FBS, Coastal struggled and was known by college football fans only for the teal-colored field it adopted in 2015 (or ''maybe'' the unusual background of its now-retired HC), only to come out of nowhere in 2020 and draw national attention with an unbeaten regular season, complete with more [[EightiesHair mullets]] than an [[TheEighties '80s]] rock concert and [[https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/watch-coastal-carolina-celebrates-win-with-elbow-drop-through-table-in-wild-wwe-style-locker-room-match/ locker-room celebrations]] right out of Wrestling/{{WWE}}. That season also featured a matchup against then-unbeaten BYU scheduled on ''two days' notice'', which featured a DownToTheLastPlay finish and earned enough national media attention that it got [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormons_vs._Mullets its own Wikipedia page]]. The Chants claimed their first bowl win the next year and have remained a force in--and in some ways the face of--the Fun Belt.

!!!Georgia Southern Eagles
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/georgia_southern.png]]
->'''Location:''' Statesboro, GA\\
'''School Established:''' 1906[[note]]as "First District Agricultural & Mechanical School"; retooled as a teachers college in 1924 as "Georgia Normal School". After several more name and mission changes, it became Georgia Southern University in 1990.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1924-41, 1984-91)[[labelnote:*]]Played at club level from 1981–1983.[[/labelnote]], [=SoCon=] (1992-2013), Sun Belt (2014-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 413-247-10 (.624)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 3-2 (.600)\\
'''FCS Playoff Record:''' 45-13 (.776)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Allen E. Paulson Stadium (25,000 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Clay Helton\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Erk Russell, Paul Johnson, Willie Fritz\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Tracy Ham, Rob Bironas, Younghoe Koo\\
'''National Championships:''' 6 in FCS (1985-86, 1989-90, 1999-2000)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 11 (10 [=SoCon=] – 1993, 1997–2002, 2004, 2011–12; 1 Sun Belt – 2014)

Based in Statesboro, a small rural city about an hour west of Savannah (immortalized in song by {{Blues}} legend Blind Willie [=McTell=] and famously covered by Music/TheAllmanBrothersBand), '''Georgia Southern University''' started as an agricultural and mechanical school, then evolved into a teachers' college, a four-year college, and eventually a university by 1990, becoming the largest university in Georgia south of Atlanta. The football team was suspended for World War II and laid dormant for four decades before being resurrected as a club team in 1981, moving to varsity status in 1984. Erk Russell, longtime defensive coordinator under Vince Dooley at Georgia, was hired as HC. Russell led one of the fastest ascents in college football history, winning their first of six FCS championships in just their ''second'' varsity season (and fourth overall), despite having NoBudget during the early years of the Eagles' modern era. Some of the team's traditions stem from this, such as their arrival on yellow school buses that were purchased surplus for $1 each from the local K-12 school system. Others were created by Russell himself, such as "Beautiful Eagle Creek", a drainage ditch near the team's practice fields whose waters serve as a GoodLuckCharm, and the phrase "One more time", which was coined after the Eagles won back-to-back FCS championships; the phrase is chanted by Eagles fans after every kickoff. The colorful, beloved Russell carried over another tradition from his UGA days: headbutting his helmeted players bare-headed, often to the point of drawing blood; after Russell's death in 2006, a bronze bust of him was placed at the players' entrance at Paulson Stadium ("The Prettiest Little Stadium in America"), and the players headbutt the bust before taking the field. In Russell's final season with the Eagles, he led the team to a 15-0 record en route to their third FCS championship, the first D-I team to do so in the 20th century. Despite Erk Russell's achievements with both Georgia Southern and UGA, he has not been enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, since Russell was a head coach for only eight seasons and the CFHOF requires ten seasons experience for head coaches to be considered for induction.\\\

After years of being very comfortable with its niche in the FCS ranks, Southern joined its [=SoCon=] rival App State in starting the jump to FBS in 2013 and moving to the Sun Belt the following year. The Eagles immediately won the conference title. Georgia Southern is also known for a spicy rivalry with another in-state school and fellow Sun Belt member, Georgia State; both schools have roots as teachers' colleges and share the same "GSU" initialism, though Southern chooses to use just "GS" in its athletic branding, as reflected in its athletic web address. Both of Southern's main rivalries have nicknames that play off Georgia and Georgia Tech's "Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate"—the rivalry with Georgia State is "Modern Day Hate", and the App State rivalry is "Deeper Than Hate".

!!!Georgia State Panthers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/georgia_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' UsefulNotes/{{Atlanta}}, GA\\
'''School Established:''' 1913[[note]]Founded as a evening extension of Georgia Tech; became an extension campus of the University of Georgia in 1947. Became an autonomous four-year institution in 1955 as "Georgia State College of Business Administration"; the last three words were dropped in 1961 and "College" was replaced by "University" in 1969.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (2010-11), CAA (2012), Sun Belt (2013-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 54–100 (.351)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 3-2 (.600)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Center Parc Stadium (25,000 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Shawn Elliott\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' \\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' \\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 0

Based in the heart of downtown Atlanta and the largest public university in Georgia by enrollment, '''Georgia State University''' had long been considered a commuter school (having spent its first four decades as an extension campus of either Georgia Tech or UGA) and only attempted to shed that label near the end of the 20th century. As one of the newest college football programs in existence, the Panthers lack a rich football history; in the Panthers' first two Sun Belt seasons, the team went 1-23, with that lone win coming against an FCS program by one point. In 2017, following the closure and subsequent demolition of the Georgia Dome and UsefulNotes/{{Major League Baseball}}'s Atlanta Braves vacating Turner Field in favor of Truist Park in Cobb County, Georgia State acquired the former MLB ballpark (also the former main stadium for the [[UsefulNotes/OlympicGames 1996 Summer Olympics]]) and renovated it for football.\\\

As mentioned earlier, Georgia State has an intense in-state rivalry with Georgia Southern; while the football rivalry only started with the Eagles' move to the FBS in 2014, the two schools' rivalry goes back as far as the 1970s in other sports, primarily men's basketball, and were previously conference mates in the conference now known as the ASUN.

!!!James Madison Dukes
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jmu.png]]
->'''Location:''' Harrisonburg, VA\\
'''School Established:''' 1908[[note]]as the "State Normal and Industrial School for Women"; after a couple of name changes in between, became "Madison College" in 1938. Went coed in 1946 and became James Madison University in 1976.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (D-III, 1972–73), VCAA[[labelnote:*]]Virginia Collegiate Athletic Association, a D-III league that operated from 1972–75 and a de facto predecessor of the current D-III Old Dominion Athletic Conference[[/labelnote]] (1974–75), Ind. (D-II 1976, D-III 1977–79, I-AA 1980–92), Yankee (1993–96), A-10 (1997–2006), CAA (2007–21),[[note]]For football purposes, the Yankee Conference, Atlantic 10, and CAA Football are effectively the same league.[[/note]] Sun Belt (2022–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 358-223-4 (.615)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' Not eligible until 2024\\
'''FCS Playoff Record:''' 24-16 (.600)\\
'''Colors:''' Purple and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Bridgeforth Stadium (24,877 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Curt Cignetti\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' \\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Charles Haley, Scott Norwood\\
'''National Championships:''' 2 in FCS (2004, 2016)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (1 VCAA – 1975; 9 A-10/CAA – 1999, 2004, 2008, 2015–17, 2019–21)

One of the newest members of FBS, '''James Madison University''' is a mid-sized public school located in the heart of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. It got a late start to football largely because it spent its first 38 years as a women's college. JMU finally started up football in 1972 in the NCAA College Division, moving to D-III once the NCAA split that division. They later moved to D-II for a year, returned to D-III, then jumped up to I-AA in the '80s. The Dukes were mostly a middling program until emerging as a power in the 21st century, claiming FCS titles in 2004 and 2016 (notably ending North Dakota State's five-year FCS title streak in the latter season). JMU had higher aspirations, openly seeking an FBS upgrade for years until finally making the jump in 2022. By the time of this move, James Madison had the highest football revenue of any FCS program, and its athletic budget was the largest in the SBC when it joined. JMU was ''intended'' to join the SBC in 2023, but when the all-sports CAA[[note]]As noted in the FCS section below, the CAA football league, branded as CAA Football, is technically separate from the all-sports CAA.[[/note]] banned them from participating in its conference championships, the NCAA permitted JMU and the SBC to accelerate the move to 2022. This made the Dukes the second program, after UCF, to have played at all four levels of NCAA football. Notably, the Dukes jumped to a 5–0 start and made the AP Top 25, becoming the first team ever to be nationally ranked in its first FBS season (though that status only lasted a week after a close loss to Georgia Southern, and the conditions of their accelerated promotion meant they couldn't play in a bowl). Though counted as FBS in 2022, the NCAA is (so far) still not allowing JMU to play in a bowl in its second transitional year in 2023—a season in which the Dukes are off to a ''10–0'' start. As for the "Dukes" nickname, it has nothing to do with the noble title—it comes from the university's second president, Samuel Page Duke, whose 30-year tenure included the transition to coeducation. JMU's mascot is Duke Dog, a student in a bulldog costume with a crowned head.

!!!Louisiana [[RaginCajun Ragin' Cajuns]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/louisiana.png]]
->'''Location:''' Lafayette, LA\\
'''School Established:''' 1898[[note]]As Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute, then [[OverlyLongName Southwestern Louisiana Institute of Liberal and Technical Learning]] in 1921, University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1960, and University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1998[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1901-47, 1982-92, 1996-2000), Gulf States (1948-70), Southland (1971-81), Big West (1993-95), Sun Belt (2001-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 559-570-34 (.495)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 5-3 (.625)\\
'''Colors:''' Vermilion and white[[note]]The school officially labels it as "Evangeline white", in honor of the heroine of Creator/HenryWadsworthLongfellow's epic poem ''Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie''.[[/note]]\\
'''Stadium:''' Cajun Field (41,264 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Michael Desormeaux\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Mark Hudspeth\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Brian Mitchell, Jake Delhomme, Charles Tillman, Brett Baer\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (4 Gulf States - 1952, 1965, 1968, 1970; 2 Big West - 1993-94; 4 Sun Belt - 2005, 2013,[[note]]Officially vacated due to NCAA violations[[/note]] 2020-21)

Located in the largest city in Acadiana, the region of south central Louisiana where the majority of the state's Cajun and Creole populations live, the '''University of Louisiana at Lafayette''' has always played second fiddle to Louisiana State University, and that very much extends to football. However, the appropriately named Ragin' Cajuns have fought very hard to shake that reputation (and not just by campaigning for decades to be referred to as simply "Louisiana" rather than "Southwestern Louisiana" or "Louisiana–Lafayette"). The school rose to become a Sun Belt power starting in the early 2010s (though they had to vacate many of their early-decade wins due to NCAA violations). Also, for the record—the Cajuns beat the Florida Gators in calling their home stadium "The Swamp" by several decades.[[note]]However, the nickname was originally applied to a different stadium from the one they now occupy, and the Cajuns only started calling their ''current'' stadium "The Swamp" a year before Steve Spurrier christened the Gators' stadium as such.[[/note]] Also of note is that the Cajuns are the only Division I team that plays below sea level.[[note]]Although the area around the stadium is about 35 feet above sea level, the playing field is set into a natural bowl and lies 2 feet below sea level. If you're wondering about Tulane, the campus lies in a part of New Orleans that's slightly above sea level.[[/note]]

!!!Marshall Thundering Herd
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marshall.png]]
->'''Location:''' Huntington, WV\\
'''School Established:''' 1837[[note]]As Marshall Academy, then College in 1858, State Normal School of Marshall College in 1967, College ''again'' in 1938, and University in 1962[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1895-1925, 1969–75), WVIAC[[labelnote:*]]West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, a now-defunct league that last played in D-II in 2012. The D-II Mountain East Conference is its successor in all but name (and charter).[[/labelnote]] (1925–33, 1939-48), Buckeye (1933-39), OVC (1948-52), MAC (1953-69, 1997–2005), [=SoCon=] (1977–97), C-USA (2005–21), Sun Belt (2022–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 623-563-47 (.524)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 13–6 (.684)\\
'''Colors:''' Kelly green and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Joan C. Edwards Stadium (capacity 38,227)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Charles Huff\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Jack Lengyel\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Frank Gatski, Troy Brown, Randy Moss, Chad Pennington, Byron Leftwich, Rakeem Cato\\
'''National Championships:''' 2 in FCS (1992, 1996)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 13 (3 WVIAC – 1925, 1928, 1931; 1 Buckeye – 1937; 3 [=SoCon=] – 1988, 1994, 1996; 5 MAC – 1997–2000, 2002; 1 C-USA – 2014)

'''Marshall University''', a medium-sized public school not far from where West Virginia meets Ohio and Kentucky, is one of the few schools at its level with a significant place in popular culture, mostly because of a tragedy in 1970. While the team was returning from a game at East Carolina, their chartered plane crashed on its landing approach, killing all on board. The film ''Film/WeAreMarshall'' is a somewhat fictionalized version of the team's rebuilding in the aftermath of the crash.\\\

On the field, the Herd played mostly in regional conferences until joining the MAC in 1954, only to be kicked out in 1969 after multiple NCAA rules violations. They joined the Southern Conference in 1977, returning to competition in the '80s and eventually becoming a dominant I-AA/FCS program in the '90s; in their last six seasons at that level (1991–96), they made the playoff semifinals every year and won two national titles. Their last I-AA season, featuring future NFL stars Chad Pennington and Randy Moss, was one of the most dominant in history at that level; not only did they go unbeaten, but none of their opponents got any closer than two [=TDs=]. The Herd then returned to the MAC, winning the conference title in each of their first four seasons back (as well as five in six seasons) before (voluntarily) moving to Conference USA in 2005. Marshall has since settled in as a frequent threat for conference honors, though obviously not the national power they were in their final years in FCS. Most recently, Marshall became part of the mass exodus from C-USA, moving to the Sun Belt along with Southern Miss and ODU in 2022. In the process, they joined the conference of their most historic rival, fellow Appalachian overperformer App State [[UnknownRival (West Virginia barely plays and has never lost to the Herd in football)]].[[note]]Though they ''do'' play in other sports. Funnily, WVU beat Marshall in men's soccer in the same (COVID-affected) 2020–21 season in which Marshall won the national title. At the same time Marshall joined the SBC, WVU moved men's soccer into that league.[[/note]]

!!!Southern Miss Golden Eagles
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/southern_miss.png]]
->'''Location:''' Hattiesburg, MS\\
'''School Established:''' 1910[[note]]As Mississippi Normal College; became Mississippi State Teachers College in 1924, Mississippi Southern College in 1940, University in 1962[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1912-30, 1942-47, 1952-95), SIAA (1931-41), Gulf States (1948-51), C-USA (1996-2021), Sun Belt (2022-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 614-453-27 (.574)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 12-13 (.480)\\
'''Colors:''' Gold and black\\
'''Stadium:''' M.M. Roberts Stadium (aka "The Rock") (capacity 36,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Will Hall\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Thad "Pie" Vann, Bobby Colins, Jeff Bower\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Ray Guy, Jeff Bower, Hanford Dixon, Reggie Collier, Brett Favre\\
'''National Championships:''' 2 in FCS (1958, 1962)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 8 (3 Gulf States - 1948, 1950-51; 5 C-USA - 1996-97, 1999, 2003, 2011)

While the '''University of Southern Mississippi''' plays third fiddle in its state to SEC teams Ole Miss and Mississippi State in terms of popularity, it actually outperforms both programs in terms of its historic win percentage. Its team was a regional power in the mid 20th century under Hall of Fame coach Thad "Pie" Vann, who led the team to two College Level national championships as an independent during his long winning tenure (1949-68). Former QB Jeff Bower helped build the team into consistent winners during his tenure (1991-2007) and led their transition to C-USA, where they remained a strong competitor... until 2012, where the Golden Eagles suffered one of the steepest dropoffs in major college history, going from winning 12 games and their conference to going completely winless after a coaching change (the entire coaching staff was fired). The program has mostly rebounded since then and left the C-USA for the Sun Belt in 2022.\\\

Despite its general success on the football field, the university has long been dogged by off-field controversies. A lot of this understandably has to do with the ugly history of racism in the region; USM strongly held out from integration and used Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, who went on to become Grand Wizard of the first [[UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan KKK]], as its mascot for decades before changing its nickname from "the Southerners" to the Golden Eagles in 1974. The school has tried to distance itself from that history (though its stadium is still named after an ardent segregationist). In more recent years, the school has instead been more associated with the misuse of state welfare funds to support the school's non-football athletic programs, a scandal that involved big name alumni like the state governor and Southern Miss' most famous football player, Pro Hall of Famer Brett Favre.

