Useful Notes / American Conference Football Programs

(aka: American Athletic Conference Football Programs)

Following

American Conference

^{Click here to see a map of the American's schools.}

Year Established: 2013^note The conference operates under the 1979 charter of the original Big East Conference, but considers its competitive history to have started in 2013; see below.
Current schools: 14; Army (football only), Charlotte, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Memphis, Navy (football only), North Texas, Rice, South Florida, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, UTSA^note Wichita State is also a full member of the American, but dropped its football program after the 1986 season (thus, no coaches of theirs were poached by Premier League clubs).
Headquarters: Irving, TX
Current commissioner: Tim Pernetti
Past commissioner of note: Mike Aresco
Reigning champion: Tulane
Website: theamerican.org

The American Conference (or just American) was known as the Big East Conference before 2013, and as the American Athletic Conference before July 2025. The Big East began life as a basketball-centric conference and is more known for that sport rather than football, but the membership of national title contender Miami and other strong 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 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 Power/Group of Five dynamic (now Power Four/Group of Six). However, the conference has done a good job of rebuilding ever since, with their champion frequently sitting as the highest-ranked group conference 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). With SMU leaving for the ACC in 2024, the American enlisted Army (yet another former CUSA member, though only in football) as a new football-only member, joining Navy in that status, although the annual Army-Navy game is designated as an out-of-conference game, since it's played the weekend after the conference championship game. However, the Pac-12's recent poaching of the Mountain West may have set off some dominoes that could upend the American in the near future, with Memphis, Tulane, UTSA, North Texas, and South Florida all being mentioned as possible future Pac-12 members, and the MW likely eyeing many of those same schools as replacements should the Pac-12 go after more MW programs.

In July 2025, the conference announced a rebrand as simply the American Conference, dropping not only the word "Athletic" but also the "AAC" initialism, which led to confusion with the ACC. As part of the rebrand, the conference doesn't use an initialism (no "AC"); it now simply uses the word "American" as its short form. Then again, the new name might cause confusion with the NFL's American Football Conference.

Fun fact: Of the 14 American Conference teams, three share their stadiums with pro teams—two in the NFL and one in the current United Football League. It was five in the 2025 UFL season, but two of the UFL teams were shuttered and replaced with teams in other cities before the 2025 college season.^note The NFL ones are USF with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (though they plan on moving once their on-campus stadium is complete) and Temple with the Philadelphia Eagles. The remaining UFL one is UAB with the Birmingham Stallions. The San Antonio Brahmas and Memphis Showboats, respectively sharing with UTSA and Memphis, were shuttered after the 2025 UFL season. Putting this number in perspective, only three other FBS teams share with pro teams, all in the NFL.^note Currently UNLV with the Las Vegas Raiders, Pitt with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Miami (FL) with the Miami Dolphins. Additionally, Kansas played in 2024 at the Kansas City Chiefs' stadium while KU's stadium was being renovated. Houston had shared its stadium with the UFL's Houston Roughnecks, but that team rebranded as the Houston Gamblers after the 2025 season and moved to Houston Dynamo FC's stadium (which also houses the FCS Texas Southern Tigers).

This page lays out the conference programs as of the 2026 season. Win-loss records are (mostly) accurate as of the end of the 2025 season.^note Disclaimer: Listing win-loss numbers and even national championships is complicated, to say the least. College programs (and even colleges themselves) frequently dissolve and re-form, change divisions and conferences, play in games not recognized by the NCAA, have wins officially rescinded due to rule violations, and do other things that make it hard to judge schools' true performance. Since the NCAA doesn't even officially recognize a national champion at the FBS level, teams are often inconsistent with what titles they acknowledge, sometimes leaving them unclaimed even if picked by numerous selectors and other times jumping on a title given by a random panel that no other school takes seriously. We try to provide context and qualifications when possible, but this isn't The Other Wiki.

Army Black Knights

On, Brave Old Army Team!

