SMQ: A brief history of conference affiliation in college football

The modern state of affairs in college football

Three decades ago being affiliated with a conference was optional. It is now a prerequisite to success for pretty much every team not named Notre Dame, and even that success has faded in recent decades.

Now, though, it isn’t just about membership within a conference. During the Bowl Championship Series period of the sport’s history, being a member of the right league became a critical factor for success.

Take a team like TCU. Just over two decades ago, they were bounced out of the dissolving Southwest Conference. Unlike fellow SWC members such as Baylor and Texas Tech, they failed to land a coveted spot in the merger with the Big Eight to form the Big 12.

Conference affiliation these days matters greatly.

So the Horned Frogs spent many years bouncing around from league to league. After the collapse of the SWC, TCU landed in a 16-team version of the WAC. When the league’s original members defected to form the Mountain West after 1998, TCU hung around for two more years before leaving to join Conference USA in 2001. By 2005, they had reunited with their former WAC counterparts in the MWC.

TCU made it to two BCS bowls as a member of the Mountain West. But the closest they managed to come to a title game berth was the 2009 season where they finished third in the final BCS standings behind Alabama and Texas. More than a decade and a half after being left out of the group, the Horned Frogs finally joined the Big 12 in 2012.

As a member of the Southwest Conference, TCU was among the powerhouses of the sport. Once that league collapsed, membership in the WAC and C-USA rendered some strong Horned Frogs squads as nothing more than afterthoughts. MWC membership made TCU look a little more impressive, but it was the leap to the Big 12 that really made TCU truly a national contender in up years.