| 1 | [[WMG:[[center:[-'''[[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball College Football]]'''\ |
| 2 | [[UsefulNotes/FootballBowlSubdivision FBS Conferences]] ([[UsefulNotes/BigTenConferenceFootballPrograms B1G]]) ([[UsefulNotes/Big12ConferenceFootballPrograms B12]]) ([[UsefulNotes/SoutheasternConferenceFootballPrograms SEC]]) | FCS and Miscellaneous Teams (UsefulNotes/IvyLeague)-]]]]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | As described on the UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball main page, there are a lot of different conferences and programs in college football, the number and organization of which is apt to shift around from season to season. On any given Saturday in the fall, most of the major broadcast and sports networks on American television will feature matchups of these schools, often littered with references to [[LongRunner 150+ years of history]] that the casual viewer might find confusing. These teams are also frequently featured, referenced, and parodied in other American media. This page lays out the alignments of college football conferences as of the upcoming 2024 season and provides a description of their more prominent programs. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | !Football Bowl Subdivision |
| 7 | |
| 8 | See UsefulNotes/FootballBowlSubdivision. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | !Football Championship Subdivision |
| 11 | 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. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | 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.) |
| 14 | |
| 15 | 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. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | 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. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | [[folder:Big Sky Conference]] |
| 20 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_sky.png]] |
| 21 | ->'''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\ |
| 22 | '''Current commissioner:''' Tom Wistroll\ |
| 23 | '''Reigning champion:''' Montana\ |
| 24 | '''Website:''' [[https://bigskyconf.com bigskyconf.com]] |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Formed in 1963, the '''Big Sky Conference''' is one of the better FCS conferences. Popular among Western schools seeking easy wins, though two of its teams have delivered upsets over ranked FBS programs (Eastern Washington against Oregon State in 2013, Montana against Washington in 2021). The MedalOfDishonor in this respect would however go to North Texas, which ended up on the wrong end of a [[CurbStompBattle 66–7 shellacking]] by Portland State in 2015. At the Mean Green's ''homecoming''.[[note]]The loss, the largest ever by an FBS team to an FCS team, was so humiliating that North Texas fired its head coach on the spot.[[/note]] It's also known for having another oddly-colored field, in this case Eastern Washington's red field, nicknamed [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Inferno"]]. Idaho State's ICCU Dome[[note]]"ICCU" is an abbreviation for Idaho Central Credit Union.[[/note]] (originally the Minidome and later Holt Arena) is the oldest on-campus domed stadium in America, built in 1970. Two other conference teams play in domes: Idaho (the Kibbie Dome,[[labelnote:*]]One of the rejected names for it was the [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Palouse Pea Palace.]] Before it picked up a corporate sponsorship in 2023 and officially became the [=P1FCU=] Kibbie Dome, it also had an {{overly long|Name}} official name of William H. Kibbie–ASUI Activity Center. Both names would be even longer if they were spelled out (respectively Potlatch No. 1 Federal Credit Union and Associated Students of the University of Idaho).[[/labelnote]] built in 1975) and Northern Arizona (the Walkup Skydome, built in 1977, not because of extreme heat, as you might guess, but because of the cold temperatures and heavy snow in the mountain city of Flagstaff). 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.\ |
| 27 | |
| 28 | 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 (and become part of the United Athletic Conference in 2023).\ |
| 29 | |
| 30 | With Kennesaw State having left the FCS ranks for CUSA in 2024, the Big Sky is home to the two largest football-sponsoring schools outside FBS—UC Davis has about 32,000 undergraduates and Sacramento State has about 28,000.[[note]]At least two schools in lower divisions, plus another D-I school apart from Arizona State and Liberty, have larger total enrollments than Davis' 41K, and one has a much larger undergrad enrollment than Davis' 32K, 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. The largest non-FBS school by (on-campus) undergraduate enrollment in 2024 will be another non-football school, UC San Diego (nearly 34K).[[/note]] |
| 31 | [[/folder]] |
| 32 | |