Location: West Point, NY
School Established: 1802
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1890–1997, 2005–23), CUSA (1998–2004), American (2024–)
Overall Win Record: 747–553–51 (.572)
Bowl Record: 10–3 (.769)
Colors: Black, gold, and gray
Stadium: Michie Stadium (capacity 38,000)^note pronounced "Mikey"
Current Head Coach: Jeff Monken
Notable Historic Coaches: Earl "Red" Blaik, Paul Dietzel, Lou Saban, Bobby Ross
Notable Historic Players: Robert Neyland, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Earl "Red" Blaik, Monk Meyer, Felix "Doc" Blanchard, Glenn Davis, Pete Dawkins, Alejandro Villanueva, Bryson Daily
National Championships: 3 (1944–46)^note 2 unclaimed (1914, 1916)
Conference Championships: 1 (1 American – 2024)^note Won 9 Lambert Trophies for "Best Team in the East" as an independent (1944-46, 1948-49, 1953, 1958, 2018, 2020)

The United States Military Academy in West Point is the oldest of the three major academies that train officers for the 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. 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 has the best FBS bowl win percentage among teams that have played at least 10 bowls.^note After the 2025 bowl season, the best record among teams that have played 5 or more bowls is Florida Atlantic's 4–1 (.800). Appalachian State is just behind at 7–2 (.778).

The "Black Knights" nickname was only officially adopted in 1999, in reference of their black uniforms^note Specifically, their nickname was "The Black Knights of the Hudson".; prior to that, they had just been known as the Cadets, and their mascot is a mule. Army is a member of the Patriot League (see FCS section in the main "Conferences" page) 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 CUSA, Army had been a football independent through all of its history before joining Navy as a football-only member of The American in 2024 (replacing SMU, which bolted for the ACC). The Black Knights entered the conference with a bang, winning the conference championship in Year 1 while also becoming the first service academy to win 12 games in a season.

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; before 2024, when the Salute to Veterans Bowl was added to that day's schedule, it was the only FBS game played on that day. Even though Army and Navy are now united in American Conference football, the game continues 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. 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).^note It could be accessible by boat—the stadium features an outdoor plaza right on the river—but for security reasons, fans can't enter from the river.

Charlotte 49ers

Forty! Niners!

Location: Charlotte, NC
School Established: 1946^note As the Charlotte Center of the University of North Carolina; became Charlotte College, a two-year institution, in 1949. Returned to four-year status in 1963, and adopted its current name in 1965, when it became part of the University of North Carolina system.
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1946-48)^note Did not field a football program from 1948–2012., FCS Ind. (2013-14), CUSA (2015-22), American (2023-)
Overall Win Record: 51–112 (.313)
Bowl Record: 0–1 (.000)
Colors: Green and white
Stadium: Jerry Richardson Stadium (capacity 15,314)
Current Head Coach: Tim Albin
Notable Historic Coaches: Brad Lambert, Will Healy
Notable Historic Players:
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 0

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, nestled in the largest city of the Carolinas, has one of the youngest programs in FBS football and is one of the younger schools in general. Established in 1946 as a G.I. Bill campus of the larger University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill^note The University of North Carolina system—which since 1972 has included all of the state's public four-year institutions—wasn't established until 1963. for returning World War II vets, its athletic name of the "49ers" is named for how the school was saved from closure by the city school district in 1949. Their football team was officially refounded in 2013 after a 64-year absence, and since then has posted the worst win-loss record in FBS history. When Charlotte makes one of its (very frequent) appearances in ESPN's "Bottom 10", the columnist who produces that list substitutes the 49ers' record for its nickname (e.g., the "Charlotte 2-and-9ers"). The Niners have played most of their history in Conference USA but were scooped up by The American in 2023 to replace the departures of UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston for the Big 12.

East Carolina Pirates

We Believe!

Location: Greenville, NC
School Established: 1907^note As East Carolina Teachers Training School. Became a four-year institution in 1920, with "Training School" replaced by "College". "Teachers" was dropped in 1951, and it became a "University" in 1967.
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1932-46, 1962-64, 1977-96), North State^*now the D-II Conference Carolinas (1947–61), SoCon (1965-76), CUSA (1997-2013), American (2014-)
Overall Win Record: 480–457–11 (.512)
Bowl Record: 12–11 (.522)
Colors: Purple and gold
Stadium: Dowdy–Ficklen Stadium (capacity 50,000)
Current Head Coach: Blake Harrell
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 (1 North State – 1953; 4 SoCon – 1966, 1972–73, 1976; 2 CUSA – 2008-09)

