The 1996 NCAA conference realignment was initiated by the dissolution of the Southwest Conference (SWC), the formation of the Big 12 Conference and Conference USA (C-USA), and the expansion of the Western Athletic Conference to 16 teams. This "new" WAC ultimately did not last long, as eight of its 16 members left the conference in 1999 and founded the Mountain West Conference.
The Southwest Conference was what would now be considered to be one of the Power conferences of college football. From 1992 to 1994, the conference was part of the Bowl Coalition including its agreement to send its champion to the Cotton Bowl Classic, and in the 1995 football season, it was part of the Bowl Alliance, the successor of the Bowl Coalition (though the Cotton Bowl was left out of the Bowl Alliance).
The Southwest Conference was founded in 1914 of mainly prominent schools from Texas and bordering states. From 1976 to 1991, its membership consisted of Baylor University, Rice University, Southern Methodist University, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University, University of Houston, and the University of Arkansas.
During the 1980s the SWC was plagued by 2/3 of its membership being on probation, at one time or another, for NCAA recruiting violations (only Arkansas, Baylor and Rice avoided NCAA sanctions). The most notable involved the "Pony Express" scandals at SMU resulting in the football team receiving the death penalty in 1987. At that time, the NCAA prohibited a program on probation from appearing on live television.
The Southwest Conference was one of six conferences that packaged its media rights with the College Football Association. When other conferences began breaking off from the CFA, The Southwest Conference was in a weak spot due to its scandals reducing its on-field performance and only having schools in one state after Arkansas departed for the Southeastern Conference after the 1991 football season.
As conferences realized the opportunity of selling media rights separate from other conferences was the way the sport was moving, the SWC and the Big Eight Conference began talks of a merger. Other conferences like the Southeastern Conference and the Pacific-10 Conference were interested in Texas and Texas A&M, but the Big Eight was open to a full merger of all sixteen schools. However, once the conferences believed that ESPN would be their most lucrative television partner, the network made it clear that it wanted a conference of twelve teams with all eight from the Big Eight, and four from the Southwest Conference, including Texas & Texas A&M. Big Eight officials assumed the eleventh and twelfth schools included would be the other public schools of Texas Tech and Houston, but when Texas government officials worked on granting permission for the large public schools to leave the Southwest Conference for a merger, Houston was excluded in favor of Baylor. [1]
In 1994, Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, and Texas Tech accepted invitations to join with the members of the Big Eight Conference to form the Big 12 Conference starting with the 1996 football season. The four schools left out of the Big 12 found new conference homes as well, but in less prominent conferences. Rice, SMU, and TCU accepted invitations to join the Western Athletic Conference, while Houston was a founding member of Conference USA.
The Big Eight Conference was formed in 1907. It informally adopted the name of Big Eight in 1957 when Oklahoma State joined, and legally took that name in 1964. Its member schools from 1957 to 1996 were University of Nebraska, Iowa State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, the University of Missouri, the University of Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State University. Like the Southwest Conference, the Big Eight was a major conference with membership in the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance, and longstanding ties to the Orange Bowl.
On February 25, 1994, it was announced that a new conference would be formed from the members of the Big Eight and four of the Texas member colleges of the Southwest Conference. [2] [3] [4] Though the name would not be made official for several months, newspaper accounts immediately dubbed the new entity the "Big 12". [5] Charter members of the Big 12 included the members of the Big Eight plus Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech.
The Western Athletic Conference had 10 members, and desired to hold a conference championship game, which at the time required at least twelve members.
The WAC ended up adding six schools to its ranks for a total of sixteen. Rice, TCU, and SMU joined the league from the Southwest Conference, which had disbanded. Big West Conference members San Jose State and UNLV were also admitted, as well as Tulsa which was an independent in football but housed other sports in the Missouri Valley Conference. [6]
In addition to the massive expansion of the league, two pre-expansion members, Air Force and Hawaiʻi, brought their women's sports into the conference. Air Force had previously housed its women's sports in the Division II Colorado Athletic Conference, while the Hawaiʻi women had been in the Big West.