!!!Troy Trojans
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/troy_50.png]]
->'''Location:''' Troy, AL\\
'''School Established:''' 1887[[note]]As Troy Normal School, then Troy Teachers College in 1929, Troy State College in 1957, Troy State University in 1967, and Troy University in 2006.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1909-37, 1991-95, 2001-03), Alabama Intercollegiate (1938-59), Alabama Collegiate (1960-69), Gulf South (1970-90), Southland (1996-2000), Sun Belt (2004-)[[note]]No team 1913-20, then 1929 due to the Great Depression[[/note]]\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 566-426-28 (.569)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6-3 (.667)\\
'''Colors:''' Cardinal, silver, and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Veterans Memorial Stadium (capacity 30,470)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jon Sumrall\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Larry Blakeney\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' [=DeMarcus=] Ware, [[Wrestling/BrayWyatt Windham Rotunda]], Carlton Martial\\
'''National Championships:''' 3 (NAIA - 1968, D-II - 1984, 1987)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 22 (3 Alabama Intercollegiate - 1939, 1941-42; 3 Alabama Collegiate - 1967-69; 6 Gulf South - 1971, 1973, 1976, 1984, 1986-87; 3 Southland - 1996, 1999-2000; 7 Sun Belt - 2006-10, 2017, 2022)

Another Alabama school that has long played second fiddle to Alabama's bigger schools (to the point that its team used to be named [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct the "Red Wave"]] rather than the Crimson Tide), '''Troy University''' has a long football history. In the back half of the 20th century, it began steadily rising up through the lower division ranks until making the jump to the big leagues in the 21st century under coach Larry Blakeney (who coached the Trojans from [[LongRunner 1991-2014]]). The Trojans continued to perform well in the FBS, dominating the Sun Belt in its early years. Fans are known for reciting the "Havoc!" speech from ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'' (which has nothing to do with Troy, of course; cue joke about Alabama education).

!!FBS Independents

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/independents_6.png]]

In the past, many schools, especially along the east coast, were able to fill out strong schedules without the need for a conference, but that largely ended once [[MoneyDearBoy TV money]] became the focus of major-college sports. With three schools having left the independent ranks in 2023 (BYU to the Big 12, Liberty and New Mexico State to C-USA), only four remain. All of these schools belong to conferences for other sports; two of them have special circumstances that minimize their need for a football conference.

->'''Current schools:''' Army, Notre Dame, [=UConn=], [=UMass=]\\
'''Departing schools:''' Army (2024)

[[folder:FBS Independents]]
!!!Army Black Knights
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/army_2.png]]
->'''Location:''' West Point, NY\\
'''School Established:''' 1802\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1890-1997, 2005-23), C-USA (1998-2004), American (2024-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 721-539-51 (.569)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7–3 (.700)\\
'''Colors:''' Black, gold, and gray\\
'''Stadium:''' Michie Stadium (capacity 38,000)[[note]]pronounced "Mikey"[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jeff Monken\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Earl "Red" Blaik, Paul Dietzel, Lou Saban, Bobby Ross\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Robert Neyland, UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, Earl "Red" Blaik, Felix "Doc" Blanchard, Glenn Davis, Pete Dawkins, Alejandro Villanueva\\
'''National Championships:''' 3 (1944-46)[[note]]2 unclaimed (1914, 1916)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 0[[note]]Won 9 Lambert Trophies for "Best Team in the East" as an independent (1944-46, 1948-49, 1953, 1958, 2018, 2020)[[/note]]

The '''United States Military Academy''' in West Point is the oldest of the three major [[MilitaryAcademy academies]] that train officers for the [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks US military]][[note]]There are a total of five federal service academies. The other two, Coast Guard in New London and Merchant Marine in Kings Point, are much smaller and their athletic programs compete in the D-III level New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) alongside schools like MIT and Emerson.[[/note]] and set precedents for many military and civilian American universities that followed. Since the federal government funds all necessary academic operations, TV exposure and money are less of an issue for Army than for most other D-I schools. Also, being able to play a national schedule enables West Point to expose itself to potential cadets throughout the country, making the team a useful recruiting tool for the highly selective academy. The Black Knights ''used'' to be a powerhouse in college football in an era where a military career was likely to be more stable and respectable than playing a game for the rest of one's life. Much like the Army the school represents, the program peaked in prestige in the mid-1940s under legendary coach Red Blaik (1941-58), winning three straight national titles, posting multiple undefeated seasons, and producing three Heisman winners in the dominant FB/HB tandem of Doc Blanchard (1945) and Glenn Davis (1946) and future general Pete Dawkins (1958). However, as pro football salaries rocketed into the stratosphere in the '70s, West Point had a difficult time convincing great athletes to come play for them, as potential cadets faced the choice of spending the prime of their athletic potential in service to their country rather than making money and being famous. (Basically, the NFL stopped drafting Army players when the Army stopped drafting high school players.) The school bottomed out with winless seasons in 1973 and 2003 and have lost far more games than they've won since the 1960s, though current coach Jeff Monken (who inherited a program in 2014 that had one winning season in the last 17 years) has finally returned the Black Knights to consistent winning and bowl appearances; the school currently has the best bowl win percentage in FBS among teams that have played more than five bowls.\\\

The "Black Knights" nickname was only officially adopted in 1999, in reference of their black uniforms; prior to that, they had just been known as [[ShapedLikeItself the Cadets]], and their mascot is a mule. Army is a member of the Patriot League (see FCS section below) for (most) non-football sports, as is Navy; outside of football, the academy is known for its very competitive lacrosse team, which won eight pre-NCAA national titles. Outside of a relatively brief membership with C-USA, Army has been a football independent through all of its history and is the only service academy that is still unaffiliated. It won't be for long; it is set to join Navy as a football-only American member in 2024.\\\

Back in the 1940s, the rivalry between Army and Notre Dame was arguably the most important in college football, as they claimed the majority of national championships and Heisman winners in that decade; it has greatly cooled in intensity since then. Army seems to have barely noticed, as the only rivalry--and, indeed, the only ''thing''--that really matters to the program is with Navy. Said contest has kept the program in the spotlight for at least one Saturday a year, as the Army-Navy game is traditionally the last of the regular season and the only FBS game played on that week. Even though Army and Navy will soon be united in American Conference football, the game will continue to be played on its traditional date as a nonconference matchup.[[note]]Meaning that should the two academies make the conference title game, they will play in back-to-back weeks.[[/note]] It is typically played at a neutral site, which means relatively few football fans get to see Army home games on TV these days; a shame, considering that the relatively small and asymmetrical Michie Stadium is often considered one of the most beautiful venues in the U.S., located right up against the shores of the Hudson River and nestled in a valley that looks truly breathtaking in the fall (weather permitting).

!!!Notre Dame Fighting Irish
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/notre_dame.png]]
->'''Location:''' South Bend, IN (though technically it's in the separate adjoining community of Notre Dame, IN)\\
'''School Established:''' 1842[[note]]The full name of the school is University of Notre Dame du Lac (French for "Our Lady of the Lake")... actually a NonIndicativeName, since the school is on ''two'' lakes. Go to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_University_of_Notre_Dame#Early_history The Other Wiki]] for more details.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1887-)[[note]]Temporarily joined ACC for 2020.[[/note]]\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 938-335-42 (.729)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 19-20 (.487)[[note]]After playing in the Rose Bowl at the end of the 1924 season, the school elected not to play in bowls, a policy that stayed in place until 1969.[[/note]]\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and gold[[note]]For [[{{Oireland}} obvious reasons]], the Fighting Irish have adopted green as an informal alternate color, with green home jerseys that get used on special occasions.[[/note]]\\
'''Stadium:''' Notre Dame Stadium (capacity 77,622)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Marcus Freeman\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pat O'Dea, Knute Rockne, Elmer Layden, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine, Lou Holtz, Charlie Weis, Brian Kelly\\
'''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, Rocky Bleier, Bob Kuechenberg, Joe Theismann, Walt Patulski, Dave Casper, Steve Niehaus, [[Film/{{Rudy}} Rudy Ruettiger]], Joe Montana, Rusty Lisch, 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\\
'''National Championships:''' 11 (1924, 1929-30, 1943, 1946-47, 1949, 1966, 1973, 1977, 1988)[[note]]11 unclaimed (1919-20, 1927, 1938, 1953, 1964, 1967, 1970, 1989, 1993, 2012)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 0

The '''University of Notre Dame''' is the most famous Catholic university in the country, in no small part because it hosts the most famous remaining football independent and arguably the best-known program in the nation, notably being featured in high-profile sports {{biopic}}s like ''Film/KnuteRockneAllAmerican'' and ''Film/{{Rudy}}''. Notre Dame itself features some of the most distinctive iconography in sports, from the oldest marching band in the nation to the giant mural of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesburgh_Library Jesus signaling a touchdown]] that overlooks the stadium from across campus to the fanbase that makes every game day [[{{Oireland}} look like St. Patrick's Day]]. It is a common joke (with a ring of truth to it) that certain American Catholics hold greater reverence for the Fighting Irish's polished golden helmets than any other aspect of their faith. The program's national following was built over decades of football success, including having produced seven Heisman winners and more [[FlawlessVictory undefeated seasons]] (11),[[note]]Technically, a few other schools could claim to have equaled or surpassed this tally, but only by counting 19th century seasons where they played only a handful of games.[[/note]] College Hall of Fame players (48), consensus All-Americans (105), and NFL draft picks (522) than any other college program as of 2022. The Irish are also second to their longtime rival USC in producing Pro Hall of Famers (12[[note]]The Pro Hall counts Notre Dame with 13 alumni, but one of them was longtime San Francisco 49ers owner Ed [=DeBartolo=] Jr., a Notre Dame alum who didn't play football and was inducted as an owner.[[/note]] to the Trojans' 14).\\\

Their football reputation launched in the 1920s under Knute Rockne (1918-30), whose success on the football field was perhaps only matched by his ability to market the team to a nationwide audience; his death in a plane crash in 1931 was viewed as a national tragedy. Rockne was the first of the "Holy Trinity" of Notre Dame coaches, followed by Frank Leahy (1941-43, 1946-53) and Ara Parseghian (1964-74) who established the university as a football power, each claiming multiple national titles over the decades. Leahy's tenure saw the team regularly dominate the Heisman race, with Irish [=QBs=] Angelo Bartelli (1943) and Johnny Lujack (1947), end Leon Hart (1949), and HB Johnny Lattner (1953) claiming the trophy. Even during the team's worst AudienceAlienatingEra in the 1950s, star JackOfAllTrades Paul Hornung was still able to win the 1956 Heisman on a ''losing team'', and QB John Huarte won the trophy in Parseghian's first year for returning the Irish to their former dominance. Though subsequent coaches Dan Devine (1975-80) and Lou Holtz (1986-96) kept the school a power and won a championship apiece (with Holtz also producing the school's last Heisman winner, WR Tim Brown, in 1987), the program's level of success leveled off as the century wound down, and by the 2000s the Irish had become merely a very good team rather than one that could compete for national titles (though they've remained winning ''enough'' to coast on past glories and hold onto a nationwide fanbase even without bringing home any championships). Brian Kelly (2010-21) helped to restore some of Notre Dame's winning tradition in the 2010s, with an appearance in a BCS Championship Game after 2012 and multiple CFP berths, but the school still has yet to win a national title in over three decades. Observers have often attributed this apparent ceiling to Notre Dame being one of the few universities at its level of competition to truly value education equally to athletics; its football players have some of the [[AcademicAthlete highest graduation rates]] of any program in the nation.\\\

As a result of all its success, Notre Dame can largely dictate its own terms in the football world. The team--and the school itself--became famous in part due to national radio broadcasts dating back to the Rockne years, and it currently has a very lucrative TV contract with NBC to nationally broadcast its home games. Until the 1990s, they had been independent in all sports but eventually joined the original Big East outside of football in 1995. They took a half-step away from football independence when they joined the ACC in 2013, nominally remaining independent but agreeing to play five ACC teams each year. In turn, the ACC gave Notre Dame access to its bowl games in seasons when the Irish don't make the CFP or its associated bowls. Notre Dame's schedule once consisted primarily of old "rivalries" between it and its nearby Midwestern--which is to say Big Ten--neighbors. Trips to Michigan (the school's first ever opponent, which was often dominant at the same time as the Irish) and Michigan State (which is quite close geographically) historically were annual or near-annual occurrences but have been disrupted by the move.[[note]]Oddly, the Irish have not of late often played Northwestern, despite that being the closest major football school to them.[[/note]] Currently, in addition to its ACC commitments, the Irish still play Stanford, USC, and Navy every year[[note]]except in 2020, when [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID-19]] scuttled all three games[[/note]]. The USC rivalry dates to [[OlderThanTelevision the Twenties]], when the Irish added them to its regular schedule in part to increase the program's recruiting power on the West Coast (Stanford joined the regular rotation in the '80s so they could rotate away games). As for Navy, the US Navy kept Notre Dame afloat during World War II by placing one of its many wartime officer training centers on the Notre Dame campus; the annual game with the Midshipmen is Notre Dame's way of paying them back.