East Carolina University, located in North Carolina's coastal plain, is a former teachers' college turned comprehensive university, notably being the only one in the state to have medical, dental, and engineering schools.^note While several universities in NC have medical and engineering schools, the state's only other dental school is at UNC (Chapel Hill), which lacks an engineering school. In football, ECU started out fairly inconsistent, with a decades-long pattern of a few good seasons sprinkled in a sea of mediocrity and worse. That changed in 1991, when the Pirates were coming off of a string of six losing seasons in the previous seven years. After a close loss in the season opener at Illinois, ECU didn't lose again, defeating ranked Syracuse and Pitt teams along the way, with the "We Believe!" crowd chant entering ECU culture. The season was capped off with an emotional nailbiter over NC State in the Peach Bowl, with the Pirates finishing #9 in both major polls for their only top-10 season to date. That game was also credited with revitalizing the Peach Bowl, setting the stage for its steadily increasing prestige and eventual place in the New Year's Six. A couple more solid seasons in the middle of the decade led to a move to CUSA, where ECU had a mostly winning run before moving to the American a year after the Big East split. They fell into a rut after their first American Conference season, but climbed out of it in the current decade. ECU is also known for its entrance ritual at home games—the team enters the field through a giant pirate skull amid a cloud of purple (fire extinguisher) smoke, with the video board showing pirate ships waving ECU flags and firing cannons, all while Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze" plays over the stadium sound system. Speaking of the stadium, it's the largest on-campus stadium in the Group of 6 conferences.^note Three G6 teams play in off-campus NFL stadiums—fellow American members South Florida and Temple, plus Mountain West member UNLV. Two other American Conference members, Memphis and UTSA, play in larger off-campus stadiums, though UTSA normally closes off its stadium's upper bowl. However, USF will move to a smaller on-campus stadium in 2027. Incidentally, two Ivy League schools (FCS) have larger on-campus stadiums than ECU, namely Yale (over 61 K) and Penn (over 52 K), and FCS HBCU Jackson State plays in an off-campus stadium of a bit over 60 K.

Florida Atlantic Owls

We'll fight fight fight for FAU, where home is a paradise!

Location: Boca Raton, FL^note Main campus. There are also satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce.
School Established: 1961^note Opened for classes in 1964; see more below
Conference Affiliations: FCS independent (2001–03), FBS independent (2004), Sun Belt (2005–12), CUSA (2013–22), American (2023–)
Overall Win Record: 130-173 (.429)
Bowl Record: 4–1 (.800)
FCS Playoff Record: 2–1 (.667)
Colors: Blue and red
Stadium: Flagler Credit Union Stadium (capacity 29,571)^note FAU Stadium behind the sponsorship; the playing surface is Howard Schnellenberger Field.
Current Head Coach: Zach Kittley
Notable Historic Coaches: Howard Schnellenberger, Lane Kiffin, Charlie Partridge, Tom Herman
Notable Historic Players: Rusty Smith, Alfred Morris, D'Joun Smith, Trey Hendrickson, Devin Singletary, Harrison Bryant
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 3 (1 Sun Belt – 2007; 2 CUSA – 2017, 2019)

Home of the first new FBS program of the 21st century, Florida Atlantic University is a 30,000-student public university that was a pioneer in using modern technology in education. The doors first opened in 1964, with President Lyndon Johnson speaking at the dedication ceremony. However, FAU didn't admit freshmen or sophomores until 1984. The "Atlantic" part of the name is very literal, since the main campus is about two miles away from the ocean. Usually considered a commuter school, it decided to upgrade its athletic department in The '90s to help foster school spirit and raise its institutional profile, becoming an NCAA D-I member in 1993. They announced the creation of a football program in 1998, tapping celebrated former Miami and Louisville HC Howard Schnellenberger, who was living in semi-retirement nearby, as its director of football operations, who would get the program up and running, including selecting its first coach. But, in a move that surprised no one, the university asked Schnellenberger to be the HC, and he accepted (though he was also considering pursuing Mark Richt, who played for him at Miami, for the job).