Conference USA was founded in 1995 by the merger of the Metro Conference and Great Midwest Conference, two Division I conferences that did not sponsor football at the time. The conference's football membership consisted of Cincinnati and Memphis from the Great Midwest, and Louisville, Southern Miss, Memphis, and Tulane from Metro. These five schools had been football independents before the formation of Conference USA. The conference had six other non-football members (DePaul, Marquette, Saint Louis, UAB from Great Midwest, Charlotte, and South Florida from Metro).
Since this left an uneven number of schools in the conference (11 total and five in football), Houston of the dissolving Southwest Conference was extended an invitation and agreed to join following the SWC's disbanding at the end of the 1995–96 academic year. The conference immediately started competition in all sports in 1995, except football which started in 1996.
The Big West lost San Jose State and UNLV to the WAC after the 1995 season. Big West member Pacific dropped football citing financial concerns. Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, Northern Illinois, and Southwestern Louisiana had joined the Big West as football affiliate members for the 1993 season, but left ahead of the 1996 season. That meant the Big West was losing seven of its ten football programs ahead of the 1996 season. The Big West was able to bring its football numbers back up to six programs by inviting Boise State, Idaho, and North Texas as full members to begin in the 1996 season. North Texas had been an independent while Boise State and Idaho had been members of the I-AA Big Sky Conference. Cal Poly SLO from the American West Conference also joined in all sports but football to bring total membership back up to twelve.
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 Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference also included schools from Oklahoma and Arkansas.
The power conferences are the most prominent athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I, the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most elite conferences within that tier. Power conferences have provided most of the participants in the College Football Playoff (CFP) and its predecessors, and generally have larger revenue, budgets, and television viewership than other college athletic programs. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) are currently recognised as power conferences.
The 1996 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with the Florida Gators being crowned National Champions after defeating rival Florida State in the Sugar Bowl, which was the season's designated Bowl Alliance national championship game. Florida had faced Florida State earlier in the year, when they were ranked No. 1 and No. 2, and lost 24–21. However, unranked Texas's upset of No. 3 Nebraska in the first ever Big 12 Championship Game set up the rematch of in-state rivals in New Orleans. In the Sugar Bowl, Florida's Heisman Trophy-winning senior quarterback Danny Wuerffel and head coach Steve Spurrier led the Gators to a 52–20 victory and their first national championship.
The Texas Tech Red Raiders football program is a college football team that represents Texas Tech University. The team competes as a member of the Big 12 Conference, which is a Division I Football Bowl Subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The program began in 1925 and has an overall winning record, including a total of 11 conference titles and one division title. On November 8, 2021, Joey McGuire was hired as the team's 17th head football coach, replacing Matt Wells, who was fired in the middle of the 2021 season. Home games are played at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas.
The TCU Horned Frogs are the athletic teams that represent Texas Christian University. The 18 varsity teams participate in NCAA Division I and in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for football, competing mostly in the Big 12 Conference. The school was a founding member of the Southwest Conference and was a member of the Western Athletic Conference, Conference USA (CUSA), and the Mountain West Conference before joining the Big 12. Two TCU teams participate outside the Big 12 in sports not sponsored by that conference. The rifle team competes in the Patriot Rifle Conference, and the beach volleyball team moved to CUSA for 2023–24 after having been in the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association.
The Houston Cougars football program is an NCAA Division I FBS football team that represents the University of Houston. The team is commonly referred to as "Houston" or "UH." The UH football program is a member of the Big 12 Conference. Since the 2014 season, the Cougars have played their home games on campus at TDECU Stadium, which was built on the site formerly occupied by Robertson Stadium, where they played home games from 1941 to 1950 and from 1994 to 2012. Over the history of the program, the Cougars have won 11 conference championships and have had several players elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, including a Heisman Trophy winner.
The TCU Horned Frogs football team represents Texas Christian University (TCU) in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The Horned Frogs play their home games in Amon G. Carter Stadium, which is located on the TCU campus in Fort Worth. TCU began playing football in 1896 and has been a member of the Big 12 Conference since 2012.
The North Texas Mean Green football program is the intercollegiate team that represents the University of North Texas in the sport of American football. The Mean Green compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the American Athletic Conference. They are coached by Eric Morris, who was hired as the new head coach of the Mean Green on December 13, 2022. North Texas has produced 24 conference championship titles, with twelve postseason bowl appearances and four appearances in the former I-AA Playoffs. The Mean Green play their home games at the DATCU Stadium which has a seating capacity of 30,850.
