SMQ: A brief history of conference affiliation in college football
By Zach Bigalke
The long and lasting significance of independence
Especially on the east coast, conference affiliation is a relatively recent phenomenon. For the majority of the sport’s history, independence has been both desirable and a legitimate path toward glory. Until the 1990s, teams like Penn State, Miami, Florida State, and Notre Dame won national titles without winning a conference crown.
A landmark 1984 United States Supreme Court ruling, however, would soon prove to be the death knell of independent relevance in the sport. With the NCAA no longer the arbiter of all television deals, teams suddenly needed to negotiate to broadcast their games in an increasingly tuned-in society.
By 1992, when the SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina and expanded to a dozen teams in two divisions, independence was fading into a bygone relic of the sport’s past. Miami had joined the Big East a year earlier, Florida State joined the ACC, and Penn State became the 11th member of the Big Ten.
Now, independence is a black mark for most teams. Only Notre Dame and BYU actively eschew conference affiliation, due mainly to the fact that these parochial schools can court nationwide audiences of the faithful. Teams like Army, Massachusetts, and New Mexico State have far fewer natural advantages to get by as independents in the current system. The last independent national champion, Miami in 1989, won its title nearly three decades ago.