!!![=UConn=] Huskies
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uconn.png]]
->'''Location:''' Storrs, CT (campus); East Hartford, CT (stadium)\\
'''School Established:''' 1881[[note]]as ''Storrs Agricultural School''; after several [[IHaveManyNames name changes]], became the University of Connecticut in 1939. "[=UConn=]", long used informally as a short form for the school, became the sole athletic brand name in 2013.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' ALNESC (1897–1922),[[note]]Did not play in the war years of 1917-18[[/note]] New England[[labelnote:*]]Operated from 1923-47; the earliest predecessor to today's CAA Football, though CAA Football [[CanonDiscontinuity doesn't recognize it as such]].[[/labelnote]] (1923-46),[[note]]Did not play in 1943[[/note]] Yankee[[labelnote:*]]Founded in 1946, with play starting in 1947, by the last four New England Conference members and two other schools under a new charter; became a football-only conference in 1976 and disbanded in 1997, merging into the Atlantic 10 Conference. Both the Yankee and A-10 are also de facto predecessors to CAA Football, with the CAA effectively taking over A-10 football in 2007.[[/labelnote]] (1947-96), A-10 (1997-99), Ind. (2000-03, 2020-), Big East (2004-12), American (2013-19) \\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 518-600-38 (.465)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 3-4 (.429)\\
'''Colors:''' National flag blue and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Pratt & Whitney Stadium (capacity 40,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Jim L. Mora\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Skip Holtz\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Kirk Ferentz, Dan Orlovsky\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 26 (1 ALNESC – 1901; 7 New England – 1924, 1926, 1928, 1936-37, 1942, 1945; 15 Yankee – 1952, 1956–60, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1982-83, 1986, 1989; 2 Big East – 2007, 2010)

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).\\\

By the end of the 2010s, the football team had fallen firmly into ButtMonkey status, becoming a regular member of ESPN's "Bottom 10", with said column consistently calling them "U-Can't". To make matters worse, their bread-and-butter sports of men's and women's basketball were being visibly hurt by being in the geographically far-flung American (the women weren't hurt on the court, but suffered from an utter lack of in-conference competition). In the end, basketball won out, with the Huskies rejoining several of their former conference rivals in the Big East in 2020. As it turned out, [=UConn=] became the first FBS school (of three) to cancel its 2020 football season due to COVID-19.[[note]]The Big Ten, MAC, MW, and Pac-12 initially canceled their seasons, with plans to move them to the spring, but all four leagues eventually decided to play abbreviated conference-only fall seasons.[[/note]] The hiring of Jim Mora as coach in 2022 saw the program immediately return to bowl eligibility, though only time will tell if that marks the start of a long-term revival.\\\

While the school is located in Storrs, it plays its home games about 23 miles[=/=]37 km away (by road) at Pratt & Whitney Stadium in East Hartford, the second-longest distance from an FBS school's campus to its home field (UCLA is 26 miles from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena). The stadium was originally conceived as a possible home for the New England Patriots when they were considering relocating away from greater Boston due to struggles over a new stadium deal, but once the Patriots decided to stay in Foxboro, East Hartford scaled back its stadium plans and made [=UConn=] its main tenant.

!!![=UMass=] Minutemen
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/umass.png]]
->'''Location:''' Amherst, MA\\
'''School Established:''' 1863[[note]]Founded as Massachusetts Agricultural College, became Massachusetts State College in 1931, and took current name in 1947.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1879-96, 1923-46, 2016-), ALNESC[[labelnote:*]]Athletic League of New England State Colleges, which operated from 1896–1923[[/labelnote]] (1897-1922), Yankee (1947-96), A-10 (1997-2006), CAA (2007-11), MAC (2012-15)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 577-632-50 (.478)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' N/A[[note]]1-1 (.500) as a "Small College"[[/note]]\\
'''Colors:''' Maroon and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Warren [=McGuirk=] Alumni Stadium (capacity 17,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Don Brown\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Dick [=MacPherson=]\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Victor Cruz\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 in FCS (1998)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 22, but none at the FBS level (17 Yankee - 1960, 1963-64, 1966-67, 1969, 1971-72, 1974, 1977-79, 1981-82, 1986, 1988, 1990; 4 Atlantic 10 - 1998-99, 2003, 2006; Colonial 2007)

The '''University of Massachusetts Amherst''' is its state's flagship public school, located in the western half of the state (just north of [[UsefulNotes/{{Basketball}} Springfield]]) and notable for its massive library. Its football team became independent by default, being effectively kicked out of MAC football after 2015. The Minutemen had been a quite successful FCS program, even winning a national title in 1998, but had little success after moving to FBS and MAC football in 2012; they and Texas State are the only FBS programs to never play in an FBS bowl game, and Texas State is now bowl-eligible in 2023.[[note]]Technically, Jacksonville State, James Madison, and Sam Houston count as well, but being brand new to the FBS, they aren't even eligible to qualify for a bowl game until 2024, so it wouldn't be fair to include any of them unless they miss out in 2024.[[/note]] After four seasons, they left to an uncertain future, with no FBS conference in their region willing to take them in. They've become a fixture in ESPN's "Bottom 10" as "[=UMess=]" and went completely winless in a COVID-shortened 2020 season.

!Football Championship Subdivision
The second level of D-I football, also known as FCS or its former designation of "I-AA" (pronounced "one-double-A"). It was created in 1978 when the NCAA split D-I football into two groups. In that first year, I-AA had five conferences (Big Sky, Ohio Valley, MEAC, SWAC, Yankee) and eight independent schools, for a total of 43 teams. Over the next few years, more independent teams and one conference (Mid-Continent, now the non-football Summit League but also an early forerunner of the modern MVFC) were added. Membership numbers ballooned in 1982 when the NCAA set stringent criteria for I-A membership based on home game attendance[[note]]at the time, it was 17,000 per game over the previous four years[[/note]] and relegated around 30 I-A schools to the I-AA level. Any D-I non-football school which starts a new football program or a D-II program that transitions to D-I must start out in the FCS for at least two years.

FCS is distinguished from FBS by a shorter regular season of 11 games instead of 12[[note]]Except in years in which the period between Labor Day weekend and the last Saturday in November has 14 Saturdays; in those seasons, FCS teams can play 12 games.[[/note]], fewer football scholarships,[[note]]FBS schools can award up to 85 full scholarships while FCS schools are limited to 63. Unlike FBS football, which is a "head-count" sport, FCS football is considered an "equivalency" sport, meaning FCS schools can award partial scholarships; however, like FBS schools, FCS schools are still limited to 85 players receiving scholarships[[/note]], and (effective in 2027–28) lower requirements for overall athletic funding.[[note]]Specifically, FCS programs need only meet overall D-I requirements for scholarship funding. FBS schools must (1) provide at least 90% of the maximum number of full scholarship equivalents across a total of 16 sports, including football, (2) must spend a minimum of $6 million annually on athletic scholarships, and (3) fund at least 210 full scholarship equivalents across all of their NCAA-recognized sports.[[/note]] Before 2023, other distinctions were fewer restrictions on new recruits[[note]]FBS teams could only award scholarships to 25 new players per year, while FCS teams could provide aid to 30 new players; however, due to a combination of effects from COVID-19 and the transfer portal, these restrictions were suspended in 2020 before being permanently eliminated in 2023. [[/note]] and no minimum attendance requirement.[[note]]FBS schools were supposed to maintain an average attendance of 15,000 per game in any rolling two-year period; however, this rule was rarely enforced even before COVID-19, and was also scrapped in 2023.[[/note]] It is also distinguished by having an ''official'' NCAA championship. (The FBS College Football Playoff is not operated by the NCAA.)

FCS conferences can be broadly divided into three groups: the majority contain the rank-and-file FCS schools, the Division I members who try to operate a fully-funded program within the NCAA FCS guidelines and compete for a slot in the playoffs. There are also the non-or-reduced scholarship conferences (Ivy, Northeast, Patriot, Pioneer) who operate their programs on a smaller scale and try to focus more on academics, with the Ivy League not participating in postseason play at all. And there are the two conferences (MEAC, SWAC) made up of historically black colleges and universities ([=HBCUs=]), which have always had a unique set of traditions, especially the "classics", a set of games played at large neutral site stadiums in major cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas, that have a bowl-like atmosphere and are typically the highest-attended FCS games in any given season.

FCS was even more disrupted by COVID-19 than FBS, with so many conferences opting out of the fall season that the NCAA canceled the playoffs. With most of these conferences announcing plans for spring seasons, the NCAA rescheduled the playoffs for spring 2021, though a few schools chose to play partial fall seasons.[[note]]Notably, North Dakota State played one fall game, mostly as a showcase for superstar QB Trey Lance, a redshirt sophomore who was eligible for the 2021 NFL Draft. Not long after that game, he chose to skip NDSU's spring conference season to prepare for the draft and ended up as the #3 overall pick.[[/note]] Additionally, due to the large number of conferences and teams that opted out, the playoffs were reduced from their normal 24 teams to 16.

[[folder:Big Sky Conference]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_sky.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Cal Poly (football only), Eastern Washington, Idaho, Idaho State, Montana, Montana State, Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado, Portland State, Sacramento State, UC Davis (football only), Weber State\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Tom Wistroll\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Montana State and Sacramento State (co-champions); Sacramento State received the automatic playoff bid\\
'''Website:''' [[https://bigskyconf.com bigskyconf.com]]

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 Holt Arena (formerly the Mini-Dome) 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.\\\

Idaho rejoined the Big Sky in 2014 (after an 18-year absence) but without its football team, which (as mentioned above) returned to the Sun Belt; however, after the Sun Belt decided to drop Idaho after 2017, the school decided to take up the Big Sky's standing invitation to return its football team to that league. The Vandals became the first team ever to voluntarily drop from FBS to FCS without extenuating circumstances.[[note]][=McNeese=] and Yale chose to take the drop when the rest of their respective conferences were bounced to I-AA in 1982.[[/note]] Southern Utah left the Big Sky in 2022 to join the WAC and its revived football league.\\\

Also of note is that once Kennesaw State leaves the FBS ranks for C-USA in 2024, the Big Sky will be home to the two largest football-sponsoring schools outside FBS—UC Davis has about 31,000 undergraduates and Sacramento State has about 29,000.

[[folder:Big South–OVC Football Association]]
[[quoteright:297:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_south_ovc.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Big South: Bryant (football only), Charleston Southern, Gardner–Webb, Robert Morris (football only); OVC: Eastern Illinois, Lindenwood, Southeast Missouri, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, UT Martin\\
'''Arriving schools:''' Western Illinois (2024)\\
'''Departing schools:''' Bryant (2024)\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Big South: Sherika Montgomery; OVC: Beth [=DeBauche=]\\
'''Reigning champions:''' Big South: Gardner–Webb; OVC: Southeast Missouri and UT Martin (co-champions); SEMO received that conference's automatic playoff bid\\
'''Website:''' [[https://bigsouthovcfootball.com bigsouthovcfootball.com]]

New for 2023 is the '''Big South–OVC Football Association''', a football-only alliance between the '''Big South Conference''' and '''Ohio Valley Conference (OVC)'''. For now, it appears this alliance will follow the model that the ASUN and WAC used in 2021 and 2022 before merging for football in 2023 (see the United Athletic Conference below), with both leagues playing full in-conference schedules plus a partially interlocking set of inter-conference games and sharing a single automatic playoff berth.\\\

The Big South began in 1983 as a non-football league and did not sponsor the sport until 2002. Comprised initially of schools from throughout the Carolinas and Virginia, it usually had one or two good teams with a bunch of bottom-feeders, but most of the "good teams" left during the various realignments of the 2010s (most notably the aforementioned Coastal Carolina and Liberty). Six full members of the conference (High Point, Longwood, Radford, UNC Asheville, USC Upstate, and Winthrop) don't have football teams. Another full member, Campbell, played in the Pioneer Football League (below) through the 2017 season, but...\\\

In an attempt to attract new football members, the Big South announced a football alliance with the ASUN Conference in 2016. With defections since 2014 of its biggest football schools, the Big South was in danger of losing its status as an FCS conference, as 6 members are needed for a league to maintain its automatic playoff berth. Under its terms, any current member of either league that added football or upgraded from non-scholarship to scholarship football had a guaranteed football home in the Big South.[[note]]The offer also applied to any future members, as long as they're located within the current geographic footprint of the two leagues.[[/note]] It has held on since then, regularly swapping members to meet minimum requirements for operation. However, with the ASUN starting football in 2022 (taking two Big South football members with it) and Hampton moving on to the CAA, the Big South was put on the clock to restore its football membership to the "magic number" of 6... and its task got harder when North Carolina A&T announced it would move to CAA Football in 2023 (with the rest of its sports joining in 2022). However, it was able to lure Bryant as a new football-only member in time for the 2022 season. Still later, Campbell announced that it too would leave for both sides of the CAA in 2023, and Bryant announced it would join CAA Football in 2024.\\\

The other side of the alliance, the OVC, was founded in 1948. It was once a I-AA power but has since receded to the middle of FCS, though Jacksonville State (the one in Alabama, and now in FBS) made the 2015 FCS title game as an OVC member. They are popular among southern schools seeking an easy win. Tennessee State was the only Division I HBCU school not in either the MEAC or SWAC, before Hampton and North Carolina A&T decided to leave the MEAC. TSU made history in 2023 as Notre Dame's first-ever FCS opponent.[[note]]Also notable since both head coaches--UND's Marcus Freeman and TSU's Eddie George--were Black.[[/note]]\\\

One full OVC member, Morehead State, plays football in the Pioneer League. Three other full members don't play football at all, namely Little Rock, SIU Edwardsville, and Southern Indiana.\\\

The OVC has gone through significant churn in the current decade. Founding OVC member Eastern Kentucky and Jacksonville State left in 2021 for the ASUN Conference, playing the season as de facto members of the new WAC football league before the ASUN started its own league in 2022. In July, another founding member, Murray State, left for the Missouri Valley Conference (not to be confused with the MVFC above), with non-football member Belmont joining them in this move, and Austin Peay left for the ASUN. Murray State, however, did keep football in the OVC for the 2022 season while it sought to join the MVFC, eventually being accepted into that league for 2023.\\\

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 will add Western Illinois, which became a full OVC member in 2023.

