Conference USA (CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose member institutions are primarily located within the Southern United States and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas.
The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The 14 member institutions of the Sun Belt are distributed across the Southern United States.
The Metropolitan Collegiate Athletic Conference, popularly known as the Metro Conference, was an NCAA Division I athletics conference, so named because its six charter members were all in urban metropolitan areas, though its later members did not follow that pattern. The conference was centered in the Upper South with some strength in the Deep South. The conference never sponsored football, although most of its members throughout its history had Division I-A football programs. In 1995, it merged with the Great Midwest Conference to form Conference USA. The merger was driven mainly by football, as several Metro Conference members had been successfully lured to larger conferences that sponsored the sport.
The South Carolina Gamecocks represent the University of South Carolina in the NCAA Division I.
The South Alabama Jaguars represent the University of South Alabama in NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics. USA competes in the Sun Belt Conference; it is the conference's only remaining charter member from its inception. USA's athletics teams are nicknamed the Jaguars. Popular sports are baseball and men's basketball. USA sponsors 8 men's sports teams and 9 women's sports teams. The board of trustees voted to start a football program that began play in the fall of 2009.
The South Carolina Gamecocks men's basketball team represents the University of South Carolina and competes in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The Gamecocks won Southern Conference titles in 1927, 1933, 1934, and 1945, and then they gained national attention under hall of fame coach Frank McGuire, posting a 205–65 record from 1967 to 1976, which included the 1970 Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) championship, the 1971 ACC Tournament title, and four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances from 1971 to 1974. The program also won the 1997 SEC championship, National Invitation Tournament (NIT) titles in 2005 and 2006, and a share of the 2009 SEC East division title. Most recently, the Gamecocks won the 2017 NCAA East Regional Championship, reaching the Final Four for the first time in school history. Lamont Paris is the current head coach, and the team plays at the 18,000-seat Colonial Life Arena.
The South Carolina Gamecocks men's soccer team represents the University of South Carolina and, as of the 2022 college soccer season, competes in the Sun Belt Conference. The team is coached by Tony Annan, who succeeded Mark Berson as head coach after the 2020 season. Berson had been the Gamecocks' only head coach since the program's inception in 1978 and had participated in 20 NCAA Tournaments, reaching the Quarterfinals on four occasions. Since 1981, South Carolina has played its home games at Stone Stadium, which is affectionately called "The Graveyard" by South Carolina fans due to an adjoining cemetery.
The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers are the athletic teams that represent Coastal Carolina University. They participate in Division I of the NCAA as a member of the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) in most sports, having joined that conference as a full but non-football member on July 1, 2016. At that time, the football team began a transition from the second-level Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to the top-level Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The team played the 2016 season as an FCS independent, joined SBC football for the 2017 season, and became full FBS members for 2018 and beyond. A Chanticleer is a proud and fierce rooster. Before joining the SBC, the Chanticleers had been members of the Big South Conference since that league's formation in 1983. Coastal fields varsity teams in 19 sports, 8 for men and 11 for women. The university regularly competed for the Sasser Cup, the Big South's trophy for the university with the best sports program among the member institutions, winning the trophy nine times, tied with rival Liberty University.
A variety of sports are popular in the US state of South Carolina.
The Kentucky Wildcats men's soccer team is an intercollegiate varsity sports team of the University of Kentucky (UK).
The UCF Knights men's soccer team represents the University of Central Florida in National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division I. As of the next NCAA men's soccer season in 2023, the Knights compete in the Sun Belt Conference (SBC). This coincides with UCF's July 2023 move from the American Athletic Conference, a league in which it had been a member since 2013, to the Big 12 Conference, which sponsors soccer only for women. They play their home games on UCF's main campus in Orlando, Florida at the UCF Soccer and Track Stadium. The Knights are currently led by head coach Scott Calabrese.
The 2017 Arkansas Razorbacks football team represented the University of Arkansas in the 2017 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Razorbacks played their home games at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with one home game at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. Arkansas played as a member of the Western Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The team was captained by quarterback Austin Allen, defensive backs Santos Ramirez and Kevin Richardson II, and offensive lineman Frank Ragnow. The Razorbacks were led by fifth-year head coach Bret Bielema. Bielema was fired after the final game of the season.
The 2018 South Carolina Gamecocks football team represented the University of South Carolina in the 2018 NCAA Division I FBS football season. This season marked the Gamecocks 125th overall season, 27th as a member of the SEC, and 3rd under head coach Will Muschamp. The Gamecocks played their home games at Williams–Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina and compiled an overall record of 7–6, and 4–4 in SEC play.
The SEC Derby is the set of matches between the University of Kentucky Wildcats and University of South Carolina Gamecocks men's soccer teams. A conference matchup since 2005, since the 2022 season, it has been a conference matchup in the Sun Belt Conference. Both programs had been single-sport members of Conference USA (C-USA) from 2005 through the 2021 season. Both teams are the only colleges in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) which sponsor men's soccer, which the conference does not sponsor as an indirect consequence of Title IX restrictions. South Carolina had started its program in 1978 while an independent, and UK started its program in 1991. From 1991 to 2004, UK had been a Mid-American Conference member for men's soccer only. Despite having joined the Metro Conference in 1983, South Carolina continued to play men's soccer as an independent, not joining for that sport until 1993, two years after the rest of its athletic program had joined the SEC. The Gamecocks also played in the Metro in that league's final men's soccer season of 1994. The following year, C-USA was created with the merger of the Metro with the Great Midwest Conference, a league that had been formed in 1991 by a group of schools that included three charter Metro members. South Carolina was not invited to remain as a men's soccer member after the merger.
The 2019 South Carolina Gamecocks football team represented the University of South Carolina in the 2019 NCAA Division I FBS football season. This season marked the Gamecocks 126th overall season, 28th as a member of the SEC East Division. The Gamecocks played their home games at Williams–Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina, and were led by fourth-year head coach Will Muschamp.
The 2020 South Carolina Gamecocks football team represented the University of South Carolina in the 2020 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The season marked the Gamecocks' 127th overall season, and 29th as a member of the SEC East Division. The Gamecocks played their home games at Williams–Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina, and were led by head coach Will Muschamp until his firing on November 15. Mike Bobo, the team's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, was named interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
The 2020 Sun Belt Conference men's soccer tournament was the 26th edition of the Sun Belt Conference Men's Soccer Tournament. The tournament decided the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) champion. The tournament began on November 11 and concluded on November 15, 2020.
The 2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 152nd season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision. The regular season began on August 28, 2021, and ended on December 11, 2021. The postseason began on December 17, with the main games ending on January 10, 2022, with the College Football Playoff National Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, and the all-star portion of the post-season concluding with the inaugural HBCU Legacy Bowl on February 19, 2022. It was the eighth season of the College Football Playoff (CFP) system. It was the first time since 2016 that no major team finished the season undefeated as the Cincinnati Bearcats, the season's last undefeated team, were defeated in the 2021 Cotton Bowl Classic. The season's Heisman Trophy winner was Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young.
The 2021 NCAA Division I men's soccer season was the 63rd season of NCAA championship men's college soccer. After the 2020 NCAA Division I men's soccer season was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 season partially returned to normal. However, despite the development of several vaccines, the pandemic was still ongoing, which might have led to various local or regional disruptions. Also, many conferences did not fully return to their pre-COVID state, with several having changed postseason tournament formats.
The 2021 Troy Trojans football team represented Troy University in the 2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Trojans played their home games at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Troy, Alabama, and competed in the East Division of the Sun Belt Conference.