The Owls (named for a colony of burrowing owls who live on university land) finally hit the football field in 2001 as a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits without any on-campus facilities, using equipment given to them by the prop department of Any Given Sunday, borrowing the marching band from a nearby high school since they lacked the budget for one of their own, and sharing Pro Player Stadium with the Miami Dolphins for its first two seasons. Reusing his template from Miami and Louisville, Schnellenberger guided a slow and steady rise for FAU. In their third season they made it to the I-AA playoff semifinals, then immediately moved up to the I-A level, snagging a Sun Belt Conference invite in 2005, and earning back-to-back bowl appearances (both wins) in 2007-08. They slipped a bit after that, and Schnellenberger (at age 77) decided to retire after the 2011 season, but that year also saw the team move from a municipal stadium in Fort Lauderdale to a new 30,000-seat on-campus facility (with expansion to as many as 65,000 seats possible in the future), a triumph not only for the school but for Schnellenberger, since he'd left Miami after their 1983 national championship in part because they refused to build an on-campus stadium. The stadium has also hosted the Boca Raton Bowl starting in 2014. The years after Schnellenberger's departure were pretty dire, but the arrival of former Tennessee and USC coach Lane Kiffin reignited the program, with 11-win seasons in 2017 and 2019, both capped by Boca Raton Bowl victories, before Kiffin left for Ole Miss. After his departure, they stayed with the strategy of hiring former coaches from high profile jobs (ex-Florida State boss Willie Taggart, former Texas coach Tom Herman), but with middling results, while the men's basketball program became the Spotlight-Stealing Squad at the school with its Final Four run in 2023.

FAU's football fortunes have long been intertwined with Florida International. Their main campuses are about an hour apart, FIU debuted their team a year after FAU, and they both joined I-A/FCS in 2004, instituting the Shula Bowl rivalry game that year. FAU has dominated the series, however; FIU's last win was in 2016. After almost two decades as conference mates in the Sun Belt and CUSA, FAU left FIU behind to join the AAC in 2023, and the series went on hiatus that year, but the schools reached an agreement for a four-game extension starting in 2024.

Memphis Tigers

Location: Memphis, TN
School Established: 1912^note As West Tennessee Normal School; later West Tennessee State Teachers College, Memphis State College, and Memphis State University before becoming The University of Memphis in 1994.
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1912–1927, 1947–1967, 1973–1995), Mississippi Valley Conference (1928–1934); Missouri Valley Conference (1968–1972), CUSA (1996–2012), American (2013–)
Overall Win Record: 530–532–33 (.499)
Bowl Record: 7–7 (.500)
Colors: Blue and gray
Stadium: Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium (capacity 62,380)^note Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium behind the corporate name.
Current Head Coach: Charles Huff
Notable Historic Coaches: Allyn McKeen
Notable Historic Players: Isaac Bruce, Stephen Gostkowski, DeAngelo Williams, Jake Elliott, Seth Henigan
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 8 (2 Mississippi Valley – 1929–30; 1 SIAA – 1938; 3 Missouri Valley – 1968–69, 1971; 2 American – 2014, 2019)

The second-largest university in Tennessee, the University of Memphis (Memphis State University prior to 1994) is mostly known in college sports circles for its men's basketball team, which has made three Final Four appearances (twice losing the title game) and has won the NIT twice. The Tigers were an afterthought for decades on the football field, only notable as an easy win for bigger Southern programs and for playing its games in Liberty Stadium, a saddle-shaped bowl built by the city in The '60s in part to lure the Liberty Bowl away from the East Coast (it had begun in Philadelphia, then moved to Atlantic City). The annual bowl game is the stadium's biggest claim to fame, but it's also been part of a number of failed efforts to bring a permanent NFL team to Memphis (the closest it's come is hosting the Memphis Southmen of the World Football League, the Memphis Showboats of the USFL/UFL and the Tennessee Titans of the NFL in their first season after leaving Houston while construction on their home in Nashville completed). However, the Tigers had some success in the 2000s and have become consistent contenders since joining the American. This, combined with their relatively large metro market, has made them a desirable realignment candidate by several conferences. Notably, media revealed in 2025 that Memphis had made the Big 12 a $200 million offer over 5 years to join the conference, paid for mostly by corporate sponsors (most notable among them being locally based FedEx), but was turned down.

Navy Midshipmen

I believe that we will win!

