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77-774: The Colonels athletic program competes in NCAA Division I as a member of the ASUN Conference . The football team plays in the second level of Division I football, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Before joining the ASUN in July 2021, EKU had spent the previous 73 years as a charter member of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC). The EKU mascot is The Colonel, and the school colors are maroon and white. While

154-459: A "counter" as "an individual who is receiving institutional financial aid that is countable against the aid limitations in a sport." The number of scholarships that Division I members may award in each sport is listed below. In this table, scholarship numbers for head-count sports are indicated without a decimal point ; for equivalency sports, they are listed with a decimal point, with a trailing zero if required. The NCAA also has rules specifying

231-593: A BCS conference for the second consecutive year, while also garnering multiple NCAA bids for the ninth straight year and 12th of 14. The MVC has not sponsored football since 1985, when it was a hybrid I-A/I-AA (now FBS and FCS, respectively) conference. However, five members have football programs in the Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC) (known as the Gateway from 1985 to 2008) of Division I FCS, and two others compete in another FCS conference,

308-674: A conference and show the NCAA it has the financial ability to support a D-I program. Division I athletic programs generated $ 8.7 billion in revenue in the 2009–10 academic year. Men's teams provided 55%, women's teams 15%, and 30% was not categorized by sex or sport. Football and men's basketball are usually a university's only profitable sports, and are called "revenue sports". From 2008 to 2012, 205 varsity teams were dropped in NCAA Division I – 72 for women and 133 for men, with men's tennis, gymnastics and wrestling hit particularly hard. In

385-756: A decimal point. Numbers for equivalency sports are indicated with a decimal point, with a trailing zero if needed. Notes: The following table lists the men's individual D-I sports with at least 1,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes. D-I college wrestling has lost almost half of its programs since 1982. The following table lists the women's individual D-I sports with at least 1,000 participating athletes. Sports are ranked by number of athletes. NCAA Division I schools have broadcasting contracts that showcase their more popular sports — typically football and men's basketball — on network television and in basic cable channels. These contracts can be quite lucrative, particularly for D-I schools from

462-422: A later vote of the league's school presidents and athletic directors and has since increased to 45. The Patriot League only began awarding football scholarships in the 2013 season, with the first scholarships awarded only to incoming freshmen. Before the conference began its transition to scholarship football, athletes receiving scholarships in other sports were ineligible to play football for member schools. Since

539-626: A near-complete membership turnover that saw the conference stripped of all but two of its football-sponsoring members. The two remaining football-sponsoring schools, Idaho and New Mexico State , played the 2013 season as FBS independents before becoming football-only members of the Sun Belt Conference in 2014. Both left Sun Belt football in 2018, with Idaho downgrading to FCS status and adding football to its all-sports Big Sky Conference membership and New Mexico State becoming an FBS independent. The WAC added two more football-sponsoring schools with

616-638: A presence in the city was seen as a major priority. On January 22, 2022, Matt Norlander of CBSSports.com reported that UIC's July entry to the MVC was "a done deal", with his sources indicating that the MVC wanted to announce the move before the Conference Commissioners Association held its annual meeting in Naples, Florida in early February. UIC's entry was officially announced on January 26. On May 10, 2024, Missouri State announced they would leave

693-410: A specific bowl game bid for which the conference has a tie-in. Some conferences have numbers in their names but this often has no relation to the number of member institutions in the conference. The Big Ten Conference did not formally adopt the "Big Ten" name until 1987, but unofficially used that name when it had 10 members from 1917 to 1946, and again from 1949 forward. However, it has continued to use

770-820: A substantial number of players in Championship Subdivision programs are on full scholarships. A former difference was that FCS schools had a limit of 30 players that could be provided with financial aid in a given season, while FBS schools were limited to 25 such additions per season. These limits were suspended in 2020 before being completely eliminated for both subdivisions in 2023. Finally, FCS schools are limited to 95 individuals participating in preseason practices, as opposed to 105 at FBS schools (the three service academies that play FBS football are exempt from preseason practice player limits by NCAA rule). A few Championship Subdivision conferences are composed of schools that offer no athletic scholarships at all, most notably