| 33 | [[folder:Big South–OVC Football Association]] |
| 34 | [[quoteright:297:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_south_ovc.png]] |
| 35 | ->'''Current schools:''' Big South: Charleston Southern, Gardner–Webb; OVC: Eastern Illinois, Lindenwood, Southeast Missouri, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, UT Martin, Western Illinois\ |
| 36 | '''Current commissioner:''' Big South: Sherika Montgomery; OVC: Beth [=DeBauche=]\ |
| 37 | '''Reigning champions:''' Gardner–Webb and UT Martin (co-champions); Gardner–Webb received the alliance's automatic playoff bid\ |
| 38 | '''Website:''' [[https://bigsouthovcfootball.com bigsouthovcfootball.com]] |
| 39 | |
| 40 | The '''Big South–OVC Football Association''' was created in 2023 as a football-only alliance between the '''Big South Conference''' and '''Ohio Valley Conference (OVC)'''. This alliance is following 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.\ |
| 41 | |
| 42 | 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...\ |
| 43 | |
| 44 | 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, Bryant announced it would join CAA Football in 2024, and Robert Morris announced that it would return to NEC football in 2024.\ |
| 45 | |
| 46 | 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]]\ |
| 47 | |
| 48 | 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.\ |
| 49 | |
| 50 | 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.\ |
| 51 | |
| 52 | Three new members arrived in 2022, although only one of them plays football. Little Rock, a non-football Sun Belt member for over 30 years, saw the writing on the wall with the SBC's coming football expansion and moved to the OVC. Two D-II upgraders, football-sponsoring Lindenwood (out of the St. Louis area) and non-football Southern Indiana, also arrived. While all this was going on, the OVC and the Southland Conference, another league that experienced major membership losses, announced a football scheduling alliance for 2022 and 2023... but then the OVC and Big South announced their more comprehensive football alliance. In 2024, the alliance adds Western Illinois, which became a full OVC member in 2023. WIU is probably most notable for its nickname of Leathernecks—which ''does'' come from [[SemperFi the Marines]], with permission.[[note]]In 1927, the Marines' parent organization, the Department of the Navy, okayed Western's use of the nickname, as well as the Marine seal and bulldog mascot. The team's HC and AD at the time, Roy Hanson, was a highly decorated Marine veteran of World War I, and was serving as a Marine reservist. WIU's football stadium bears his name. As an aside, Western didn't use Leathernecks for its women's teams until 2008, instead calling them Westerwinds.[[/note]]\ |
| 53 | |
| 54 | Given that Charleston Southern and Gardner–Webb are the Big South's only representatives in the alliance in 2024, it's possible that the alliance may end up evolving back to OVC football... stay tuned. |
| 55 | |
| 56 | [[/folder]] |
| 57 | |
| 58 | [[folder:CAA Football (aka Coastal Athletic Association)]] |
| 59 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/caafootball.png]] |
| 60 | ->'''Current schools:''' Albany, Bryant, Campbell, Delaware, Elon, Hampton, Maine, Monmouth, New Hampshire, North Carolina A&T, Rhode Island, Richmond, Stony Brook, Towson, Villanova (football only), William & Mary\ |
| 61 | '''Departing schools:''' Delaware, Richmond (2025)\ |
| 62 | '''Current commissioner:''' Joe D'Antonio\ |
| 63 | '''Reigning champions:''' Albany, Richmond, and Villanova (co-champions); Villanova received the automatic playoff bid\ |
| 64 | '''Website:''' [[https://caasports.com caasports.com]] |
| 65 | |
| 66 | '''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 at 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).\ |
| 67 | |
| 68 | 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.) The 16-team lineup will last only one season, as Delaware starts a transition to FBS in 2024 and joins Conference USA in 2025, while Richmond moves football to the Patriot League in 2025. |
| 69 | [[/folder]] |
| 70 | |
| 71 | [[folder:Ivy League]] |
| 72 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ivy_league.png]] |
| 73 | ->'''Current schools:''' Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale\ |
| 74 | '''Current commissioner:''' Robin Harris[[note]]titled as "Executive Director"[[/note]]\ |
| 75 | '''Reigning champions:''' Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale (co-champions)\ |
| 76 | '''Website:''' [[https://ivyleague.com ivyleague.com]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | 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.\ |
| 79 | |
| 80 | 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.\ |
| 81 | |
| 82 | 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]]. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)]] |