[[folder:CAA Football (aka Coastal Athletic Association)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/caafootball.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Albany, Campbell, Delaware, Elon, Hampton, Maine, Monmouth, New Hampshire, North Carolina A&T, Rhode Island, Richmond, Stony Brook, Towson, Villanova, William & Mary\\
'''Arriving schools:''' Bryant (2024)\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Joe D'Antonio\\
'''Reigning champion:''' New Hampshire and William & Mary (co-champions); W&M received the automatic playoff bid\\
'''Website:''' [[https://caasports.com caasports.com]]

'''CAA Football''' is the football arm of the '''Coastal Athletic Association''' (or just '''CAA'''). Legally, CAA Football and the all-sports CAA are separate entities, but both share the same administration.[[note]]The NCAA considers the football conference part of the all-sports CAA, but the CAA itself treats the football league as separate.[[/note]] The all-sports CAA was created in 1979 as the basketball-only ECAC[[note]]Eastern College Athletic Conference, a huge (over 200 schools) multi-sports consortium founded in 1938 that no longer sponsors football or basketball on the NCAA Division I level[[/note]] South. It added other sports in 1985 and became the Colonial Athletic Association, but did not start sponsoring football until 2007. However, CAA Football can trace its history to the late 1930s through three other leagues,[[note]](though it [[CanonDiscontinuity ignores the earliest of said leagues]])[[/note]] including the Yankee Conference, one of the charter members of I-AA in 1978, though it's been the division's RevolvingDoorBand. Of the 1978 Yankee Conference teams, only Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island remain. Historically, it has been one of the better FCS leagues. In 2010, James Madison defeated then-#13 Virginia Tech in the second win by an FCS team over a ranked FBS team. The same school ended North Dakota State's five-year reign as FCS champions in the 2016 semifinals on the way to the FCS crown. (NDSU got its revenge by beating JMU in the 2017 and 2019 title games.) A decent chunk of the schools in CAA Football are not members of the all-sports CAA. As of 2023, when the CAA adopted its current name, only Campbell, Delaware, Elon, Hampton, Monmouth, North Carolina A&T, Stony Brook, Towson, and W&M are members of both sides. The all-sports CAA has five members without football teams (College of Charleston, Drexel, Hofstra, Northeastern, and UNC Wilmington).\\\

Depending on definitions, CAA Football member Villanova (otherwise a Big East member) has a claim to the most NCAA D-I team titles of any FCS school, with 21 in all,[[note]]13 in cross country (9 women's, 4 men's), 4 in men's track & field (3 indoor, 1 outdoor), 3 in men's basketball, and one FCS title in 2009.[[/note]] though Yale has a separate claim to this honor.[[note]]The NCAA credits Yale with 29 titles in all, surpassing Nova. However, only 9 of these were actually awarded by the NCAA. The other 20 are men's golf titles awarded by the National Intercollegiate Golf Association before the NCAA launched its own men's golf championship in 1939. The NCAA recognizes pre-1939 NIGA titles as its own.[[/note]] The CAA suffered a significant blow in the 2021 realignment saga when James Madison, which had spent the last 20 years openly seeking an FBS move, was announced as a future member of the Sun Belt Conference. While JMU initially planned to join the Sun Belt in 2023, the move was pushed forward to 2022 after the all-sports CAA chose to enforce a provision in its bylaws stating that any school that announces its departure can be banned from the conference's postseason tournaments.[[labelnote:*]]JMU was still eligible for the 2021 CAA Football title because that league's bylaws lacked said provision.[[/labelnote]] The CAA reloaded shortly thereafter, bringing football member Stony Brook into the all-sports league and also poaching Campbell, Hampton, Monmouth, and North Carolina A&T for both sides of the league and Bryant for football only to expand its football membership to 13 effective in 2022, 15 in 2023, and 16 in 2024. (A&T joined the all-sports CAA in 2022 but didn't join for football until 2023.)

[[folder:Ivy League]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1200px_ivy_league_logosvg.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Robin Harris[[note]]titled as "Executive Director"[[/note]]\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Yale\\
'''Website:''' [[https://ivyleague.com ivyleague.com]]

Although the athletic '''UsefulNotes/IvyLeague''' considers 1954 as its founding date, the member schools had agreed on common policies and scheduling in football in 1945,[[note]]Before recommitting to the Ivy group in 1954, Penn briefly flirted with breaking away and competing on a more national level. It was also involved in the aborted plans for an "airplane conference" around 1959 that also included the likes of Penn State, Notre Dame, UCLA, and USC.[[/note]] and it claims the history of the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League, founded in 1901, and the near-century of football played by its schools prior to the formal organization of the League. Historically, the Ivies were ''the'' powerhouse of college football (with Princeton, Yale, and Harvard being especially good and Harvard-Yale serving as the UrExample of rivalry games)[[note]]Although traditional powers today, Michigan and Notre Dame were both considered unique anomalies in their early history by being able to field good football teams outside of the Ivies' then-monopoly on the sport[[/note]], but the schools' collective decision to emphasize academics over athletics in the post-World War II era has made this a relic of the past. Princeton lays claim to ''28'' national championships, more than any other school by a considerable margin, but the last they won was in 1950. The league remained classified as a major conference until the NCAA's 1982 re-realignment of D-I. Yale actually met the attendance requirement to remain in I-A but voluntarily reclassified to keep the league intact.\\\

One artifact of the Ivies' former glory is that they have some of the oldest and largest stadiums in FCS. Only Columbia and Dartmouth have stadiums that seat less than 20,000, with the Yale Bowl (at just over 61,000 seats) being the largest on-campus stadium outside of FBS. Penn's Franklin Field (built in 1895) and Harvard Stadium (built in 1903) were among the first large college stadiums (the former having also served for many years as the NFL Eagles' stadium), and the Yale Bowl (built in 1914) is where the term "bowl" originated in its football sense. Only Columbia's Wien Stadium and Princeton Stadium were built after 1925, respectively opening in 1984 and 1998.\\\

While it has an automatic berth in the FCS playoffs, the Ivy League chooses not to participate, citing academic concerns (the last Ivy team to play any postseason game was Columbia, who staged a stunning upset of Stanford in the 1933 Rose Bowl). Its members also limit themselves to 10 games each season instead of the 11 (or 12 in some years) allowed for FCS members. Most notably, the Ivies do not allow athletic scholarships, though student-athletes are eligible for the same financial assistance based on need as the rest of the student body (which, at schools that charge upwards of $50,000 in tuition, is usually necessary). Some outside observers feel that financial aid to athletes amounts to [[LoopholeAbuse scholarships under a different name]].

[[folder:Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/meac.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Delaware State, Howard, Morgan State, Norfolk State, North Carolina Central, South Carolina State\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Sonja Stills\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Howard and North Carolina Central (co-champions); NC Central received the Celebration Bowl berth\\
'''Website:''' [[https://meacsports.com meacsports.com]]

Formed in 1970, the '''Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)''' is a conference of HBCU institutions. Like the MAC and Sun Belt in FBS, its colleges are often scheduled as easy wins. Savannah State, in particular, was criticized for regularly agreeing to play in vastly one-sided games against powerhouse schools, where they inevitably [[CurbStompBattle lost by over 70 or 80 points]] before dropping back to D-II in 2019. Due to a distinct lack of success in the FCS playoffs (no national championships[[note]]Florida A&M was an independent when it won the 1978 title[[/note]] and just 5 playoff wins total), it decided in 2015 to not participate in the playoffs[[note]]Kind of. If a non-champion is good enough, they enter the FCS playoffs as an at-large selection, like North Carolina A&T in 2017.[[/note]] (for the second time in the FCS era), opting instead for the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta, pairing its champion and the SWAC (below) champion (the MEAC and SWAC champs had previously squared off in the Heritage Bowl from 1991-99). On a happier note, the MEAC was involved in the biggest point-spread upset in NCAA football history in 2017, which happened, appropriately enough, in UsefulNotes/LasVegas, when Howard, a 45-point underdog, beat UNLV 43–40.\\\

Two full MEAC members, Coppin State and Maryland Eastern Shore, don't play football. Since 2017, five football schools have left the conference—Hampton for the Big South in 2018; Savannah State for D-II in 2019 (after having only upgraded from D-II in 2010); and three schools in 2021, with Bethune–Cookman and Florida A&M leaving for the SWAC and North Carolina A&T for the Big South. Needless to say, these moves raised serious questions about the future of MEAC football. Reportedly they've had talks with some possible D-II upgraders.[[note]]Specifically HBCU schools Kentucky State and Virginia State, though one rumor is that they've also contacted some D-II PWI (primarily White institutions) schools.[[/note]] Howard had all-sport membership offers from the CAA and NEC in 2022, but turned both conferences down, while Chicago State, a non-football school (though the school has launched a fundraising campaign that could possibly have it fielding a football team in 2025)[[note]]CSU isn't an HBCU school, but it's long had a Black-majority student body and is part of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund[[/note]] currently without a conference, offered themselves up as a member but got voted down by the league's chancellors. Also in 2022 the MEAC announced an agreement with the NEC to place MEAC schools as associate NEC members in three sports (baseball and men's and women's golf) that the MEAC doesn't sponsor, leading to speculation that it might be the first step toward a full merger of the leagues; watch this space.

[[folder:Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/missouri_valley_football_conference.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Illinois State, Indiana State, Missouri State, Murray State, North Dakota, North Dakota State, Northern Iowa, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Southern Illinois, Western Illinois, Youngstown State\\
'''Departing schools:''' Western Illinois (2024)\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Patty Viverito\\
'''Reigning champion:''' South Dakota State (has clinched at least a share of the 2023 title, and assured of the autobid)\\
'''Website:''' [[https://valley-football.org valley-football.org]]

Another football-only league, the '''Missouri Valley Football Conference''' (or '''MVFC''') has a history that is, to say the least, a ContinuitySnarl. While the MVFC claims 1985 as its founding date, its history can be traced through two branches dating back as far as 1907, and involves four other conferences—one being the now non-football ''Missouri Valley Conference'' (note the missing word!) and another being a women's sports league. Nonetheless, it's at or near the top of the FCS pecking order, and its top teams are often competitive with the bottom half or so of FBS (with one in particular standing out; see below). The FCS championship game has twice been an all-MVFC affair, making it the only conference to pull off that feat (involving North Dakota State both times, with the Bison beating Illinois State in 2014 and losing to South Dakota State in 2022).\\\

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 MVFC is home to the other four FCS schools that play in domes, namely Northern Iowa (the UNI-Dome, pronounced "uni-dome"), North Dakota (the Alerus Center), North Dakota State (the Fargodome), and South Dakota (the [=DakotaDome=]). South Dakota has a similar stadium setup to that of ACC member Boston College; USD's domed stadium and basketball arena are physically attached, and some luxury boxes allow their occupants a full view of events at each venue.\\\

The latest membership change was announced in 2023, when Western Illinois left the Summit League for the OVC. The Leathernecks (yes, the nickname ''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]]) will play one last MVFC season in 2023 before moving football to the Big South–OVC alliance in 2024).

!!!North Dakota State Bison
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/north_dakota_state.png]]
->'''Location:''' Fargo, ND\\
'''School Established:''' 1890[[note]]Went by "North Dakota Agricultural College" until 1961[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1894-1921),[[note]]Did not play in 1918 due to Spanish flu...[[/note]] NCC (1922-2003),[[note]]...or in 1943-44 due to the war.[[/note]] Great West (2004-07), MVFC (2008-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 766–375–34 (.666)*[[note]]214-42 (.836) since joining D-I in 2004[[/note]]\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 5-1 (.833)[[note]]They played these six bowls between 1964 and 1970, when the NCAA sponsored regional bowl games for lower division schools in the pre-playoff era.[[/note]]\\
'''Playoff Record:''' 35-13 (.729) in D-II; 40–4 (.909) in FCS\\
'''Colors:''' Green and yellow\\
'''Stadium:''' Fargodome (19,000 capacity)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Matt Entz\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Gil Dobie\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Gus Bradley, Carson Wentz, Trey Lance\\
'''National Championships:''' 17 (8 D-II - 1965, 1968-69, 1983, 1985-86, 1988, 1990; 9 FCS - 2011–15, 2017–19, 2021)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 37 (26 NCC - 1925, 1932, 1935, 1964-70, 1972-74, 1976-77, 1981-86, 1988, 1990-92, 1994; 1 Great West - 2006; 10 MVFC - 2011-19, 2021)

North Dakota State University is one of the most decorated programs in college sports. In simple terms, the Bison have won more national championships (17) than any other team on any level of college football, starting on the Division II level. They've had just three losing seasons in the last 50 years, and were the team of TheEighties in D-II, playing in six championship games, winning four of them. Moving to the FCS in 2004, they established themselves as a power right away, then became utterly ''dominant'' since the 2010s. From 2011-19, the Bison won eight FCS titles, the same number of ''games they lost'' in that time span. In that era, NDSU produced two Top 5-drafted [=QBs=] (Carson Wentz and Trey Lance), went 6-for-6 against FBS teams (including one over ranked Iowa in 2016), and had an FCS-record 39-game winning streak that wasn't snapped until spring 2021. That performance resulted in the program being ranked at one point as high as #27 in the country, higher than any non-FBS team.\\\

While fans and observers have speculated for years whether the school would be able to make the jump to the FBS and continue to compete at a high level, NDSU has refrained from doing so, mainly for financial reasons. Its tiny and remote home market[[note]]How remote? The nearest FBS school is Minnesota, over 200 air miles away, and the nearest Group of Five school is Northern Illinois, ''more than 500 miles away''. There are about 250,000 people in the Fargo, ND–Moorhead, MN media market, which is actually about the same size as the home markets of Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Oregon, but while they're secondary markets in big states, NDSU's market is the largest one in a sparsely-populated rural state. Not only that, the northern half of that market consists of the Grand Forks area, home of their principal rival North Dakota. That combination of geographic isolation and lack of revenue potential means no amount of on-field success would make a Power Five conference interested in adding NDSU. [[/note]] presents a tremendous obstacle for making money as it is, and the added travel, scholarship, and facilities cost of the FBS could bankrupt the school (especially if the team's performance ever plateaued). Instead, the program seems mostly content [[NormalFishInATinyPond to continue to dominate its local competition]] and let its win record serve as its main recruiting tool.

[[folder:Northeast Conference (NEC)]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nec_1.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Central Connecticut, Duquesne (football only), LIU, Merrimack, Sacred Heart, Saint Francis,[[note]]The one in Pennsylvania; see below for a former conference mate. Formally Saint Francis University ("Saint" spelled out).[[/note]] Stonehill, Wagner\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Noreen Morris\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Saint Francis\\
'''Website:''' [[https://northeastconference.org northeastconference.org]]

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). 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, but given that their new full-time home has only one other football-sponsoring school (Pioneer League member Marist), both are likely to stay in NEC football.\\\

The 2023 season is 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).

[[folder:Patriot League]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/patriot_league.png]]
->'''Current schools:''' Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham (football only), Georgetown (football only), Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Jennifer Heppel\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Holy Cross\\
'''Website:''' [[https://patriotleague.org patriotleague.org]]

Founded in 1986 as the football-only Colonial League, it became the '''[[PatrioticFervor Patriot League]]''' in 1990 when it added other sports. Basically an "Ivy League Lite"—its members are relatively small[[note]]only Boston University, which no longer has a football team, has over 10,000 undergrads[[/note]], academically strong schools, though not quite at the Ivy level. The league was actually founded to give the Ivies a chance to fill out their football schedules with schools that shared their academic focus. The conference did not allow athletic scholarships at all until permitting them for basketball in 1996 (allegedly to keep Holy Cross from jumping ship). Scholarships were extended to all non-football sports in 2001, but football scholarships were not allowed until 2013[[note]]Fordham actually started giving them out in 2010, which created the scenario where they were still a member of the league but were ineligible for the league title and their opponents' games against them didn't count towards their league records. Once the other schools started giving them out, they were eligible once again and won the title in 2014.[[/note]], and Georgetown still doesn't award football scholarships. Unlike the Ivies, the Patriot League participates in the FCS postseason. The league has only reached the championship game once: Colgate in 2003. They lost [[CurbStompBattle 40–0]] to Delaware.[[note]]Before the league was formed, Lehigh played in the 1979 championship game, losing 30–7 to Eastern Kentucky.[[/note]] It's also home to the most-played and longest continuous rivalry in all of college football, namely Lafayette–Lehigh. The Leopards and Mountain Hawks played their 158th game in 2022, and have played at least once in each season since 1897.[[note]]From their first matchup in 1884 to 1901, they played twice in each season except in 1891, when they played ''three'' times, and 1896, when they didn't play at all. They didn't play in calendar 2020 thanks to COVID-19, but played during the Patriot League's rescheduled spring 2021 season.[[/note]]\\\

Five more schools are full members but don't play Patriot League football. Army and Navy play in the FBS, while American University (dropped football in 1941), Boston University[[note]]not to be confused with the FBS Boston College[[/note]] (dropped it in 1997) and Loyola University Maryland (dropped it in 1933) no longer field football teams.