847-511: A title game, the NCAA Division I Football Championship . As of the 2018 season, the tournament begins with 24 teams; 10 conference champions that received automatic bids, and 14 teams selected at-large by a selection committee. The postseason tournament traditionally begins on Thanksgiving weekend in late November. When I-AA was formed 46 years ago in 1978, the playoffs included just four teams for its first three seasons, doubling to eight teams for one season in 1981. From 1982 to 1985, there

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924-521: Is considered an FBS member for scheduling purposes. The newest full FBS members are Jacksonville State , James Madison , and Sam Houston , which completed the transition from FCS prior to the 2024 season . The next school to become a full FBS member is Kennesaw State , which joined Conference USA (CUSA) in 2024 and will become a full FBS member a year later. Delaware and Missouri State are set to join CUSA in 2025 and become full FBS members in 2026. Since

1001-602: Is currently coached by Walt Wells, former assistant head coach at Eastern and most recently a quality control assistant at the University of Kentucky . In September 2013, the Lexington Herald-Leader , the daily newspaper of nearby Lexington , reported that EKU was considering moving its program to the top-level Football Bowl Subdivision . However, under NCAA rules, such a move would require that EKU first receive an all-sports invitation from an existing FBS conference. In

1078-636: Is currently promoted as Hoops in the Heartland. NB: Missouri State was known as Southwest Missouri State until August 2005. School – Number – NCAA championships NCAA Championships as of March 2013 (*-Titles won by schools in Division II/College Division prior to their moving to Division I in the late 1960s or early 1970s) Football poll, Helms and AIAW titles are not included in the NCAA Championship count. Sources: The Valley

1155-658: Is the Atlantic Coast Conference . For the first 60 years after its 1953 founding, the ACC consisted entirely of schools in Atlantic Coast states. However, in 2013 , the conference added three new schools, two of which ( Pittsburgh and, for non-football sports, Indiana-based Notre Dame ) were in states without an Atlantic shoreline. The following year saw the ACC add another non-Atlantic school in Louisville . Then, in 2023 ,

1232-630: Is the fourth-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the Midwest though with substantial extension into the South in states like Kentucky , Tennessee , and Arkansas . The MVC was established in 1907 (its charter member schools: the University of Kansas , University of Missouri , University of Nebraska , and Washington University in St. Louis ) as

1309-438: Is well known for having some of the most dedicated fanbases in all of college basketball, with several members regularly selling out their large arenas on a nightly basis throughout the year. Former member (Creighton) had the sixth highest attendance for Division I in 2012–13 while Bradley, Illinois State, Missouri State, and Indiana State were all among the NCAA's top 100 teams in home attendance. In 2010–11, 2011–12, and 2012–13,

1386-407: The 2016 season , all FBS conferences have been allowed to conduct a championship game that does not count against the limit of 12 regular-season contests. Under the current rules, most recently changed in advance of the 2022 season, conferences have complete freedom to determine the participants in their championship games. From 2016 to 2021, FBS rules allowed such a game to be held either (1) between

1463-457: The 2022 season , with all participating in one of 14 conferences. The "I-AA" designation was dropped by the NCAA in 2006, although it is still informally and commonly used. FCS teams are limited to 63 players on scholarship (compared to 85 for FBS teams) and usually play an 11-game schedule (compared to 12 games for FBS teams). The FCS determines its national champion through an NCAA-sanctioned single-elimination bracket tournament , culminating in

1540-517: The Big 12 Conference in 1996. The smaller MVIAA schools (Drake, Grinnell and Washington University in St. Louis), plus Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University–Stillwater , which joined the Big Eight in 1957), were joined by Creighton to form the MVC, which retained the old MVIAA's administrative staff. To this day, it has never been definitively established which conference was the original and which

1617-656: The Football Bowl Subdivision (130 schools in 2017), between 50 and 60 percent of football and men's basketball programs generated positive revenues (above program expenses). However, in the Football Championship Subdivision (124 schools in 2017), only four percent of football and five percent of men's basketball programs generated positive revenues. In 2012, 2% of athletic budgets were spent on equipment, uniforms and supplies for male athletes at NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision school, with