| 86 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/meac.png]] |
| 87 | ->'''Current schools:''' Delaware State, Howard, Morgan State, Norfolk State, North Carolina Central, South Carolina State\ |
| 88 | '''Current commissioner:''' Sonja Stills\ |
| 89 | '''Reigning champions:''' Howard and North Carolina Central (co-champions); Howard received the Celebration Bowl berth\ |
| 90 | '''Website:''' [[https://meacsports.com meacsports.com]] |
| 91 | |
| 92 | 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 vacate its automatic bid to the FCS playoffs (for the second time in the FCS era), opting instead to send its champion to the Celebration Bowl in Atlanta to play the SWAC (below) champion (the MEAC and SWAC champs had previously squared off in the Heritage Bowl from 1991-99). A non-champion is still eligible for an at-large playoff invitation if the selection committee deems them worthy, and North Carolina A&T in 2017 and North Carolina Central in 2023 have received one. 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.\ |
| 93 | |
| 94 | 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]] then without a conference, offered itself up as a member but got voted down by the league's chancellors, and eventually joined the NEC for 2024 and beyond.[[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. |
| 95 | [[/folder]] |
| 96 | |
| 97 | [[folder:Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC)]] |
| 98 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/missouri_valley_football_conference.png]] |
| 99 | ->'''Current schools:''' Illinois State, Indiana State, Missouri State, Murray State, North Dakota, North Dakota State, Northern Iowa, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Southern Illinois, Youngstown State\ |
| 100 | '''Departing schools:''' Missouri State (2025)\ |
| 101 | '''Current commissioner:''' Patty Viverito\ |
| 102 | '''Reigning champion:''' South Dakota State\ |
| 103 | '''Website:''' [[https://valley-football.org valley-football.org]] |
| 104 | |
| 105 | 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).\ |
| 106 | |
| 107 | Though the MVFC and MVC are separate entities, they share a very close relationship. The two leagues have six members (for now) 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.\ |
| 108 | |
| 109 | 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.\ |
| 110 | |
| 111 | The latest membership change was announced in 2023, when Western Illinois left the Summit League for the OVC, playing one last season in the MVFC before joining the Big South–OVC alliance in 2024. The next change comes in 2025 with Missouri State leaving for FBS and Conference USA. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | !!!North Dakota State Bison |
| 114 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/north_dakota_state.png]] |
| 115 | ->'''Location:''' Fargo, ND\ |
| 116 | '''School Established:''' 1890[[note]]Went by "North Dakota Agricultural College" until 1961[[/note]]\ |
| 117 | '''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-)\ |
| 118 | '''Overall Win Record:''' 777–379–34 (.667)[[note]]214-42 (.836) since joining D-I in 2004[[/note]]\ |
| 119 | '''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]]\ |
| 120 | '''Playoff Record:''' 35-13 (.729) in D-II; 43–5 (.896) in FCS\ |
| 121 | '''Colors:''' Green and yellow\ |
| 122 | '''Stadium:''' Fargodome (19,000 capacity)\ |
| 123 | '''Current Head Coach:''' Tim Polasek\ |
| 124 | '''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Gil Dobie\ |
| 125 | '''Notable Historic Players:''' Gus Bradley, Carson Wentz, Trey Lance\ |
| 126 | '''National Championships:''' 17 (8 D-II - 1965, 1968-69, 1983, 1985-86, 1988, 1990; 9 FCS - 2011–15, 2017–19, 2021)\ |
| 127 | '''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) |
| 128 | |
| 129 | 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.\ |
| 130 | |
| 131 | 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. |
| 132 | [[/folder]] |
| 133 | |
| 134 | [[folder:Northeast Conference (NEC)]] |
| 135 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nec_1.png]] |
| 136 | ->'''Current schools:''' Central Connecticut, Duquesne (football only), LIU, Mercyhurst, Robert Morris (football only), Saint Francis,[[note]]The one in Pennsylvania; see below for a former conference mate. Formally Saint Francis University ("Saint" spelled out).[[/note]] Stonehill, Wagner\ |
| 137 | '''Current commissioner:''' Noreen Morris\ |
| 138 | '''Reigning champion:''' Duquesne\ |
| 139 | '''Website:''' [[https://northeastconference.org northeastconference.org]] |
| 140 | |