[[folder:Pioneer Football League (PFL)]]
->'''Current schools:''' Butler, Davidson, Dayton, Drake, Marist, Morehead State, Presbyterian, St. Thomas, San Diego, Stetson, Valparaiso\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Greg Walter\\
'''Reigning champion:''' St. Thomas; Davidson received the automatic playoff bid[[note]]St. Thomas is ineligible for the playoffs until completing its D-I transition in 2025.[[/note]]\\
'''Website:''' [[https://pioneer-football.org pioneer-football.org]]

The '''Pioneer Football League''' ('''PFL''') is another football-only league in FCS. It began in 1993 and exists entirely because of a 1991 NCAA rule change. Before then, some schools that were D-I for the majority of their sports were allowed to play football in D-II or III. Typically this route was chosen by smaller schools or schools whose athletic focus was outside of football (typically basketball). D-III was an especially attractive football option, since a school didn't need to spend money on football scholarships, but this immediately opened up the possibility of some LoopholeAbuse: schools could recruit a player for football, then award him a scholarship in another sport. Dayton, a school with a deep basketball tradition, competed in D-III football and became a powerhouse at that level, making five D-III championship games from 1980-91 and winning two of them (1980, 1989). The 1987 D-III championship game paired ''two'' D-I schools playing in D-III, Dayton and Wagner (Wagner won 19-3). The perception that slumming big boys were dominating D-III football (and accusations about the scholarship issue mentioned above, which the schools denied was happening) angered the D-III schools, and they got the NCAA to require all D-I members to conduct all sports at their own level by 1993 (this is usually called [[RuleBreakerRuleNamer "the Dayton rule"]]). Many schools forced up to D-I in 1993 wanted to keep running their program the same as they had in D-II or D-III, without additional scholarship expenses, so they banded together to form the league.[[note]]One of the charter members, Drake, was returning to the I-AA level after moving to D-III in 1987. They'd been a I-A team until the NCAA forced them to reclassify in 1982.[[/note]] All Pioneer members are small private schools except [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Morehead State, a small public school]] that elected to de-emphasize football. We're not kidding about the "small" part. The largest school, St. Thomas, has barely over 10,000 total students, with only a little more than 6,000 being undergraduates; most have undergraduate enrollments less than 5,000, and the PFL is home to the smallest D-I school (including the non-football schools!) in Presbyterian, with barely over 1,000 undergrads. As noted in the MVFC folder, the PFL operates out of the same UsefulNotes/StLouis office complex that also hosts the MVFC and the non-football Missouri Valley Conference.\\\

The latest arrivals came in 2021, specifically the aforementioned Presbyterian and St. Thomas of Minnesota. Presbyterian effectively replaced Jacksonville (FL), which dropped football after 2019. While technically independent in 2020–21, the Blue Hose nonetheless played a full Pioneer League slate that spring; they weren't eligible for the league title but were eligible for individual awards. As for St. Thomas, the UsefulNotes/TwinCities school was involuntarily kicked out of its D-III league for being too strong in multiple sports, and soon got an invite from the D-I non-football Summit League. With the Summit's backing, St. Thomas successfully obtained a waiver of an NCAA rule that would have effectively barred them from a direct move to D-I. The Tommies joined the Pioneer League for football, going through the same four-year transition process used for moves from D-II.[[note]]At the time St. Thomas got its waiver, a D-III to D-I transition would have taken ''12 years'', but the NCAA had been preparing to vote on a proposal to shorten such a transition to five. The NCAA decided to punt on that legislation and just give St. Thomas the four-year time frame.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Southern Conference ([=SoCon=])]]
->'''Current schools:''' Chattanooga, [[MilitaryAcademy The Citadel]], East Tennessee State, Furman, Mercer, Samford, VMI[[note]]Virginia [[MilitaryAcademy Military Institute]][[/note]], Western Carolina, Wofford\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Michael Cross\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Furman (has clinched the 2023 title outright)\\
'''Website:''' [[https://soconsports.com soconsports.com]]

Founded in 1921, the '''Southern Conference''' (or simply '''[=SoCon=]''') is probably most notable for having [[MorePopularSpinoff spawned two of the current FBS power conferences]], the SEC and ACC. The conference remained at the major college level until 1982, when all of its schools were relegated to I-AA by the NCAA. For many years, it was at the very top of the FCS ladder, but conference realignment took a major toll, with three members leaving in 2014. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, with nine FCS championships between them, left for FBS and the Sun Belt; Elon stayed in FCS but left for the CAA. At the same time, Mercer and VMI (the latter [[HesBack a former member]]) joined for all sports including football, while East Tennessee State ([[RunningGag also a former member]]) rejoined for non-football sports. ETSU resurrected its dormant football program in 2015, playing that season as an FCS independent before joining [=SoCon=] football in 2016. Of note, Appalachian State made history in 2007 when they [[DavidVersusGoliath upset a #5-ranked Michigan]] and became the first non-transitional[[note]]Cincinnati beat Penn State in 1983 but was only in I-AA for that year, having been dropped from I-A against its wishes; the Bearcats (and several other teams, mainly in the Mid-American Conference) returned to I-A the next year[[/note]] FCS team to defeat a ranked FBS team. The [=SoCon=] has only one non-football member, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg UNC Greensboro]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Southland Conference (SLC)]]
->'''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\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Chris Grant\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Incarnate Word and Southeastern Louisiana (co-champions); Southeastern Louisiana received the automatic playoff bid\\
'''Website:''' [[https://southland.org southland.org]]

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.\\\

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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC)]]
->'''Current schools:''' Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Alcorn State, Arkansas–Pine Bluff, Bethune–Cookman, Florida A&M, Grambling State, Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State, Prairie View A&M, Southern, Texas Southern\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Charles [=McClelland=]\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Jackson State\\
'''Website:''' [[https://swac.org swac.org]]

The oldest FCS conference, the '''Southwestern Athletic Conference''' (or '''SWAC''') was founded in 1920. Like the MEAC, it consists entirely of [=HBCUs=], and most of the [=HBCUs=] that casual fans are aware of (Grambling, Jackson State, Alcorn State, Prairie View) are in this conference. It was the first HBCU conference to play at the major college level, when it upgraded as a group in 1977, the year before D-I was split into I-A and I-AA (and they went I-AA). It's used an East–West divisional setup since 1999, with the divisional winners playing in a championship game. It has a longer-standing policy of not sending its champion to the FCS playoffs than its HBCU sister conference, effectively giving it up in TheNineties, though, as with the MEAC, a non-champion is still eligible for an at-large bid (and Florida A&M received one in 2021). There are three reasons why the SWAC rejects an automatic bid: three conference schools have tradition-steeped (and lucrative) rivalry games on Thanksgiving weekend that conflict with the first round of the playoffs[[labelnote:*]] Alabama State has its Turkey Day Classic on Thanksgiving Day--traditionally against D-II Tuskegee--while Grambling and Southern play each other in the Bayou Classic in New Orleans on Saturday[[/labelnote]]; the SWAC championship game and the Celebration Bowl are big moneymakers; and the SWAC is winless in 20 playoff games (Florida A&M's playoff wins predate their conference membership). The SWAC is the home of the first college football HC to win 400 games (Grambling's Eddie Robinson) and the longest losing streak in the sport's history (Prairie View A&M's 80-game skid from 1989-98).\\\

As noted above, Bethune–Cookman and Florida A&M joined in July 2021. Both were placed in the East Division, with Alcorn State switching to the West.[[labelnote:*]]Depending on your sense of geography, either the Mississippi River or the Louisiana–Mississippi border is the de facto dividing line. One or two schools are on the "wrong" side of the aforementioned lines, but not by much. Alcorn, the westernmost of the Mississippi schools, is on the wrong side of both lines, but is less than 5 miles from the river. Southern is west of the state line; while it's on the wrong side of the river, its campus is ''on'' the river in Baton Rouge.[[/labelnote]] Florida A&M is the only HBCU to win an FCS national championship (the initial 1978 I-AA title).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:United Athletic Conference (UAC)]]
->'''Current schools:''' Abilene Christian, Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, North Alabama, Southern Utah, Stephen F. Austin,[[labelnote:*]][[RunningGag also with "State" in its formal name]] but dropped that word from its athletic branding long before [=McNeese=], Nicholls, Sam Houston, or Tarleton did[[/labelnote]] Tarleton[[labelnote:*]][[OverusedRunningGag yet another]] school that has dropped "State" from its athletic branding[[/labelnote]], Utah Tech[[labelnote:*]]Officially adopted that name on July 1, 2022. Located in St. George, the largest city in what's called "Utah's Dixie", so named because its earliest white settlers were Mormon converts from the DeepSouth. The school had "Dixie" in its name for over a century as it evolved from a church academy to a public junior college and finally a four-year university. It entered the NCAA as the Dixie State Rebels in 2006, a name that confused most people who didn't know the region's history, and the Confederate connotations of that branding led the school to first change its nickname (to the Red Storm, then after a few years, the Trailblazers), then finally its name. Ironically, its instate (non-football) conference rival Utah Valley was once called Utah Technical College.[[/labelnote]]\\
'''Arriving schools:''' West Georgia (2024), UTRGV (non-football WAC member adding football in 2025)\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Oliver Luck[[note]]Titled as "Executive Director". Yes, [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueQuarterbacks Andrew's]] father.[[/note]]\\
'''Reigning champions:''' Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, and Eastern Kentucky (ASUN co-champions); Abilene Christian and Stephen F. Austin (WAC co-champions); EKU received the shared ASUN–WAC automatic playoff bid\\
'''Website:''' [[https://uacfootball.com uacfootball.com]]

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 is contributing Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, and North Alabama, with the WAC contributing Abilene Christian, Southern Utah, Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton, and Utah Tech (i.e., the Texas and Utah schools). Due to scheduling commitments, the UAC will have 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.[[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 ASUN was founded as the Trans America Athletic Conference in 1978, changed its name to the '''Atlantic Sun Conference''' in 2001, adopted the '''ASUN''' branding in 2016, and went back to "Atlantic Sun" in 2023 (though it still uses "ASUN" as s short form). Regardless of brand name, the conference did not begin football competition until 2022. For a few years, the ASUN had a football alliance with the Big South, but replaced it in 2021 with an alliance with the WAC that eventually became the UAC.\\\

As of the 2023 season, seven ASUN members aren't in the UAC; for now, no member of either partner conference is required to add football or change its football status. Florida Gulf Coast, Jacksonville, Lipscomb, North Florida, and D-II upgrader Queens[[note]]Formally Queens University of Charlotte; not to be confused with Queens College in the NYC borough of that name, which stayed in D-II.[[/note]] don't play football at all. Stetson plays non-scholarship football in the Pioneer League. Bellarmine added football in 2022 but plays sprint football, a variant played under standard college rules but with an upper limit of 178 lb (81 kg) for player weight. However, the next school to join the ASUN, West Georgia, does sponsor (full-sized) football and thus will become a UAC member, reuniting with their former D-II Gulf South Conference mates Central Arkansas and North Alabama.\\\

As for the WAC, it started in 1962 with six schools in the intermountain West and over time expanded and flourished as a major conference until an ill-advised expansion to 16 members in 1996 started two decades of turmoil. Eight schools left in 1999 to form the Mountain West Conference, and further instability eventually saw the WAC lose all but two of its football schools during the early-2010s realignment cycle, leading the FBS conference to drop football after the 2012 season, then reinstate it in the FCS level in 2021 after the 2020 arrivals of Tarleton and Utah Tech (then Dixie State), both D-II upgraders with football. Five FCS schools joined the league as all-sports members in 2022 (four Southland members out of Texas and one from the Big Sky), at which time WAC football returned. When the Southland responded by kicking out its departing members (the so-called "Texas Four"), the WAC in turn pushed the arrival of those schools, as well as the return of football, forward to 2021. They solved the numbers problem for playoff qualification by bringing incoming ASUN members Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, and Jacksonville State in as football members, originally intended for that season only, in what was officially called the "ASUN–WAC ([[BreadEggsBreadedEggs or WAC–ASUN]]) Challenge". However, they only got their automatic bid after successfully lobbying the NCAA for a rules change that accommodated the new alliance. With Sam Houston starting an FBS transition in 2022 ahead of its 2023 departure for C-USA, dropping the WAC to 5 playoff-eligible schools, the WAC and ASUN renewed that alliance for 2022. The WAC's playoff-eligible lineup dropped to 4 when Incarnate Word, which had planned to join from the SLC, backed out of that move and stayed put, and then to 3 when Lamar pushed its planned 2023 return to the SLC forward a year. All this led the ASUN and WAC to formally merge their football leagues.\\\

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 has put that off to 2025.\\\

The UAC boasts another oddly-colored football field in that of Central Arkansas, with purple and gray sections alternating every 5 yards. Also, ASUN member Kennesaw State, which isn't part of the new football league due to its impending move to Conference USA, is for now the largest school by undergraduate enrollment outside of FBS.[[note]]At least two schools in lower divisions, plus another D-I school apart from Arizona State and Liberty, have larger total enrollments than KSU's 43K, and one has a much larger undergrad enrollment than KSU's 37K, but they don't count for various reasons. D-II Southern New Hampshire has over 135,000 total students, but only about 4,000 are actual on-campus students; its online operation is a little larger than Liberty's. D-III NYU has over 50,000 students but its enrollment is split nearly evenly between undergraduates and postgraduates, the latter of which will normally have exhausted any athletic eligibility they may have had. Neither has a football team. Grand Canyon, a non-football WAC member, has a bit more than 25K on-campus students but has an online operation that puts its total enrollment a bit over 100K. After KSU leaves for FBS, the largest non-FBS school by (on-campus) undergraduate enrollment will be another non-football school, UC San Diego (a bit over 33K). The Big Sky will then have the two largest non-FBS football schools.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:CAA Football (aka Coastal Athletic Association)]]