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1694-493: The Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and those institutions that do not have any football program. FBS teams have more players receiving athletic scholarships than FCS teams and formerly (until 2024) had minimum game-attendance requirements. The FBS is named for its series of postseason bowl games , with various polls ranking teams after the conclusion of these games, while

1771-622: The Ivy League and the Pioneer Football League (PFL), a football-only conference. The Ivy League allows no athletic scholarships at all, while the PFL consists of schools that offer scholarships in other sports but choose not to take on the expense of a scholarship football program. The Northeast Conference also sponsored non-scholarship football, but began offering a maximum of 30 full scholarship equivalents in 2006, which grew to 40 in 2011 after

1848-699: The Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association or MVIAA , 12 years after the Big Ten Conference , the only Division I conference that is older. It is the fourth-oldest college athletic conference in the United States, after the Big Ten Conference and the NCAA Division III 's Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) and Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC). The MVIAA split in 1928, with most of

1925-687: The Pioneer Football League . The Missouri Valley Conference shares its name with the MVFC, and all three conferences operate from the same headquarters complex in St. Louis ; however, the three are separate administratively. After weeks of speculation, Wichita State announced on April 7, 2017, that it would leave the conference to join the American Athletic Conference starting with the 2017–18 season. The conference announced it extended an invitation to Valparaiso University on May 9, 2017; and on May 25,

2002-533: The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and Lady Toppers served as the primary rival to EKU, especially in football. Their matchups, known as the "Battle of the Bluegrass," date back to 1914, with Western leading the overall series 34–47–3. With WKU's recent move up to the Football Bowl Subdivision , any future games between the two teams are uncertain. Outside of Western, EKU has maintained rivalries with

2079-426: The access bowls . FBS schools are limited to a total of 85 football players receiving financial assistance. For competitive reasons, a student receiving partial scholarship counts fully against the total of 85. Nearly all FBS schools that are not on NCAA probation give 85 full scholarships. As of the current 2024 college football season, there are 133 full members of Division I FBS, plus one transitional school that

2156-400: The 2006 season, it was possible for the number of Bowl Subdivision schools to drop in the future if those schools were not able to pull in enough fans into the games. Additionally, 14 FCS schools had enough attendance to be moved up in 2012. Under current NCAA rules, these schools must have an invitation from an FBS conference in order to move to FBS. The difference in the postseasons in each of

2233-432: The 2014–15 fiscal year, the conferences that earned the most revenues (and that distributed the most revenues to each of their member schools) were: The NCAA has limits on the total financial aid each Division I member may award in each sport that the school sponsors. It divides sports that are sponsored into two types for purposes of scholarship limitations: The term "counter" is also key to this concept. The NCAA defines

2310-567: The 2020 arrival of Tarleton and Utah Tech (then Dixie State) from Division II; both schools planned to be FCS independents for the foreseeable future. The WAC would reinstate football at the FCS level in 2021, coinciding with the arrival of four new members with FCS football; for its first season, it entered into a formal partnership with the ASUN Conference to give it enough playoff-eligible members to receive an automatic playoff berth. This partnership

2387-624: The Division I Men's Basketball Championship and ticket sales for all championships. That money is distributed in more than a dozen ways — almost all of which directly support NCAA schools, conferences and nearly half a million student-athletes. About 60% of the NCAA's annual revenue — around $ 600 million — is annually distributed directly to Division I member schools and conferences, while more than $ 150 million funds Division I championships" (NCAA 2021). Finances Under NCAA regulations, all Division I conferences defined as "multisport conferences" must meet

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2464-619: The FCS from a lower division (or from the NAIA ) are also ineligible for the playoffs. Division I FCS schools are currently restricted to giving financial assistance amounting to 63 full scholarships. As FCS football is an "equivalency" sport (as opposed to the "head-count" status of FBS football), Championship Subdivision schools may divide their allotment into partial scholarships. However, FCS schools may only have 85 players receiving any sort of athletic financial aid for football—the same numeric limit as FBS schools. Because of competitive forces, however,