The TCU Horned Frogs baseball team represents Texas Christian University in NCAA Division I baseball. The Frogs have competed in the Big 12 Conference since 2013 and previously competed in the Mountain West, Conference USA, Western Athletic Conference and Southwest Conference. Since February 2003, the Horned Frogs have played their home games at Lupton Stadium, located on the TCU campus in Fort Worth, Texas. The Frogs are led by head coach Kirk Saarloos.
The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As of the 2024 season, there are 10 conferences and 134 schools in FBS.
A superconference is an athletic conference noted for its large number of members, significant revenue generation, and substantial power that it wields in comparison to at least some of its counterpart conferences. The term is typically used in reference to college athletics in the United States. Because superconferences are emergent and not clearly defined, the term is often used in a hypothetical and speculative way, although one definition of American college superconferences posits that they must form from leagues that were Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conferences during the era of the now-defunct Bowl Championship Series, possess a significant multi-network television deal, and at least consider expanding to the "magic number" of 16 members. The term, though used infrequently before 2010, has historical roots in the proposed "Airplane Conference" of 1959, the Metro Conference's 1990 plan to expand to 16 members, the expansion of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) to 16 members in 1996, and the creation of 12-team, two-division conferences with football championship games by the Southeastern Conference (SEC), Big 12 Conference, and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in the 1990s and 2000s. Since major conference realignment began in 2010, the term has been used to describe the expanding ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC conferences.
The 2012–13 NCAA football bowl games were a series of college football bowl games. They concluded the 2012 NCAA Division I FBS football season, and included 35 team-competitive games and four all-star games. The games began on Saturday, December 15, 2012, and, aside from the all-star games, concluded with the 2013 BCS National Championship Game in Miami Gardens, Florida that was played on January 7, 2013.
The 2012 Western Athletic Conference football season was the 51st and final college football season for the Western Athletic Conference in the top level of NCAA football, known since 2006 as Division I FBS. Seven teams competed in the 2012 season: Idaho, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, San Jose State, Texas State, Utah State, and UTSA. Utah State went undefeated against its conference opponents to become, at the time, the final WAC conference champion. It was also chosen to represent the WAC in one of its two bowl berths; conference runner-up San Jose State was chosen to fill the conference's other bowl berth.
The 2010–13 Mountain West Conference realignment refers to the Mountain West Conference dealing with several proposed and actual conference expansion and reduction plans among various NCAA conferences and institutions from 2010 to 2013. Moves that involved the MW were part of a much larger NCAA conference realignment in which the MW was one of the more impacted conferences. During this period, four schools that had been members at the beginning of the realignment cycle announced plans to join other conferences, and six schools announced plans to join the conference. Two schools—one a pre-2010 member, and the other joining during the cycle—had announced their upcoming departure, but later decided to stay in the MW.
The 2010–2013 Big 12 Conference realignment refers to the Big 12 Conference dealing with several proposed and actual conference expansion and reduction plans among various NCAA conferences and institutions. Part of a larger NCAA conference realignment that began in the 2010–11 academic year and continued through 2013–14, the Big 12 was one of the more severely impacted conferences. In all, four schools left during this cycle and two joined.
The 2010–13 Western Athletic Conference realignment refers to the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) dealing with several proposed and actual conference expansion and reduction plans among various NCAA conferences and institutions from 2010 to 2013. Moves involving the WAC were a significant part of a much larger NCAA conference realignment in which it was one of the most impacted conferences. Of the nine members of the WAC in 2010, only two—the University of Idaho and New Mexico State University—remained in the conference beyond the 2012–13 school year, and Idaho departed for the Big Sky Conference after the 2013–14 school year. Five pre-2010 members are now all-sports members of the Mountain West Conference (MW), and another joined the MW for football only while placing most of its other sports in the Big West Conference. Another pre-2010 member joined Conference USA (C-USA) in July 2013.
The Big 12 Conference is a 16-school collegiate athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas. The Big 12 is a member of the Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the higher of two levels of NCAA Division I football competition. Member schools are located in Arizona, Colorado. Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.