The United States Naval Academy's football team is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin; its athletes are all officers-in-training that hold the rank of midshipmen. Like its {{interservice rival|ry}} Army, Navy has a very old and decorated football history, in part because one of its multiple stringent requirements for recruits is athletic participation. Navy football used to be a strong program, even winning a national title in 1926, before the allure of pro football careers greatly weakened its recruiting power. The school's performance plummeted in the mid-1960s, shortly after the team produced two Heisman winners, HB Joe Bellino and QB Roger Staubach, who both had to serve in Vietnam before they could begin playing for the NFL. After underperforming for several decades, the program returned to winning in the 21st century, helped by the record-setting rushing offenses of Paul Johnson and Ken Niumatololo, particularly when led by dual-threat QB Keenan Reynolds (2012-15). After well over a century as an independent, Navy joined The American in 2015; however, the program's main priority year in-and-out remains defeating Army in the final game of the season.\\\

Rice University is one of the most prestigious private universities in the U.S., but its football team has not been nearly as competitive on the gridiron for several decades. A charter member of the Southwest Conference, the Owls were very competitive in the region for several decades under the long tenure of Hall of Fame coach Jess Neely (1940-66), including being involved in one of the most memorable games in college football history, a defeat of Alabama in which one of the Tide ran off the bench to tackle a Rice player mid-play. However, the small and highly academically selective school (smallest by admissions of any FBS school save for Tulsa) was unable to keep pace with the other powers of the SWC as the sport evolved, and it failed to post a winning season from 1964-91, including going completely winless in '82 and '88. The SWC dissolved shortly after Rice finally broke this streak; the underperforming program was understandably not brought along to the Big 12, and while it has performed relatively better since landing in C-USA, it is still nowhere close to the power it once held. It's one of the six schools that left C-USA in 2023 for The American—ironically, at the same time its crosstown rival Houston left The American for the Big 12.\\\

Southern Methodist University was founded as the flagship university of the Methodist church's southern branch, though it filed to split from the formal control of the church in 2019.[[note]]Internal schisms in the church led many to fear that more conservative leadership would arise and seek to enforce their beliefs, particularly anti-LGBTQ+ ones, on the long-nonsectarian school.[[/note]] The Dallas-based school is otherwise most famous for being the home of the UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush presidential center and for its unique football history. The Mustangs were once a powerhouse, notably claiming a national title in 1935, producing Heisman-winning back Doak Walker in 1948, and claiming another two titles in the early '80s under coaches Ron Meyer and Bobby Collins. However, SMU fell to near irrelevance almost immediately after those dominant seasons thanks to the infamous "death penalty" issued in 1987. For the first and only time in its history, the NCAA decided to terminate the SMU football program after it was discovered that the school had been paying the players on its national-title contending team out of a slush fund while under probation for other issues. The program was barred from all play in 1987 and from home games in 1988, but the school decided not to play at all in the latter season due to inability to field a remotely competitive team. The Mustangs immediately plummeted to the college football basement when they returned thanks to the heavy sanctions, and they spent decades struggling to even get above the .500 mark. SMU managed its first 10-win season in over 30 years in 2019.\\\

Like its greatest rival UCF, the University of South Florida (aka USF) has a young football program that saw a rapid rise through the conference ranks thanks in part to its massive growth in student population.[[note]]The university has also greatly bolstered its academic reputation; in 2023, it became a member of the Association of American Universities, an elite organization of top research universities (69 in the US, two in Canada).[[/note]] Founded in 1997 as a Division I-AA program, the school made the leap to I-A in 2001 and soon developed a reputation for upsetting ranked schools; a string of such upsets in 2007 saw the school go all the way to #2 in the mid-season rankings before quickly falling back to Earth. The team has been mostly decent but inconsistent ever since. The Bulls play out of the NFL Buccaneers' stadium, and light up their distinctive mushroom-shaped water tower bright green after every victory. They may not be long for sharing with the Bucs; the USF board has approved a preliminary budget for a new on-campus 35,000-seat stadium that's penciled in for 2026, though the final costs won't be set until some time in 2024, before which time USF can back out without penalty.

Temple University is an urban school in Philadelphia best known for its basketball program, one of the winningest in the nation that last won a national title [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut in 1938, the year before the NCAA Tournament began]]. Its football program has been a historic underperformer most known as the last HC stop for Pop Warner and a springboard for a few other coaches to go on to bigger and better things. In many ways, the football program has been a massive hindrance for Temple; it was booted from the Big East in 2004 due to the team's poor performance, was brought back in during the conference's disintegration in 2012, then was forced to join The American rather than the basketball-oriented Big East due to still having the football team few people wanted. The team managed to see a resurgence in the mid-2010s with a few ranked appearances before its coaching staff was mostly drained by other programs. The Owls (named as a reference to the school's history as a night school) have shared the field of the NFL's Eagles since the '70s. Incidentally, Temple is the only full football-playing American Conference member to have never been in Conference USA.[[note]]The same is true for football-only member Navy and non-football full member Wichita State.[[/note]]

Tulane University is an old urban private school in New Orleans, initially founded as a state school prior to being privatized in the late nineteenth century. Its football program used to be competitive with the big teams in the South, but the administration chose to deemphasize athletics in the mid-1950s, and left the SEC after the 1965 season. Tulane's final school year in the SEC did see the Green Wave integrate the conference, but in baseball instead of football—Stephen Martin walked onto the baseball team in 1966, becoming the first African American to play any SEC sport.[[note]]The first black SEC football and men's basketball players arrived on campus later in 1966, respectively at Kentucky and Vanderbilt. However, under then-current NCAA rules they weren't eligible for varsity sports until 1967–68, and while each school brought in two black players, only one integrated his program. See the Kentucky Wildcats description in the "Power 5" page for more details.[[/note]] The team has been a bottom-feeder since this deemphasis, save for a completely unexpected undefeated run under Tommy Bowden in 1998 that landed him the job in Clemson the next year and an equally unexpected conference championship in 2022. The latter season marked arguably the greatest single-season turnaround in college football history, as the Green Wave finished the prior year 2–10 and ended 2022 12–2 after beating USC and its Heisman winner in the Cotton Bowl.\\\

The University of Tulsa is probably most notable for having the smallest undergraduate enrollment of any FBS school, with slightly less than 3,200 at last count. Despite that fact, they've become the QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to their cash cow instate counterparts Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Their peak came in TheForties, when they played in five consecutive New Year's Day bowls and achieved a #4 final ranking in 1942. Their star player in that era, Glenn Dobbs, returned to the school as AD and HC immediately after his pro career and the year after his former team went completely winless; he devised an offense that shattered NCAA passing records in the '60s. The program further served as the launch pad for John Cooper's career in the late '70s and early '80s. They've mostly underperformed since then, though they rode an era of strength in the 2000s to jump to C-USA.\\\

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is one of the youngest institutions in Division I sports, having only started its athletics program in 1978. When it comes to football, it's most notable for its tumultuous recent history, which saw the program fold, unexpectedly come back to life, and experience even more unexpected success after its return. UAB initially focused on men's basketball and began football on the D-III level in 1991. UAB was one of a group of schools that was forcibly reclassified as I-AA (now FCS) when the NCAA ruled that D-I members had to play all sports at that level (for more details, see the Pioneer Football League in the FCS section). Deciding that if they had to be D-I, they might as well operate fully-funded, they moved to I-A (now FBS) in 1996, the year after they became a C-USA charter member, though they wouldn't play C-USA football until 1999. Up into the 2010s, they were generally mediocre, with only one bowl appearance (a loss to Hawaii in the 2004 Hawaii Bowl).\\\

The University of Texas at San Antonio makes for an interesting contrast with UAB, given that both schools were (formally) founded in 1969 as secondary campuses of university systems featuring historic football superpowers and left C-USA for The American in 2023. However, unlike UAB, UTSA was founded completely from scratch and has had nothing approaching the tumultuous football history of its Alabama counterpart.\\\

The Panthers of Florida International University merit a mention on this page as currently [[MedalOfDishonor the worst FBS team]] in terms of program win record. The public university in Miami is relatively young itself, and its football program is even younger, only starting play in 2002. They fast-tracked their move to the FBS level in just three years but bottomed out with a winless 2006 season most memorable for a bench-clearing brawl against Miami. The following year, the school hired the first Cuban-American HC in D-I history, Mario Cristobal, reflecting its predominantly Cuban-American student body. Cristobal built the program up to its first winning seasons and a conference championship but was fired after a backslide. The program has been unstable and generally losing ever since, winning just one game across the 2020 and '21 seasons. Their biggest competition is the similarly named and young South Florida-based program at Florida Atlantic.

One of the more recent additions to FBS football, and also the youngest university in FBS, Liberty University began its life in 1971 as an offshoot of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, home of divisive pastor Jerry Falwell (Sr.). The school immediately developed a reputation as a StrawmanU of the St. Jim Jonestown variety and a headquarters for the evangelical branch of conservative politics. Considerable change did come under Falwell's son and successor as president, Jerry Jr., as the university became somewhat less legalistic and dramatically grew to become the largest university in the Group of Five, and close to the largest in all of FBS... with a caveat. LU's actual on-campus enrollment is around 16,000, but it has an ''enormous'' online operation, pushing its total enrollment over 130,000 (second in FBS to Arizona State). However, the younger Falwell's tenure ended in 2020 after a particularly embarrassing sex scandal and allegations of questionable financial dealings, leaving the school in an awkward spot.\\\

New Mexico State University is another example of a school with a strong men's basketball program that struggles to find relevance in football. The undisputed peak of the program came in 1960, when they went undefeated under Hall of Fame coach Warren B. Woodson and QB Charley Johnson.[[note]]The program went undefeated several times before then... in an era where they had truly terrible competition and played half their games against high schools.[[/note]] However, the Aggies (represented in mascot form by a pistol-wielding cowboy) have fallen off hard since Woodson's departure in 1967, with only five winning seasons and two completely winless ones in that half-century-plus span. They're a frequent member of ESPN's "Bottom 10" as "Whew Mexico State", living mostly in the shadow of New Mexico in their own state and even UTEP (a team bad enough to ''also'' frequently appear in the Bottom 10 as "UTEPID") in their immediate region. They have put up three completely winless seasons since moving to the major college ranks in the 1930s and, before their C-USA move, [[ButtMonkey had the worst win record of any of the FBS indies]], which they became after being kicked out of Sun Belt football in 2017, shortly after their first bowl appearance since 1960. The Aggies also chose not to play in 2020 (though they pieced together two games against FCS teams in spring 2021, making them the only FBS team to play in the spring). With NMSU's then-current all-sports home of the Western Athletic Conference relaunching FCS football in 2021 with visions of returning the conference to FBS, it was thought that NMSU would stay put in that league. However, with C-USA suddenly depleted after the 2021 realignment shuffle, NMSU became an attractive option (even for UTEP, which had reportedly been reluctant to share a conference with NMSU), so the Aggies moved there in 2023. Despite their overall futility, the Aggies enter the 2023 season as the only current FBS team to have never lost in a bowl appearance (they did tie once).

The University of Texas at El Paso is a unique American university known for its majority Hispanic student population and its distinct Tibetan monastery-inspired architecture. UTEP has played an important role in the history of college sports, most notably for its 1966 basketball team that won a national championship after assembling the first all-Black starting lineup in NCAA history (as dramatized in ''Film/GloryRoad'') and for winning 20 national championships in cross country and track and field in the 1970s and '80s. In football, however, UTEP is really only notable for its stadium, the Sun Bowl, which has a very unique location (embedded in mountains overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border) and hosts one of the oldest bowl games. While the Sun Bowl has hosted a number of very memorable games, few of them have involved its home team; the Miners are one of the worst performing teams in the FBS, with completely winless seasons in 1973 and 2017 and far fewer winning seasons than losing ones. The program's historical highlight came in 1985, when the Miners knocked off #7-ranked defending national champion BYU by a score of 23–16, often regarded as one of the biggest upsets in major college history; it was UTEP's only win that year.

A longstanding Division I-AA power, Western Kentucky University rose to football prominence during the long tenure of Jack Harbaugh (Jim and John's dad) through the '90s, culminating in an FCS championship in 2002. The Hilltoppers ("Toppers" for short)[[note]]The central campus is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin atop a hill]] overlooking the Barren River valley.[[/note]] transitioned to FBS soon after, but after going winless in 2009, they returned to their past by hiring former star QB Willie Taggart to be HC; his success in reviving their prospects launched his brief sojourn into the major college ranks. Nowadays, WKU is known best for two things: its immensely productive offense that spawned FBS record-holding QB Bailey Zappe in 2021, and its mascot, an amorphous red blob known only as "Big Red". The Toppers also entered the 2023 season as the ''only'' current C-USA member to have won the conference's championship.

Located 15 miles south of UsefulNotes/ToledoOhio, Bowling Green State University (they prefer "Bowling Green" as their athletic branding, but use BGSU as an abbreviation) is a well-regarded public college, especially famed for its Media Studies program. On the sports side, its signature programs are probably men's ice hockey (winning the national championship in 1984) and women's basketball. Its football team is a fairly consistent winner with several standout periods. Stadium namesake Doyt Perry, a close personal friend of Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler, notched an impressive 77–11–5 record at BGSU from 1955-64, including an undefeated season and the College Division national title in 1959, with that team's star RB Creator/BernieCasey going onto an NFL career and a later stint in Hollywood. Don Nehlen, who played QB for Perry from 1955-57, was the HC from 1968-76 and managed to schedule a number of marquee opponents for non-conference games, pulling off big upsets in the process, most famously against a ranked Purdue squad in 1972. Nehlen's replacement Denny Stolz turned the Falcons into one of the first major college teams to utilize heavy passing and multiple receiver sets, with QB Brian [=McClure=] becoming one of the first college players to pass for more than 10,000 yards in a career. More recently, BGSU gave Urban Meyer his first HC job, going 17-6 from 2001-02. They have a heated rivalry with neighboring Toledo, having played their very first varsity game against UT in 1919.\\\

Located almost exactly in the middle of the Michigan "mitten", Central Michigan plays the role of QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to Michigan and Michigan State, having established its own tradition and winning legacy in the shadow of its bigger brothers. Second to Miami among MAC schools in both wins and win percentage, CMU joined the conference in 1975 after winning the D-II national championship the previous season[[note]]under HC Roy Kramer, who would make an even greater impact on college football as SEC commissioner[[/note]] and quickly established itself as a power under Hall of Fame coach Herb Deromedi [[LongRunner (1967-77 as an assistant, 1978-93 as HC, 1994-2006 as AD)]]. In 2004, they made the unusual move for an FBS school of hiring an HC from the D-II level by bringing in Brian Kelly from Grand Valley State; he guided them to a conference title in three seasons before departing for numerous high profile gigs. This laid the groundwork for 2009, where the school program saw its only AP Poll rankings thanks to dynamic dual-threat QB Dan [=LeFevour=] and future NFL legend/menace Antonio Brown. The program has not come close to this peak in the decade-plus since.\\\

Located in Ypsilanti (the birthplace of Domino's Pizza), just east of Ann Arbor, the massive shadow of the Michigan Wolverines has always loomed large over Eastern Michigan University's football program (their stadiums are a mere 5 miles apart), but it was once a regional power under the LongRunner tenure of stadium namesake Elton Rynearson, who coached the team in various stints from 1917-48 and stayed on as AD until 1963. Most of that tenure was when the school was "Michigan State Normal College"; as EMU, the school has ''mightily'' struggled on the gridiron, from a 27-game losing streak from 1980-82 to posting exactly ''one'' winning season from 1990 to 2015 (with another winless one in 2009). That latter streak coincidentally (or perhaps not) coincided with the team changing their mascot from "Huron" (a French name for the indigenous people of the region) to the more generic Eagles. Not to mention that in 1984, the MAC presidents voted to expel EMU from the conference less than two months before the football season started. EMU fought the move and the NCAA stepped in to void the presidents' vote. Three years later, EMU won its only MAC title to date, in the process beating ''all seven'' schools whose presidents had voted for the expulsion.[[note]]In order of play: Miami, Kent State, Northern Illinois (which had left the MAC after the 1985 season), Ball State, Ohio, Toledo, Bowling Green.[[/note]] The school calls that season "college football's ultimate revenge tour".\\\

Kent State University, a former teachers' college located 40 miles from UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}, has been a major ButtMonkey for almost all of its football history; it has just ''one'' conference title to its credit, posted four winless seasons in the 1980s and '90s, and has the lowest overall winning percentage of any FBS team that's played more than 50 seasons. It once lost something called the Refrigerator Bowl.[[note]]A bowl for small college teams played in Evansville, Indiana from 1948-56.[[/note]] The school itself is best known for the 1970 incident in which the Ohio National Guard fired on an anti-Vietnam war protest, killing four students (two protesters, two bystanders). And yet: look at that list of notable names above! There's a surprising number of former Golden Flash players who've gone on to greater success in either the NFL or college coaching. They've had just three winning seasons in this century, but the last two were memorable: In 2012 they went 11-3 and made the MAC championship game, losing in double overtime to Northern Illinois. In 2019, they finally won their first bowl game, knocking off Utah State in the Frisco Bowl.