2541-607: The FCS national champion is determined by a multi-team bracket tournament. For the 2020–21 school year, Division I contained 357 of the NCAA's 1,066 member institutions, with 130 in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), 127 in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and 100 non-football schools, with six additional schools in the transition from Division II to Division I. There was a moratorium on any additional movement up to D-I until 2012, after which any school that wants to move to D-I must be accepted for membership by

2618-609: The I-AA playoffs was Jackson State in 1997 ; the SWAC never achieved success in the tournament, going winless in 19 games in twenty years (1978–97). It had greater success outside the conference while in Division II and the preceding College Division. From 2006 through 2009, the Pioneer Football League and Northeast Conference champions played in the Gridiron Classic . If a league champion

2695-421: The MVC announced that Valparaiso would officially join the following July 1. The most recent changes to the core MVC membership were announced during the 2021–22 school year. On September 28, 2021, the MVC and Belmont University jointly announced that the school would leave the Ohio Valley Conference for the MVC effective July 1, 2022. Then, on November 16, Loyola University Chicago announced it would leave

2772-457: The MVC at the same time, joining the Atlantic 10 Conference . On the same day Loyola announced its departure, CBS Sports reported that the MVC was actively pursuing further expansion, having entered into talks with the University of Missouri–Kansas City (known athletically as Kansas City), Murray State University , and the University of Texas at Arlington (UT Arlington). The report indicated that

2849-854: The MVC for the 2000 fall season (2000–01 school year), and the Beacons, then known as the Crusaders, played women's soccer in the MVC from the 1996 to 1998 fall seasons (1996–97 to 1998–99 school years). Full members  Full members (non-football)  Assoc. members (football only)  Assoc. member (other sports)  Other Conference  Other Conference  The Missouri Valley Conference sponsors championship competition in eight men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports. Ball State (men), Little Rock (women), and Miami (OH) (men) are affiliates in swimming and diving, and Bowling Green , Northern Illinois , and Western Michigan are affiliates in men's soccer. The most recent change to

2926-508: The MVC to transition to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and join Conference USA , effective for the 2025–26 season. ( Christian ) ( UMC ) ( Lutheran ) Note: In the case of spring sports, the year of joining is the calendar year before the start of competition. This list does not include current full members Belmont and Valparaiso. As noted above, the Bruins played men's soccer in

3003-543: The Midwest (Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette, Notre Dame), Upper South (Louisville, Memphis) and Southwest (Houston, SMU). The non-football conference that assumed the Big East name when the original Big East split in 2013 is another example of this phenomenon, as half of its 10 inaugural schools (Butler, Creighton, DePaul, Marquette, Xavier) are traditionally regarded as being Midwestern. An even more extrema example of this phenomenon

3080-556: The Missouri Valley Conference which are played by Valley schools: Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the Missouri Valley Conference which are played by Valley schools: The Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament is often referred to as Arch Madness, in reference to the Gateway Arch at the tournament's present location of St. Louis , Missouri, and a play on " March Madness ". The women's tournament

3157-514: The Valley maintained its position as the eighth ranked conference in average attendance. The Valley made history in March 2007 with record attendance for four days at St. Louis' Scottrade Center as 85,074 fans turned out to watch the five sessions of the tournament. The two sellout crowds of 22,612 for the semifinals and final of the 2007 State Farm Tournament set an all-time attendance record for basketball at

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3234-593: The addition of Arizona and Arizona State, and "Pac-12" (instead of "Pacific-12") in 2011 when Colorado and Utah joined . Conferences also tend to ignore their regional names when adding new schools. For example, the Pac-8/10/12 retained its "Pacific" moniker even though its four most recent additions (Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah) are located in the inland West, and the original Big East kept its name even after adding schools (either in all sports or for football only) located in areas traditionally considered to be in

3311-593: The arena and also gave The Valley the distinction of having the largest championship crowd for any of the 30 NCAA conference tournaments in 2007. Since at least 1993, the MVC has produced an in-house package of sports as part of the MVC Network . Since 1996, these telecasts have been produced, in part, by Bally Sports Midwest (formerly Fox Sports Midwest). These games are distributed to regional sports networks including Bally Sports Midwest, Bally Sports Kansas City , Bally Sports Indiana and NBC Sports Chicago . Until

