The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, Texas, Utah and Washington.
The Lone Star Conference (LSC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. Member institutions are located in the southwestern United States, with schools in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas, with two members in the Pacific Northwest states of Oregon and Washington competing as affiliates for football only.
The Southland Conference, abbreviated as SLC, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it participates in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The Southland sponsors 18 sports, 10 for women and eight for men, and is governed by a presidential Board of Directors and an Advisory Council of athletic and academic administrators. Chris Grant became the Southland's seventh commissioner on April 5, 2022. From 1996 to 2002, for football only, the Southland Conference was known as the Southland Football League.
The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) sponsored football and crowned a champion every year from 1962 to 2012. Once considered one of the best conferences in college football, steady attrition from 1999 to 2012 forced the WAC to drop football after fifty-one years.
Wallace "Coach Bully" Bullington was a former American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas for 39 years as football player, assistant football coach, head football coach and athletic director before he retired from the university's athletic staff in 1988, but not before leading the school to its first national championship in 1973.
The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks and Ladyjacks are composed of 16 teams representing Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) in intercollegiate athletics. Stephen F. Austin teams participate in the Division I as a member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), having joined that conference on July 1, 2021, leaving the Southland Conference. The football team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision for football as a member of the United Athletic Conference (UAC). As of the 2023–24 season, the women's bowling team competes as a single-sport member of Conference USA.
Abilene Christian University (ACU) is a private Christian university in Abilene, Texas. It was founded in 1906 as Childers Classical Institute. ACU is one of the largest private universities in the Southwestern United States and has one of the 200 largest university endowments in the United States. Affiliated with Churches of Christ, the university is nationally recognized for excellence in service learning, undergraduate research, and undergraduate teaching.
The Southland Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Year is a basketball award given to the Southland Conference's (SLC) most outstanding player. The award was first given following the conference's inaugural basketball season of 1963–64. Five players have won the award two times: Jerry Rook, Larry Jeffries, Andrew Toney, Ryan Stuart and Thomas Walkup. No player has ever won three times. McNeese has the most all-time winners with eight. Among current SLC members, three have never had a winner: Houston Christian and Incarnate Word, both of which joined in 2013, and Texas A&M–Commerce, which joined in 2022.
The Abilene Christian Wildcats football program is the intercollegiate American football team for the Abilene Christian University located in the U.S. state of Texas. The team was a member of the Southland Conference through the 2020–21 season, but joined the Western Athletic Conference in July 2021, coinciding with that league's reinstatement of football as an official conference sport. After the 2022 season, the WAC fully merged its football league with that of the ASUN Conference, creating what eventually became the United Athletic Conference, and ACU accordingly moved its football team to the new league. The school's first football team was fielded in 1919. The team plays its home games at the on-campus Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium.
The Abilene Christian Wildcats men's basketball team represents Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Abilene, Texas, United States. The Wildcats joined the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) on July 1, 2021, after having spent the previous eight years in the Southland Conference. Before this move, ACU's most recent conference change was in the 2013 offseason, when the Wildcats made the jump to NCAA Division I and rejoined the Southland Conference after a 40-year absence. They are led by head coach Brette Tanner and play their home games at Moody Coliseum.
The Tarleton State Texans, also known as the Tarleton Texans, are the athletic teams that represent Tarleton State University of Stephenville, Texas in NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports. Before Tarleton became a four-year institution in 1961, they were known as the "Plowboys". The Texans compete as members of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) for 12 of their 14 varsity sports. During the school's four-year transition to full D-I membership, set to end in July 2024, Tarleton has planned to add several sports, with women's soccer the first to be confirmed, eventually launching in 2022. Tarleton next added beach volleyball, a women-only sport at the NCAA level, in the 2024 season, competing as a single-sport member of Conference USA.
The Abilene Christian Wildcats women's basketball team represents Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Abilene, Texas. ACU joined the Western Athletic Conference on July 1, 2021, after eight seasons in the Southland Conference. The Wildcats are currently coached by Julie Goodenough.
Joseph Charles Golding is an American basketball coach and former player. He is currently the head men's basketball coach at The University of Texas at El Paso, having previously served in the same capacity at Abilene Christian University, where he played point guard from 1994 to 1998.
The UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros is a collegiate athletic program that represents the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). The Vaqueros inherited the NCAA Division I status of the Texas–Pan American Broncs and compete in the Western Athletic Conference.
The 2012 Lone Star Conference football began on August 30 when West Texas A&M lost to CSU-Pueblo and ended with West Texas A&M loss against Winston-Salem in the NCAA D2 Semi Final on December 8. It was Abilene Christian and Incarnated Word last season before they moved to NCAA D1 Southland Conference.
The 2021 Abilene Christian Wildcats football team represented Abilene Christian University in the 2021 NCAA Division I FCS football season as a member of the Western Athletic Conference. The Wildcats were led by fifth-year head coach Adam Dorrel and played their home games at Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium, Abilene, Texas. The Wildcats played their 100th season in 2021.
The 2021–22 Abilene Christian Wildcats women's basketball team will represent Abilene Christian University during the 2021–22 NCAA Division I women's basketball season as members of the Western Athletic Conference. The Wildcats, led by tenth year head coach Julie Goodenough, play their home games at the Teague Center while the Moody Coliseum is undergoing renovation construction.
The 2021–22 Abilene Christian Wildcats men's basketball team represented Abilene Christian University (ACU) in the 2021–22 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Wildcats, led by first-year head coach Brette Tanner, were first-year members of the Western Athletic Conference. Due to renovations at their usual home arena of Moody Coliseum, they played their home games on temporary stands and court set up on the indoor tennis courts of the Teague Special Events Center.
The 1973 Abilene Christian Wildcats football team was an American football team that represented Abilene Christian College (ACC) during the 1973 NAIA Division I football season. In their sixth season under head coach Wally Bullington, and their first season as a member of the Lone Star Conference (LSC), the Wildcats compiled an 11–1 record, won the LSC championship, and outscored all opponents by a total of 466 to 206. They advanced to the NAIA playoff, defeating Langston (34–6) in the semifinals and Elon (42–14) in the Champion Bowl to win the 1973 NAIA Division I football national championship.
The United Athletic Conference(UAC) is an NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) conference. The conference will be a merger of the existing football leagues of the ASUN Conference and Western Athletic Conference. The UAC will cover the southwestern, western, and southern United States with member institutions located in Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, with a future member located in Georgia.