| 141 | Formed in 1981, the '''Northeast Conference''' (or '''NEC''') did not sponsor football until 1996. It is in the lower tier of FCS, largely because it restricts football scholarships to a shade over two-thirds of the FCS maximum (45 instead of 63). As of the 2023 season, the only full NEC members that don't play football are Fairleigh Dickinson[[note]]The D-I program at the school's "Metropolitan" campus in Teaneck, New Jersey, that is. The "Florham" campus thirty miles away in Madison is a member of the D-III Middle Atlantic Conference and ''does'' play football.[[/note]] and Le Moyne (see below). Chicago State joins this group in 2024, though as noted in the MEAC folder it is exploring adding FCS football. Until fairly recently, those ranks included three other schools: LIU Brooklyn, Mount St. Mary's, and St. Francis Brooklyn.[[note]]Formally St. Francis College ("Saint" officially abbreviated).[[/note]] First, Long Island University merged the Brooklyn athletic program with the D-II LIU Post program (which did play football) into a single D-I LIU program effective in 2019–20. The football team that played as the LIU Post Pioneers in 2018 accordingly became the LIU Sharks. As for Mount St. Mary's, it left the NEC in 2022 for another non-football league, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. St. Francis Brooklyn shut down its entire athletic program at the end of the 2022–23 school year, and the conference quickly replaced them with Le Moyne, a longtime D-II Jesuit school in suburban Syracuse, New York, whose signature sport is lacrosse. Merrimack and Sacred Heart announced their departure for the MAAC effective in 2024, and both chose to become FCS independents for at least 2024. The NEC shored up its football numbers for 2024 by bringing back Robert Morris, which had been in NEC football from its start in 1996 until leaving after the 2019 season, as a football associate, and picking up another D-II upgrader, Mercyhurst from Pennsylvania (they're already D-I in hockey, having moved up in 1999).[[note]]Both RMU and the other football associate, Duquesne, are (or will be) NEC members in an additional sport. Duquesne is also a member in the niche sport of women's bowling, while RMU will join for men's lacrosse at the same time it joins for football.[[/note]]\ |
| 142 | |
| 143 | The 2023 season was the first in which Merrimack, which joined the conference in all sports from D-II in 2019, was eligible for the FCS playoffs. Stonehill, which made the same move in 2022, is ineligible until 2026, while Mercyhurst will be ineligible until 2028. Stonehill replaced Bryant, which left for the non-football America East Conference in 2022 and parked football in the Big South, thereby becoming part of the Big South–OVC football alliance in 2023 (and moving from there to CAA Football in 2024). As alluded to above, Chicago State (non-football), Mercyhurst (all sports), and Robert Morris (football plus men's lacrosse) are effectively replacing Merrimack and Sacred Heart. |
| 144 | [[/folder]] |
| 145 | |
| 146 | [[folder:Patriot League]] |
| 147 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/patriot_league.png]] |
| 148 | ->'''Current schools:''' Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham (football only), Georgetown (football only), Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh[[note]]Army and Navy also call the Patriot League their primary conference.[[/note]]\ |
| 149 | '''Arriving schools:''' Richmond (football only, 2025)\ |
| 150 | '''Current commissioner:''' Jennifer Heppel\ |
| 151 | '''Reigning champions:''' Holy Cross and Lafayette (co-champions); Lafayette received the automatic playoff bid\ |
| 152 | '''Website:''' [[https://patriotleague.org patriotleague.org]] |
| 153 | |
| 154 | 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 159th game in 2023, 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]] The PL will add a new football member in 2025 when Richmond, which will remain a member of the non-football Atlantic 10 Conference, joins from CAA Football (it's already a PL member in women's golf, a sport the A-10 doesn't sponsor).\ |
| 155 | |
| 156 | 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. |
| 157 | [[/folder]] |
| 158 | |
| 159 | [[folder:Pioneer Football League (PFL)]] |
| 160 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pioneer_football_league.png]] |
| 161 | ->'''Current schools:''' Butler, Davidson, Dayton, Drake, Marist, Morehead State, Presbyterian, St. Thomas, San Diego, Stetson, Valparaiso\ |
| 162 | '''Current commissioner:''' Greg Walter\ |
| 163 | '''Reigning champion:''' Drake\ |
| 164 | '''Website:''' [[https://pioneer-football.org pioneer-football.org]] |
| 165 | |
| 166 | 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.\ |
| 167 | |
| 168 | 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 a five-year transition process instead of the four 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 give St. Thomas the planned five-year time frame.[[/note]] |
| 169 | [[/folder]] |
| 170 | |
| 171 | [[folder:Southern Conference ([=SoCon=])]] |
| 172 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/socon.png]] |