Location: Annapolis, MD
School Established: 1845
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1879–2014), American (2015–)
Overall Win Record: 759–605–57 (.554)
Bowl Record: 14–11–1 (.558)
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)

The United States Naval Academy's football team's athletes are all officers-in-training that hold the rank of midshipmen. Like its interservice rival 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. The Academy is also notable for sponsoring 36 varsity teams (not all of them in NCAA sports), tied with Ohio State and Stanford for the most in FBS. The chant shown in the caption to the team logo originated at the Academy's prep school, quickly spread to the Academy proper, and has gained wide traction in the US, most notably among supporters of the US men's national soccer team.

North Texas Mean Green

Location: Denton, TX
School Established: 1890^note Originally the Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute; became North Texas Normal College in 1894, North Texas State Normal College in 1901, North Texas State Teachers College in 1923, North Texas State College in 1949, and North Texas State University in 1961. The current name followed in 1988.
Conference Affiliations: Lone Star (1932–1947), GCC (1948–1956), MVC (1957–1974), SLC (1975–1995), BWC (1996–2000), Sun Belt (2001–2012), CUSA (2013–2023), American (2023–)
Overall Win Record: 548–536–33 (.505)
Bowl Record: 4–11 (.267)
Colors: Green and white
Stadium: DATCU Stadium (capacity 30,850)
Current Head Coach: Neal Brown
Notable Historic Coaches: Odus Mitchell, Rod Rust, Hayden Fry, Darrell Dickey
Notable Historic Players: Abner Haynes, Steve Ramsey, "Mean" Joe Greene, Kevin Adkisson, J.T. Smith, Steve Williams,^*not to be confused with the one who played at Oklahoma a few years earlier Brian Waters, Patrick Cobbs, Lance Dunbar, Mason Fine
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)

The University of North Texas, the largest school in the Dallas–Fort Worth area by enrollment, is another example of a teachers' college that evolved into a comprehensive university. Its football team started out very competitive in the small-college ranks, eventually dominating the Lone Star Conference in the 1930s and 1940s and the Gulf Coast Conference for that league's entire existence. It remained competitive, though not as consistent, in the Missouri Valley Conference, during which time the school's nickname changed from Eagles to the current Mean Green.^note Contrary to the urban legend, the nickname change had nothing to do with Joe Greene—he was a sophomore when the change came in 1966, and Greene's moniker was a Punny Name riff on the team nickname. A few bad years at the dawn of the '80s led to a collapse in attendance and a forced move to I-AA, sending the program into a significant decline. A booster campaign to buy up unused tickets in the early '90s juiced attendance numbers enough to allow a return to I-A in 1995. While they didn't do much in their first years back, they had a resurgence when the Sun Belt Conference began playing football in 2001, winning the first four SBC titles. The program cratered for the rest of the Oughts and into the early 2010s, during which time it opened its current stadium, cited as one of the better ones among smaller FBS venues.^note Their old stadium had fallen into such disrepair that one power outlet in its press box would cause the entire stadium to lose power if anything was plugged into it. The Mean Green has since rebounded to general competitiveness and frequent bowl appearances, with its location helping it to snag an invite to the American after the raid by the Big 12. UNT had its best season in program history in 2025 with one of the nation's most explosive offenses, making a trip to the American Conference championship game and snapping a seven-bowl losing streak. The Mean Green is also notable for being the victim of the most lopsided loss by an FBS team to an FCS opponent—a 66–7 beatdown by Portland State at UNT's 2015 homecoming, immediately followed by the HC's firing.

Rice Owls

Location: Houston, TX
School Established: 1912^note As "William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art" (short form Rice Institute), became "William Marsh Rice University" in 1960
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1912-14), SWC (1915-96), WAC (1996-2004), CUSA (2005-22), American (2023-)
Overall Win Record: 500-669-32 (.430)
Bowl Record: 7-8 (.457)
Colors: Blue and gray
Stadium: Rice Stadium (capacity 47,000, can be expanded to 59,000, once held 68,000)^note To be downsized to ~30,000 by 2028.
Current Head Coach: Scott Abell
Notable Historic Coaches: John Heisman, Jess Neely, Bill Peterson, Todd Graham
Notable Historic Players: Tobin Rote, Billy Howton, Frank Ryan, Tommy Kramer, Trevor Cobb, Chase Clement, Jarett Dillard, Chris Boswell
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 8 (7 SWC – 1934, 1937, 1946, 1949, 1953, 1957, 1994; 1 CUSA – 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 (it's the fifth-smallest FBS school by undergrad enrollment, with only the three service academies and Tulsa being smaller—and before 2020, it was the second-smallest) 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 CUSA, it is still nowhere close to the power it once held. It's one of the six schools that left CUSA 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 John F. Kennedy 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. With that as a backdrop, Rice announced a major redevelopment project in 2025 to better connect the campus to the neighboring Rice Village shopping/dining district; as part of it, the stadium will be rebuilt and downsized to about 30K capacity by the time the project is complete in 2028.