Miami University[[note]]named for the Miami River Valley and the Miami tribal nation that historically calls it home[[/note]] is one of the oldest public universities in the United States and the birthplace of a great many fraternities. It is much less well-known on the national stage than the much younger Florida private school with the similar name, but it has still had a great impact on football history and is the traditional power of the MAC even with far fewer winning seasons than losing ones in the 21st century. While the [=RedHawks=] (known as the "Redskins" until 1997) have enjoyed periods of great success, with undefeated seasons in 1908, '21, '55, and '73, their ''real'' legacy is on the sideline. Miami proudly calls itself the "Cradle of Coaches" because of the great number of prominent coaches in both college and the NFL who have played and/or coached at the school.[[note]]Of the "historic" figures listed here, exactly ''one'' (Ben Roethlisberger) achieved his greatest fame as an NFL player. Travis Prentice had a forgettable NFL career; Brian Pillman had a brief NFL career before making his name in pro wrestling.[[/note]]\\\

Northern Illinois University's football program started out as a regional power under the LongRunner tenure of Chick Evans (HC and AD from 1929-54, AD until 1968) and produced an innovative spread shotgun offense under Howard Fletcher (1956-68) that shattered passing records and won the school the 1963 D-II championship. The Huskies struggled with the move to the major college ranks after Fletcher's retirement and underperformed for decades. A couple of bright spots were a MAC title in 1983 and Jerry Pettibone's HC tenure from 1985-90, when his high-octane wishbone attack guided the Huskies to a 9-2 record in '89, and a record-setting 73-18 upset over a ranked Fresno State squad a year later. But the decision to leave the MAC after the 1985 season hurt the program in the long run, and things had gotten so bad that they bottomed out with a winless 1997 campaign, the same year they returned to the MAC. NIU returned to power in the MAC, with their undefeated 2012 regular season under dynamic dual-threat QB Jordan Lynch making them the conference's only (and the last ever) BCS Buster. Their results in recent years have been the model of inconsistency, going from a winless COVID-impacted season in 2020 to winning the MAC the next year.

While Miami has the MAC's best-looking historical football ledger, Toledo isn't too far behind. After starting their football history with a 145-0 loss to the now-defunct Detroit program[[labelnote:*]]now Detroit Mercy[[/labelnote]], the Rockets steadily improved. The program has four AP final poll appearances to its credit and went on a 35-game winning streak from 1969-71 under Hall of Fame QB Chuck Ealey. Nick Saban had his first HC job here, going 9-2 in 1990; he was succeeded by Gary Pinkel, who stayed a little longer before also going on to greater success. Toledo can also boast of having won the first overtime game in FBS history, a 40-37 defeat of Nevada in the 1995 Las Vegas Bowl. The Rockets' mascots are Rocky and Rocksy, whose modern iterations dress like futuristic astronauts (though the original Rocky was an anthropomorphic missile).

The youngest of the three major [[MilitaryAcademy service academies]], The United States Air Force Academy began as the QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to Army and Navy, often succumbing to EveryYearTheyFizzleOut syndrome, apart from two early standout seasons: 1958 (Cotton Bowl, #6 final poll finish) and 1970 (Sugar Bowl, #11 poll finish). Two major factors kickstarted the rise of Falcon football: the hiring of Ken Hatfield as head coach in 1979, and joining the Western Athletic Conference the next year. While the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy was introduced in 1972 to go to the winner of the series between Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Falcons didn't win it until 1982. Since then, they've won the trophy 20 times, compared to 11 for Navy and 7 for Army in that span of time. Hatfield brought the option offense with him, and the Falcons have run it ever since, even after most college teams abandoned the run-based option for looser passing or spread offenses. The option helps them deal with the stringent requirements for admission to the academy that limit the team's ability to attract top athletes. The discipline, finesse, and proactive nature of the option mesh well with military training, and after Air Force's success with the offense, Army and Navy have generally run it as well. Hatfield quickly catapulted off of his early success to take other high-profile coaching gigs, but since his departure in 1983, the program has only had two head coaches: Hall of Famer Fisher [=DeBerry=], who took the program within one game of playing for a national title in 1985, and Troy Calhoun, who took over in 2007 and has kept the team competitive in the west.\\\

The Broncos of Boise State University have been one of the more consistently competitive programs in the nation, often punching well above their weight class. As of 2022, BSU has the highest winning percentage of any school outside the Power Five, and when only games played as a member of FBS and its predecessors are counted, Boise State actually leads the entire pack by a healthy margin. The Broncos enjoyed great football success as a junior college, winning 15 conference titles (13 in a row) and one national title before becoming a four-year school in the late 1960s. They were regionally competitive until a surge in the early days of FCS, winning that level's national title in 1980. After some ups and downs, including a move to FBS (then I-A) in 1996, they truly emerged in the 21st century as a member of the WAC, with their coming-out party on the national stage being an epic undefeated 2006 season, capped with an overtime win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl fueled by a series of incredible trick plays. The Broncos reached even greater heights from 2008-11 with Kellen Moore at QB, going undefeated again in 2009 and becoming the first FBS team ever to win 50 games in a four-year period (before the CFP) and making Moore the winningest FBS QB ever. Moore's final season was also the Broncos' first in the MW, where they've established themselves as a regular contender and one of the more dangerous Group of Five teams, having not posted a losing record since 1997.\\\

A relatively small program located in northern Colorado, Colorado State University's team has largely struggled through its history, with consecutive winless seasons in 1961-62, another in 1981, plenty more in the pre-modern era, and numerous other poor showings. The program is notable for a) having the same HC in Harry W. Hughes for over three decades (1911-41, '46), who brought them the most regional success and became namesake of their former stadium, b) briefly contending for national rankings under Sonny Lubick (1993-2007), who became namesake of the playing surface of both their former and current stadiums, and c) sporting the same ram horn helmet designs as their NFL counterparts (which they've used since 1973, when newly hired HC Sark Arslanian added to them their previously blank helmets). The school has recently poured tons of money into the program, including building a brand-new stadium in 2017 whose size greatly exceeds the largest crowd that's ever assembled to watch the Rams. The results have so far been... underwhelming.

The Fresno State Bulldogs football team has long been one of the crown jewels in the reputation of California State University, Fresno.[[note]]The school's sports teams are ''always'' called Fresno State, ''never'' Cal State Fresno; it's an ArtifactTitle from its earlier days as Fresno State College. The university markets itself as Fresno State, although the full name does appear on formal documents such as diplomas.[[/note]] Located in Central California's football-loving San Joaquin Valley, the Bulldogs were a small college power on the West Coast through much of their history, before joining D-I in 1969 along with their longtime rivals San Diego State and San Jose State. Former Washington State HC Jim Sweeney launched them to the next level in TheEighties. Behind a series of standout [=QBs=] and a balanced offense, the Bulldogs won six titles in the old Pacific Coast Athletic Association (later renamed the Big West). A devoted fanbase (called "The Red Wave") formed around the team, leading to the construction of Bulldog Stadium on campus (after previously borrowing the local junior college's stadium for home games), which also became the home of the California Bowl (which matched the champions of the PCAA and the MAC from 1981-91). Their peak year in this era was 1985, when, led by QB Kevin Sweeney (Jim's son), the Bulldogs finished the season as the only unbeaten major college team, with an 11-0-1 record and a #16 finish in the coaches' poll. The Bulldogs are also the last FBS-level team to score over 90 points in a game, in their [[CurbStompBattle 94-17 pulverization of New Mexico]] in '91 (could've been worse, too--they led 66-7 at halftime). This success helped lead to a Western Athletic Conference invite, and they debuted in the WAC with a bang in 1992, sharing the conference title and upsetting USC in the Freedom Bowl. The conference move was a godsend, since many of Fresno's California-based Big West peers (Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Pacific) ended up dropping football in TheNineties.\\\

The University of Hawaiʻi's football team has had a proud history as the most prominent athletic representative of its island home. A bit of a novelty for most of its history because of their exotic location, it joined the Western Athletic Conference in 1979 and became competitive under [=HCs=] Dick Tomey and Bob Wagner, who led UH to a conference championship in 1992. The program's on-field peak came under the revolutionary passing offense of June Jones in the 2000s that helped [=QBs=] Timmy Chang and Cole Brennan break NCAA passing records; the latter helped the Rainbow Warriors (then just the Warriors) join the BCS Buster ranks with an undefeated 2007 regular season (though they also became the first BCS Buster to ''lose'' their bowl game, getting blown out by Georgia).\\\

Before the rise of Marshall and Boise State, Nevada was the gold standard for a team moving up to the I-A/FBS level and gaining success. While they already had a bit of a football tradition (early NFL star Marion Motley was an alum), the hiring of 30-year-old former Wolf Pack QB Chris Ault as head coach in 1976 set the team's rise in motion, as they went from a D-II independent to a national I-AA power to joining I-A in 1992 and winning a conference title in their very first season. Ault retired from coaching (twice!) to focus on his AD duties, but the Wolf Pack hit an AudienceAlienatingEra while he was gone. His return to the sidelines in 2004 gave the program a shot in the arm, aided by the launch of the Pistol offense and the arrival of QB Colin Kaepernick, who led them to their standout season in 2010 where they went 13-1 and finished at #11 in the final AP poll. After Ault retired for good in 2013, they've never quite reached the same heights but have performed modestly well. They're also notable for having a two-word singular form nickname (as opposed to the NC State Wolfpack)[[note]]In their early history, they had the much more unique nicknames of "Sagebrushers" and "Desert Wolves".[[/note]] and the odd design of their stadium (the end zone bleachers are squeezed inside the track, with the track going underneath the south end zone stands).

At a school where men's basketball is the main sport, the [[GratuitousSpanish Lobo]] football team counts as TheDeterminator for the conference. They have the embarrassing distinction of being the only team who's been in the top level of college football for the entire existence of the AP poll (since 1936) to have never been ranked once, not even when they finished 10-1 in 1982 (they also got snubbed by the bowls that year). Their last conference title came when UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson was President, they've often struggled mightily on the field (with completely winless seasons in 1968 and 1987), yet they still keep plugging away. The last few decades have seen UNM occasionally become competitive, starting with the tenure of HC Dennis Franchione, who recruited future Pro Hall of Famer Brian Urlacher to the team in 1996 and ended the Lobos' 36-year bowl drought in 1997. They're also notable for fielding the first woman to play in an FBS game, placekicker Katie Hnida[[labelnote:*]]the "H" is silent[[/labelnote]], who played in a bowl game in 2002 and converted two extra points in a 2003 game.

San Diego State University's football history was initially forged in the small-college ranks. The Aztecs were generally a mediocre team with occasional flashes of brilliance until future NFL coaching great Don Coryell arrived in 1961. During his 12 seasons, he perfected the high-powered passing offense that he took to the pros, leading the Aztecs to small-college national titles in each of their final three seasons before they moved to what's now NCAA D-I in 1969, generating a huge local following in the process (the 1967 Aztecs averaged 41,030 fans per home game, still an attendance record for a non-D-I team). They were up and down for the next couple of decades after Coryell left in 1972, with a few conference titles and Marshall Faulk finishing second in the 1992 Heisman race. They bottomed out by not posting a winning season all through the 2000s, then finally bounced back to bowl eligibility throughout the 2010s.\\\

The oldest public university on the West Coast, and the founding campus of the California State University System, San José State University[[note]]The university itself officially uses the acute Spanish accent mark in José but accepts other outlets dropping it.[[/note]] has long been the QuietlyPerformingSisterShow to Cal and Stanford in San Francisco Bay Area college sports (despite both institutions being younger than SJSU). After sponsoring football for a few years toward the end of the 1800s, they relaunched the program in 1921, becoming a steady if not spectacular winner over the next few decades. The 1941 Spartans had the misfortune of being in UsefulNotes/{{Hawaii}} on the morning of December 7, when the Pearl Harbor attack not only canceled their scheduled game against Hawaii on December 13, but left them stranded on the islands for the next few weeks; the Honolulu police enlisted them to help patrol the beaches. SJSU also gained a "cradle of coaches" reputation. Former Spartans who went onto to coaching greatness included Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeil, and Bob Ladouceur (the coach behind the 151-game winning streak of California's De La Salle High School from 1992-2003).\\\

Another case of a football team that struggles at a school where basketball is king, UNLV makes for an interesting contrast with Boise State. Both teams began playing at the four-year level in 1968 and became D-II powers over the next few years. In fact, Tony Knap, the coach who led BSU into the NCAA, left for UNLV in 1976. The Rebels elected to move to the I-A level in 1978 and immediately became competitive, producing a genuine star in QB Randall Cunningham, who led them to a conference title and bowl win in 1984. Things looked bright for UNLV's football future, but with coach Jerry Tarkanian's basketball program already under the NCAA's microscope, the football program was accused of various improprieties, including using ineligible players, plus several players getting into trouble with the law. Many of their wins were forfeited, and the Rebels have never really recovered from these controversies; since 1986, UNLV has had just five winning seasons. Outside of Cunningham and Cincinnati Bengals [[OneHitWonder one-season wonder]] [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueNotoriousFigures Ickey Woods]], their two most famous ex-players are better-known for non-football endeavors: ''Series/SportsCenter'' anchor Kenny Mayne was a backup QB, and Creator/DeathRowRecords mogul Suge Knight played nose guard for two seasons. The move to the newly arrived Raiders' Allegiant Stadium has given Rebel faithful some hope that they can start attracting better talent.\\\

Located about a 90-minute drive from Salt Lake City in an isolated dairy-farming valley, Utah State University has alternated between great success and mediocrity over its history. Under the three-decade tenure of Hall of Fame coach Dick Romney (a distant relative of current Utah senator UsefulNotes/MittRomney), the Aggies challenged Utah for football supremacy in the Beehive State in the years before World War II (1919-48, with BYU football as an afterthought in those years). The program peaked in 1961 when it finished with a #10 ranking led by star DT (and future NFL great, sportscaster, and actor) Merlin Olsen, who the school later named their playing surface after. However, the school's exclusion from the newly-created WAC in 1962 hobbled the program, and BYU's rise to football prominence (ironically led by former Aggie player [=LaVell=] Edwards) made USU the [[StuckInTheirShadow odd one out]] in the state, leading to it constantly bouncing around conferences. The most notable player from that era was QB Anthony Calvillo, who went on to a 20-year CFL career in which he set a North American pro record for passing yards (now held by Tom Brady). However, the program resurged in the 2010s, with three more Top 25 finishes (2012, 2018, 2021) and two conference championships.