| 173 | ->'''Current schools:''' Chattanooga, [[MilitaryAcademy The Citadel]], East Tennessee State, Furman, Mercer, Samford, VMI[[note]]Virginia [[MilitaryAcademy Military Institute]][[/note]], Western Carolina, Wofford\ |
| 174 | '''Current commissioner:''' Michael Cross\ |
| 175 | '''Reigning champion:''' Furman\ |
| 176 | '''Website:''' [[https://soconsports.com soconsports.com]] |
| 177 | |
| 178 | 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]]. |
| 179 | [[/folder]] |
| 180 | |
| 181 | [[folder:Southland Conference (SLC)]] |
| 182 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/southland_conference.png]] |
| 183 | ->'''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[[labelnote:*]] Not a business college, but located in the town of Commerce, an hour's drive northeast of Dallas. It was called East Texas State until 1996.[[/labelnote]] \ |
| 184 | '''Arriving schools:''' UTRGV[[labelnote:*]]Texas–Rio Grande Valley[[/labelnote]] (2025)\ |
| 185 | '''Current commissioner:''' Chris Grant\ |
| 186 | '''Reigning champion:''' Nicholls\ |
| 187 | '''Website:''' [[https://southland.org southland.org]] |
| 188 | |
| 189 | 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. More recently, UTRGV, which had announced that it would add football in 2025 (after a practice season in 2024) as a member of the United Athletic Conference (see below), changed its plans, joining the SLC as a full member in 2024 with football to follow the next year.\ |
| 190 | |
| 191 | The SLC has two full non-football members in New Orleans and Texas A&M–Corpus Christi, with UTRGV becoming a third for 2024–25 only. 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. |
| 192 | [[/folder]] |
| 193 | |
| 194 | [[folder:Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC)]] |
| 195 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/swac.png]] |
| 196 | ->'''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\ |
| 197 | '''Current commissioner:''' Charles [=McClelland=]\ |
| 198 | '''Reigning champion:''' Florida A&M\ |
| 199 | '''Website:''' [[https://swac.org swac.org]] |
| 200 | |
| 201 | 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).\ |
| 202 | |
| 203 | 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). |
| 204 | [[/folder]] |
| 205 | |
| 206 | [[folder:United Athletic Conference (UAC)]] |
| 207 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uac.png]] |
| 208 | ->'''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]], West Georgia\ |
| 209 | '''Current commissioners:''' Jeff Bacon & Brian Thornton[[note]]Both titled as "Executive Director". They're respectively commissioners of the UAC's partner conferences, the Atlantic Sun and WAC.[[/note]]\ |
| 210 | '''Reigning champion:''' Austin Peay\ |
| 211 | '''Website:''' [[https://uacfootball.com uacfootball.com]] |
| 212 | |
| 213 | The '''United Athletic Conference''' is the newest FCS conference, created in December 2022 by the announcement that the '''ASUN Conference''' (or '''Atlantic Sun''') and '''Western Athletic Conference (WAC)''' would merge their football leagues. The league used the placeholder name of "ASUN–WAC Football Conference" before unveiling its new name in April 2023. The ASUN initially contributed Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, and North Alabama, with the WAC contributing schools from Texas and Utah, namely Abilene Christian, Southern Utah, Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton, and Utah Tech. Due to scheduling commitments, the UAC played only a 6-game schedule in 2023. It was set to move to a full round-robin in 2024, but that was before D-II upgrader West Georgia was announced as joining in that season.[[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]] It ''would'' have added another member when UTRGV (a WAC member through 2023–24) added football in 2025, but that school will leave for the Southland Conference in 2024. 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. |
| 214 | |
| 215 | 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 its abbreviation). 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.\ |
| 216 | |
| 217 | As of the 2024 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. The next school to join the ASUN, West Georgia, does sponsor (full-sized) football and thus will become a UAC member, reuniting with its former D-II Gulf South Conference mates Central Arkansas and North Alabama.\ |
| 218 | |
| 219 | 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 CUSA, 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.\ |
| 220 | |
| 221 | The WAC currently has five non-football members in California Baptist, Grand Canyon, Seattle, UTRGV, and Utah Valley, but Grand Canyon and Seattle will leave in 2025 for another non-football league, the West Coast Conference. 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. As noted above, UTRGV is now set to leave for the Southland Conference.\ |
| 222 | |