South Florida Bulls

Location: Tampa, FL
School Established: 1956
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1997-2002), CUSA (2003-04), Big East (2005-12), American (2013-)
Overall Win Record: 184-164 (.529)
Bowl Record: 8-5 (.615)
Colors: Green and gold
Stadium: Raymond James Stadium (capacity 65,890)^note Shared with the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Current Head Coach: Brian Hartline
Notable Historic Coaches: Skip Holtz
Notable Historic Players: Bill Gramática, Quinton Flowers
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). 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 won't be long for sharing with the Bucs; USF is building a new on-campus 35,000-seat stadium that's set to open in 2027.

Temple Owls

Location: 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
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1894-1959, 1970–90, 2005–06),^note Did not play in 1906 or 1918–21 Middle Atlantic Conference (1960–69), Big East (1991–2004, 2012), Mid-American Conference (2007–11), American (2013–)
Overall Win Record: 496–639–52 (.440)
Bowl Record: 3–6 (.333)
Colors: Cherry and white
Stadium: Lincoln Financial Field (capacity: 68,532)^note Shared with the Philadelphia Eagles
Current Head Coach: K.C. Keeler
Notable Historic Coaches: Pop Warner, Bruce Arians, Matt Rhule
Notable Historic Players: Bill Cosby, Joe Klecko, Paul Palmer, P.J. Walker
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 2 (Middle Atlantic Conference – 1967, American -– 2016)

Temple University is the second largest university in Pennsylvania, an urban school in Philadelphia that receives state funding but operates independently. Sportswise it's best known for its men's basketball program, the sixth-winningest all-time in D-I, but also a major example of Every Year They Fizzle Out syndrome, having last won a national title in 1938, the year before the NCAA Tournament began, with its most recent Final Four appearance in 1958. 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, and for being the subject of several comedy routines by former fullback Bill Cosby (before his fall from grace). It has a single Top 25 finish in school history (1979). In many ways, the football program has been a massive hindrance for Temple. The Owls (named as a reference to the school's history as a night school) abandoned their small, aging home stadium in 1978 to share Veterans Stadium and later Lincoln Financial Field with the Philadelphia Eagles, and the team has long struggled to even fill half of the seats for home games. It was booted from the Big East in 2004 due to the team's poor performance, only to be 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. Occasional talk of building a 30,000-seat on-campus stadium has been muted by the financial realities of funding it and the location of the campus in a rather run-down and cramped part of North Philadelphia; even their old stadium (which was demolished in 1997) was seven miles away from campus. 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.

Tulane Green Wave

Roll Wave!

Location: New Orleans, 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".
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1893–94, 1966–95), SIAA (1895–1921), SoCon (1922–32), SEC (1933–65), CUSA (1996–2013), American (2014–)
Overall Win Record: 584–682–38 (.462)
Bowl Record: 7–11 (.389)
Colors: Olive green and sky blue
Stadium: Yulman Stadium (30,000 capacity)
Current Head Coach: Will Hall
Notable Historic Coaches: Clark Shaughnessy, Mack Brown, Buddy Teevens, Tommy Bowden, Willie Fritz
Notable Historic Players: Eddie Murray, Shaun King, J.P. Losman, Matt Forte, Cairo Santos
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 11 (1 SIAA — 1920; 4 SoCon — 1925, 1929–31; 3 SEC — 1934, 1939, 1949; 1 CUSA — 1998, 2 American — 2022, 2025)

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 SEC page for more details. 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 ongoing run that started with an equally unexpected conference championship under Willie Fritz 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 Green Wave made the conference title game again in 2023, but lost to SMU, soon followed by Fritz being hired away by Houston. Fritz' departure has so far been a speed bump, with Tulane again making the conference title game in 2024 and winning it and making the CFP in '25 (and having another HC hired away by a power school, this time Jon Sumrall by Florida after '25).