Wyoming's football team is the ultimate in local market domination: it's the only public four-year college in the state (and was the only four-year school ''period'' until the founding of Wyoming Catholic College in 2005). However, since the state just happens to be the smallest one in the union in population, the Cowboys have never been a major powerhouse. They were one of the worst teams in the nation in the early 20th century but became a regional power in TheFifties (posting undefeated seasons in '50 and '56) and TheSixties, peaking with a #5 finish and Sugar Bowl appearance in 1967. However, two years later, the program took a huge hit over the "Black 14" incident, in which 14 African-American players were kicked off the team after announcing their plan to wear black armbands in a game against BYU in protest of the LDS Church's (since disavowed) anti-black doctrines and practices. That episode caused Wyoming no end of recruiting problems for years, and they've fluctuated wildly ever since. Those glory years also highlighted another big issue for the school: they've never been able to hold onto any of the multiple good coaches who pass through town. Bowden Wyatt started their turnaround before leaping to jobs at Arkansas and Tennessee; Bob Devaney lasted five years, then went to neighboring Nebraska and launched the meteoric rise of the Cornhuskers. Pat Dye and Dennis Erickson likewise only lasted one year before moving on to high-profile jobs.\\\

Nestled in the mountains of western North Carolina[[labelnote:*]]About 3300 ft/1016 m elevation; the nearest D-I school at a higher elevation is Air Force, a bit under 1300 miles/2100 km as the crow flies.[[/labelnote]], this mid-sized former teachers college is best known for going into Michigan in 2007 and beating the then fifth-ranked Wolverines, becoming the first FCS team ever to defeat a ranked FBS team. (It's happened six more times since.) However, App State's success goes well beyond one game.\\\

Coastal Carolina University, located just a hop, skip, and jump from the tourist mecca of Myrtle Beach, started its life as a junior college in the 1950s, became a two-year extension of the University of South Carolina in 1960, and expanded into a four-year school in the 1970s before separating from USC (with that school's blessing) in 1993. However, football didn't start up until 2003. The Chanticleers (affectionately known as the "Chants", with the rooster a cheeky play on the Gamecocks the school spun off from) soon emerged as a strong contender in the FCS Big South Conference, and the program grew even more in the 2010s under Joe Moglia, a former CEO of discount brokerage TD Ameritrade who oversaw Coastal's move to FBS and the Sun Belt Conference after the 2015 season. After spending 2016 as an FCS independent and non-football Sun Belt member, the Chanticleers joined Sun Belt football in 2017.\\\

Based in Statesboro, a small rural city about an hour west of Savannah (immortalized in song by {{Blues}} legend Blind Willie [=McTell=] and famously covered by Music/TheAllmanBrothersBand), Georgia Southern University started as an agricultural and mechanical school, then evolved into a teachers' college, a four-year college, and eventually a university by 1990, becoming the largest university in Georgia south of Atlanta. The football team was suspended for World War II and laid dormant for four decades before being resurrected as a club team in 1981, moving to varsity status in 1984. Erk Russell, longtime defensive coordinator under Vince Dooley at Georgia, was hired as HC. Russell led one of the fastest ascents in college football history, winning their first of six FCS championships in just their ''second'' varsity season (and fourth overall), despite having NoBudget during the early years of the Eagles' modern era. Some of the team's traditions stem from this, such as their arrival on yellow school buses that were purchased surplus for $1 each from the local K-12 school system. Others were created by Russell himself, such as "Beautiful Eagle Creek", a drainage ditch near the team's practice fields whose waters serve as a GoodLuckCharm, and the phrase "One more time", which was coined after the Eagles won back-to-back FCS championships; the phrase is chanted by Eagles fans after every kickoff. The colorful, beloved Russell carried over another tradition from his UGA days: headbutting his helmeted players bare-headed, often to the point of drawing blood; after Russell's death in 2006, a bronze bust of him was placed at the players' entrance at Paulson Stadium ("The Prettiest Little Stadium in America"), and the players headbutt the bust before taking the field. In Russell's final season with the Eagles, he led the team to a 15-0 record en route to their third FCS championship, the first D-I team to do so in the 20th century. Despite Erk Russell's achievements with both Georgia Southern and UGA, he has not been enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, since Russell was a head coach for only eight seasons and the CFHOF requires ten seasons experience for head coaches to be considered for induction.\\\

Based in the heart of downtown Atlanta and the largest public university in Georgia by enrollment, Georgia State University had long been considered a commuter school (having spent its first four decades as an extension campus of either Georgia Tech or UGA) and only attempted to shed that label near the end of the 20th century. As one of the newest college football programs in existence, the Panthers lack a rich football history; in the Panthers' first two Sun Belt seasons, the team went 1-23, with that lone win coming against an FCS program by one point. In 2017, following the closure and subsequent demolition of the Georgia Dome and UsefulNotes/{{Major League Baseball}}'s Atlanta Braves vacating Turner Field in favor of Truist Park in Cobb County, Georgia State acquired the former MLB ballpark (also the former main stadium for the [[UsefulNotes/OlympicGames 1996 Summer Olympics]]) and renovated it for football.\\\

One of the newest members of FBS, James Madison University is a mid-sized public school located in the heart of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. It got a late start to football largely because it spent its first 38 years as a women's college. JMU finally started up football in 1972 in the NCAA College Division, moving to D-III once the NCAA split that division. They later moved to D-II for a year, returned to D-III, then jumped up to I-AA in the '80s. The Dukes were mostly a middling program until emerging as a power in the 21st century, claiming FCS titles in 2004 and 2016 (notably ending North Dakota State's five-year FCS title streak in the latter season). JMU had higher aspirations, openly seeking an FBS upgrade for years until finally making the jump in 2022. By the time of this move, James Madison had the highest football revenue of any FCS program, and its athletic budget was the largest in the SBC when it joined. JMU was ''intended'' to join the SBC in 2023, but when the all-sports CAA[[note]]As noted in the FCS section below, the CAA football league, branded as CAA Football, is technically separate from the all-sports CAA.[[/note]] banned them from participating in its conference championships, the NCAA permitted JMU and the SBC to accelerate the move to 2022. This made the Dukes the second program, after UCF, to have played at all four levels of NCAA football. Notably, the Dukes jumped to a 5–0 start and made the AP Top 25, becoming the first team ever to be nationally ranked in its first FBS season (though that status only lasted a week after a close loss to Georgia Southern, and the conditions of their accelerated promotion meant they couldn't play in a bowl). Though counted as FBS in 2022, the NCAA is (so far) still not allowing JMU to play in a bowl in its second transitional year in 2023—a season in which the Dukes are off to a ''10–0'' start. As for the "Dukes" nickname, it has nothing to do with the noble title—it comes from the university's second president, Samuel Page Duke, whose 30-year tenure included the transition to coeducation. JMU's mascot is Duke Dog, a student in a bulldog costume with a crowned head.

Located in the largest city in Acadiana, the region of south central Louisiana where the majority of the state's Cajun and Creole populations live, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette has always played second fiddle to Louisiana State University, and that very much extends to football. However, the appropriately named Ragin' Cajuns have fought very hard to shake that reputation (and not just by campaigning for decades to be referred to as simply "Louisiana" rather than "Southwestern Louisiana" or "Louisiana–Lafayette"). The school rose to become a Sun Belt power starting in the early 2010s (though they had to vacate many of their early-decade wins due to NCAA violations). Also, for the record—the Cajuns beat the Florida Gators in calling their home stadium "The Swamp" by several decades.[[note]]However, the nickname was originally applied to a different stadium from the one they now occupy, and the Cajuns only started calling their ''current'' stadium "The Swamp" a year before Steve Spurrier christened the Gators' stadium as such.[[/note]] Also of note is that the Cajuns are the only Division I team that plays below sea level.[[note]]Although the area around the stadium is about 35 feet above sea level, the playing field is set into a natural bowl and lies 2 feet below sea level. If you're wondering about Tulane, the campus lies in a part of New Orleans that's slightly above sea level.[[/note]]

Marshall University, a medium-sized public school not far from where West Virginia meets Ohio and Kentucky, is one of the few schools at its level with a significant place in popular culture, mostly because of a tragedy in 1970. While the team was returning from a game at East Carolina, their chartered plane crashed on its landing approach, killing all on board. The film ''Film/WeAreMarshall'' is a somewhat fictionalized version of the team's rebuilding in the aftermath of the crash.\\\

While the University of Southern Mississippi plays third fiddle in its state to SEC teams Ole Miss and Mississippi State in terms of popularity, it actually outperforms both programs in terms of its historic win percentage. Its team was a regional power in the mid 20th century under Hall of Fame coach Thad "Pie" Vann, who led the team to two College Level national championships as an independent during his long winning tenure (1949-68). Former QB Jeff Bower helped build the team into consistent winners during his tenure (1991-2007) and led their transition to C-USA, where they remained a strong competitor... until 2012, where the Golden Eagles suffered one of the steepest dropoffs in major college history, going from winning 12 games and their conference to going completely winless after a coaching change (the entire coaching staff was fired). The program has mostly rebounded since then and left the C-USA for the Sun Belt in 2022.\\\

Another Alabama school that has long played second fiddle to Alabama's bigger schools (to the point that its team used to be named [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct the "Red Wave"]] rather than the Crimson Tide), Troy University has a long football history. In the back half of the 20th century, it began steadily rising up through the lower division ranks until making the jump to the big leagues in the 21st century under coach Larry Blakeney (who coached the Trojans from [[LongRunner 1991-2014]]). The Trojans continued to perform well in the FBS, dominating the Sun Belt in its early years. Fans are known for reciting the "Havoc!" speech from ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'' (which has nothing to do with Troy, of course; cue joke about Alabama education).

The United States Military Academy in West Point is the oldest of the three major [[MilitaryAcademy academies]] that train officers for the [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks US military]][[note]]There are a total of five federal service academies. The other two, Coast Guard in New London and Merchant Marine in Kings Point, are much smaller and their athletic programs compete in the D-III level New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) alongside schools like MIT and Emerson.[[/note]] and set precedents for many military and civilian American universities that followed. Since the federal government funds all necessary academic operations, TV exposure and money are less of an issue for Army than for most other D-I schools. Also, being able to play a national schedule enables West Point to expose itself to potential cadets throughout the country, making the team a useful recruiting tool for the highly selective academy. The Black Knights ''used'' to be a powerhouse in college football in an era where a military career was likely to be more stable and respectable than playing a game for the rest of one's life. Much like the Army the school represents, the program peaked in prestige in the mid-1940s under legendary coach Red Blaik (1941-58), winning three straight national titles, posting multiple undefeated seasons, and producing three Heisman winners in the dominant FB/HB tandem of Doc Blanchard (1945) and Glenn Davis (1946) and future general Pete Dawkins (1958). However, as pro football salaries rocketed into the stratosphere in the '70s, West Point had a difficult time convincing great athletes to come play for them, as potential cadets faced the choice of spending the prime of their athletic potential in service to their country rather than making money and being famous. (Basically, the NFL stopped drafting Army players when the Army stopped drafting high school players.) The school bottomed out with winless seasons in 1973 and 2003 and have lost far more games than they've won since the 1960s, though current coach Jeff Monken (who inherited a program in 2014 that had one winning season in the last 17 years) has finally returned the Black Knights to consistent winning and bowl appearances; the school currently has the best bowl win percentage in FBS among teams that have played more than five bowls.\\\

The University of Notre Dame is the most famous Catholic university in the country, in no small part because it hosts the most famous remaining football independent and arguably the best-known program in the nation, notably being featured in high-profile sports {{biopic}}s like ''Film/KnuteRockneAllAmerican'' and ''Film/{{Rudy}}''. Notre Dame itself features some of the most distinctive iconography in sports, from the oldest marching band in the nation to the giant mural of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesburgh_Library Jesus signaling a touchdown]] that overlooks the stadium from across campus to the fanbase that makes every game day [[{{Oireland}} look like St. Patrick's Day]]. It is a common joke (with a ring of truth to it) that certain American Catholics hold greater reverence for the Fighting Irish's polished golden helmets than any other aspect of their faith. The program's national following was built over decades of football success, including having produced seven Heisman winners and more [[FlawlessVictory undefeated seasons]] (11),[[note]]Technically, a few other schools could claim to have equaled or surpassed this tally, but only by counting 19th century seasons where they played only a handful of games.[[/note]] College Hall of Fame players (48), consensus All-Americans (105), and NFL draft picks (522) than any other college program as of 2022. The Irish are also second to their longtime rival USC in producing Pro Hall of Famers (12[[note]]The Pro Hall counts Notre Dame with 13 alumni, but one of them was longtime San Francisco 49ers owner Ed [=DeBartolo=] Jr., a Notre Dame alum who didn't play football and was inducted as an owner.[[/note]] to the Trojans' 14).\\\

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).\\\

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is its state's flagship public school, located in the western half of the state (just north of [[UsefulNotes/{{Basketball}} Springfield]]) and notable for its massive library. Its football team became independent by default, being effectively kicked out of MAC football after 2015. The Minutemen had been a quite successful FCS program, even winning a national title in 1998, but had little success after moving to FBS and MAC football in 2012; they and Texas State are the only FBS programs to never play in an FBS bowl game, and Texas State is now bowl-eligible in 2023.[[note]]Technically, Jacksonville State, James Madison, and Sam Houston count as well, but being brand new to the FBS, they aren't even eligible to qualify for a bowl game until 2024, so it wouldn't be fair to include any of them unless they miss out in 2024.[[/note]] After four seasons, they left to an uncertain future, with no FBS conference in their region willing to take them in. They've become a fixture in ESPN's "Bottom 10" as "[=UMess=]" and went completely winless in a COVID-shortened 2020 season.