| 223 | The UAC boasts another oddly-colored football field in that of Central Arkansas, with purple and gray sections alternating every 5 yards. |
| 224 | [[/folder]] |
| 225 | |
| 226 | !!FCS Independents |
| 227 | There will be two FCS independents in the 2024 season—Merrimack and Sacred Heart, both of which left the NEC for the non-football MAAC. The only FCS indy in 2023, Kennesaw State, joins Conference USA for 2024 and beyond. Delaware and Missouri State will play one final FCS season without playoff eligibility, respectively in CAA Football and the MVFC, before following KSU to CUSA in 2025. |
| 228 | |
| 229 | !!Notable Defunct Programs |
| 230 | |
| 231 | [[folder:Chicago Maroons]] |
| 232 | !!!Chicago Maroons |
| 233 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chicago_6.png]] |
| 234 | ->'''Location:''' Chicago, IL\ |
| 235 | '''School Established:''' 1890\ |
| 236 | '''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892-95), Big Ten (1896-1939), D-III Ind. (1969-72), Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference[[note]]Predecessor to [=UChicago's=] current football home of the Midwest Conference; merged with a parallel women's sports league in 1994 to create today's MWC.[[/note]] (1976–87), University Athletic Association[[note]]A conference made up of almost all the D-III schools that are regarded as top tier research universities; besides Chicago, the other members are Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve, Emory, NYU, Rochester and Washington U. of St. Louis, plus Johns Hopkins until it left in 2001. It's basically the Big Ten of D-III, fielding national powers in most sports (especially men's and women's basketball), but since only 5 of the 8 schools play the sport (Brandeis, Emory and NYU don't), football was always a bit of an afterthought for the league, so it finally stopped sponsoring football in 2016, and the five teams compete as associate members in other conferences: Chicago in the Midwest, Carnegie and Case in the Presidents' Athletic Conference, Washington in the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) and Rochester in the Liberty League.[[/note]] (1988–2016), Southern Athletic Association (2015–16), Midwest Conference (2017–)\ |
| 237 | '''Overall Win Record:''' 416–368–34 (.529)\ |
| 238 | '''Bowl Record:''' N/A\ |
| 239 | '''Colors:''' Maroon and white\ |
| 240 | '''Stadium:''' New Stagg Field (capacity 1,650)[[note]]The Maroons had a few temporary homes in their early years, and were the first college football team have an indoor home venue when they played some games in an equestrian arena in the 1890s, with bark laid down instead of turf. The original Stagg Field, originally Marshall Field, opened in 1893 and eventually expanded up to a capacity of 50,000. It was demolished in 1957 and a library now sits on the old location, while the New Stagg Field was built a few blocks away in TheSixties, initially used for track & field before the football program was reinstated.[[/note]]\ |
| 241 | '''Current Head Coach:''' Todd Gilchrist\ |
| 242 | '''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Amos Alonzo Stagg, Clark Shaughnessy\ |
| 243 | '''Notable Historic Players:''' Clarence Herschberger, Herbert "Fritz" Crisler, Jay Berwanger\ |
| 244 | '''National Championships:''' 2 (1905, 1913)\ |
| 245 | '''Conference Championships:''' 12 (7 Big 10, 5 UAA) |
| 246 | |
| 247 | The '''University of Chicago''' is easily the most successful football program to no longer play at the Division 1 level. A founding member of the Big Ten Conference in 1896 under legendary head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg (who coached there for 41 years), they were considered the first "western" school to be capable of competing with the elites of the Ivy League around the turn of the 20th century. They had the first All-American to come from a non-Ivy League school (Clarence Herschberger), won national titles in 1905 and 1913, and had the first ever Heisman Trophy winner (Jay Berwanger) in 1935. |
| 248 | |
| 249 | The end of the line for Chicago as a football power came when Robert Maynard Hutchins became the university's president in 1929. Hutchins believed that universities should be squarely focused on classical education, and had disdain for things he regarded as distractions to pure academics, like vocational majors, activities, fraternities and sororities, and ''especially'' athletics. Hutchins forced Stagg to retire against his will, then squeezed the football program by eliminating athletic scholarships, refusing to establish a physical education major, and forcing the team to forego spring practices by changing the academic calendar. After years of struggle under this de-emphasis of athletics, the school finally dropped its football team entirely following the 1939 season, clearing the way for their now-vacant stadium to be used as the site for the world's first ever artificial nuclear reactor. Chicago was the most successful defunct program in NCAA football history... for about 22 years. In 1963, the university brought football back first as a club sport, then as a D-III program. They've never come close to their heights of the early 20th century, but did have a run of success in the University Athletic Association conference in the '90s-'00s including five conference titles. |