Besides that, the school was most notable for its on-campus stadium, an 80,000-seat 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) 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 Gumby.

Tulsa Golden Hurricane

Location: Tulsa, OK
School Established: 1892^note ...is the "official" founding date, though unlike most schools that push back their founding dates, it goes 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.
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1895-1913, 1986-95),^note From 1903–07, only played in 1905; also didn't play in 1911. OCC^*Oklahoma Collegiate Conference, which existed from 1929-73 (1914-28), Big Four^*a short-lived Oklahoma-centric league not related to the Big Eight or Big 12 (1929-32), MVC (1935-85), WAC (1996-2004), CUSA (2005-13), American (2014-)
Overall Win Record: 654-551-27 (.542)
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: Tre Lamb
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, Phil McGraw, Drew Pearson, Steve Largent, Dennis Byrd (1980s), Damaris Johnson
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 CUSA - 2005, 2012)

The University of Tulsa is probably most notable for having the smallest undergraduate enrollment of any FBS school, with less than 2,800 at last count. Despite that fact, they've become the Quietly Performing Sister Show to their cash cow instate counterparts Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Their peak came in The '40s, under HC Henry Frnka,^note last named pronounced FRANK-a 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 CUSA.

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 sometimes used that name as well, they switched to a more tropical storm.

UAB Blazers

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".
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1991–98), CUSA (1999–2022)^note Did not play in 2015–16., American (2023–)
Overall Win Record: 179–204–2 (.468)
Bowl Record: 3–3 (.500)
Colors: Forest green and old gold
Stadium: Protective Stadium (capacity 47,100)^note Shared with the UFL's Birmingham Stallions.
Current Head Coach: Alex Mortensen
Notable Historic Coaches: Watson Brown, Bill Clark, Trent Dilfer
Notable Historic Players: Roddy White, Sam Hunt
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 2 (CUSA – 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 CUSA charter member, though they wouldn't play CUSA 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. 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 Blatant Lies, 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. See these articles for the 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 in each of the first six seasons since their return (though COVID-19 scrapped their planned 2020 bowl game) and winning CUSA 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 CUSA 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 triumphant return from the dead, retired shortly before the 2022 season due to a deteriorating back. Clark's top assistant kept UAB's bowl streak going, but the Blazers didn't keep him on when they moved to The American, instead opting for former NFL QB Trent Dilfer, who had previously coached only in high school. Dilfer's run turned out to be a disaster, derailing the program significantly.

UTSA Roadrunners

Meep meep!

Location: San Antonio, TX
School Established: 1969^note The formal establishment date; see more below.
Conference Affiliations: FCS Ind. (2011), WAC (2012), CUSA (2013–22), The American (2023–)
Overall Win Record: 100–87 (.535)
Bowl Record: 3–4 (.429)
Colors: Blue, orange, and white
Stadium: Alamodome (capacity 36,582)^note Capacity of the lower bowl; UTSA normally sells tickets for only that area. If needed, the upper bowl can be used for a total capacity of 65,000. Shared with the UFL's San Antonio Brahmas.
Current Head Coach: Jeff Traylor
Notable Historic Coaches: Larry Coker
Notable Historic Players: Frank Harris
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 2 (CUSA – 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 CUSA for The American in 2023. However, unlike UAB, UTSA was founded completely from scratch and has had nothing approaching the turbulent football history of its Alabama counterpart. It's also the youngest FBS school by start of instruction,^note Liberty is the youngest by founding date (1971). not having held its first classes until 1973 with only graduate students, with juniors and seniors following in 1975 and the first freshmen in 1976.^note However, two FBS members in Florida were so-called "upper division colleges", with no freshmen or sophomores, until the 1980s (FIU in 1981, fellow 2023 American arrival FAU in 1984).

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 Spurs 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 CUSA 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 and the emergence of future San Antonio icon Frank Harris at QB sparked a rapid ascent, with a breakout 2021 season much like that of Coastal Carolina a year prior but with memes more focused on the mascot than mullets. The Roadrunners headed to The American off consecutive CUSA titles; while they missed out on a title in their first season in their new league, they did manage their first-ever bowl win. Meep meep.