| 250 | [[/folder]] |
| 251 | |
| 252 | [[folder:Carlisle Indian School]] |
| 253 | !!!Carlise Indian School |
| 254 | [[quoteright:288:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/carlisle_indian_school_logo.png]] |
| 255 | ->'''Location:''' Carlisle, PA\ |
| 256 | '''School Established:''' 1879\ |
| 257 | '''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1893-1917)\ |
| 258 | '''Overall Win Record:''' 173–92–13 (.646)\ |
| 259 | '''Bowl Record:''' N/A\ |
| 260 | '''Colors:''' Red, white, and gold\ |
| 261 | '''Stadium:''' Indian Field/Parade Grounds at Carlisle Barracks (no permanent seating)\ |
| 262 | '''Current Head Coach:''' N/A\ |
| 263 | '''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Glen "Pop" Warner, George Washington Woodruff, Bemus Pearce\ |
| 264 | '''Notable Historic Players:''' Bemus Pearce, Hawley Pearce, Jim Thorpe\ |
| 265 | '''National Championships:''' 0\ |
| 266 | '''Conference Championships:''' N/A |
| 267 | |
| 268 | The '''United States Indian Industrial School''', often shortened to its hometown of "Carlisle Indian School", was one of many Native American "boarding schools" established in the country around that time for the purpose of assimilating natives into American society. Based out of the then-decommissioned Carlisle Barracks, the Carlisle Indians football program established in 1893 and quickly became one of the top football programs in the country, regularly competing with (and often defeating) the elites of the Ivy Leagues as well as the US Military Acadamy (now the Army Black Knights, who Carlisle famously routed in 1912 with UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower on the field). |
| 269 | |
| 270 | They found some initial success, but they didn't reach true dominance until the arrival of innovative head coach Glen "Pop" Warner in 1899. Led by six future hall of famers including all-world athlete Jim Thorpe[[note]]The sheer breadth of his accomplishments is well-covered on the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueNamesToKnow NFL Names To Know]] page, but at minimum Olympic Gold Medalist and charter member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame are worth noting here.[[/note]], Carlisle was labeled "the most dynamic" football team of the early 20th century, inventing and popularizing a number of "trick" plays that have since become mainstream (the fake handoff, the "hidden ball" play on kick returns, etc.) while relying more on speed and quickness than most other elite programs who prized power and physicality. |
| 271 | |
| 272 | They were also known for their willingness to travel to distant away games, much moreso than the other "powerhouse" schools of the northeast in that era. They traveled as far south as Georgia, west as San Francisco, and even played in Canada (1912 against a team of Canadian all-stars, trouncing them 49-7). They played another "Indian School" (Haskell from Lawrence, KS[[note]]which still exists as Haskell Indian Nations University, which is a member of the NAIA for athletics, and revived their football team from 1990 to 2015[[/note]]) in 1904 in St. Louis following that year's Summer Olympics during the St. Louis World's Fair. Their 1906 trip to Vanderbilt, where they lost 4-0, is often seen as putting southern football on the map. Meanwhile, their upset of heavily favored Harvard in 1911 is considered among the biggest upsets in the sport's history. |
| 273 | |
| 274 | Unfortunately, the Native Americans at the school faced unpleasant and outright racist conditions. Their native languages, customs, and dress were banned while they were forced into "militaristic regimentation" and there were accounts of native women being forced to marry white men. A 1914 congressional investigation addressed the conditions and found that athletics played an outsized role at the school, leading to the dismissal of Pop Warner (ironically one of the biggest supporters of the students at the school). When the US entered UsefulNotes/WorldWarI in 1917, the Carlisle Barracks were reestablished by the Federal War Department and the school permanently closed. |
| 275 | |
| 276 | Still, the school's football legacy lives on. Their overall winning percentage of .646 is the best by any defunct program in college football history (and for comparison, would rank 13th among current FBS programs). They likewise have the most All-Americans (17) and Hall of Famers (6) by any defunct team. |
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