3388-540: The biggest conferences. For example, the Big Ten conference in 2016 entered into contracts with Fox and ESPN that pay the conference $ 2.64 billion over six years. The NCAA also holds certain TV contracts. For example, the NCAA's contract to show the men's basketball championship tournament (widely known as March Madness) is currently under a 14-year deal with CBS and Turner that runs from 2010 to 2024 and pays $ 11 billion. For

3465-553: The champions of its East and West divisions. Also, three of its member schools traditionally do not finish their regular seasons until Thanksgiving weekend. Grambling State and Southern play each other in the Bayou Classic , and Alabama State plays Tuskegee (of Division II ) in the Turkey Day Classic . SWAC teams are eligible to accept at-large bids if their schedule is not in conflict. The last SWAC team to participate in

3542-556: The completion of the transition with the 2016 season, member schools have been allowed up to 60 full scholarship equivalents. Several Bowl Subdivision and Championship Subdivision conferences have member institutions that do not compete in football. Such schools are sometimes unofficially referred to as I-AAA. The following non-football conferences have full members that sponsor football: The following Division I conferences do not sponsor football . These conferences still compete in Division I for all sports that they sponsor. Of these,

3619-646: The conference announced it would expand in 2024 to the Pacific coast with San Francisco Bay Area rivals California and Stanford , and also add SMU from Dallas–Fort Worth . ** – "Big Four" or "Power Four" conferences that had guaranteed berths in the "access bowls" associated with the College Football Playoff before its 2024 expansion to 12 teams *** – "Group of Five" conferences The Division I Football Championship Subdivision ( FCS ), formerly known as Division I-AA , consists of 130 teams as of

3696-592: The end, no such move was made. As noted previously, EKU football now plays in the UAC. The current head coach of the Colonels is A. W. Hamilton . The Colonels have appeared in the NCAA tournament seven times. The Colonels play their home basketball games at Alumni Coliseum , located on EKU's campus. The men's golf team has won 12 Ohio Valley Conference championships: 1975, 1980, 1982–86, 1992, 1997, 2006, 2008, 2015. Historically,

3773-567: The eponymous post-season championship tournament. The Ivy League was reclassified to I-AA (FCS) following the 1981 season , and plays a strict ten-game schedule. Although it qualifies for an automatic bid, the Ivy League has not played any postseason games at all since becoming a conference, citing academic concerns. The Ivy League member to play in a bowl game was Columbia in the 1934 Rose Bowl . The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) has its own championship game in mid-December between

3850-471: The existence of an official NCAA championship in the latter subdivision. Before the 2023 season, the NCAA required that FBS schools average at least 15,000 attendance, allowing schools to report either total tickets sold or the number of persons in attendance at the games. The requirement was a minimum average of 15,000 people in attendance every other year. These numbers are posted to the NCAA statistics website for football each year. With new rules starting in

3927-594: The following criteria: FBS conferences must meet a more stringent set of requirements for NCAA recognition than other conferences: † "Power Four" conferences that had guaranteed berths in the New Year's Six , the bowl games associated with the College Football Playoff , before the playoff's 2024 expansion to 12 teams ‡ "Group of Five" conferences Sports are ranked according to total possible scholarships (number of teams x number of scholarships per team). Scholarship numbers for head-count sports are indicated without

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4004-436: The football field, having won 20 OVC titles and two Division I-AA National Championships in 1979 and 1982. Much of the success came during the long tenure of head coach Roy Kidd from 1964 to 2002. In 1990, Eastern honored Kidd by naming the school's football stadium Roy Kidd Stadium . With their win over Southeast Missouri State University in 2008, Eastern's football team secured their 31st consecutive winning season. The team

4081-703: The highest level of intercollegiate competition. This level was previously called the University Division of the NCAA, in contrast to the lower-level College Division; these terms were replaced with numeric divisions in 1973. The University Division was renamed Division I, while the College Division was split in two; the College Division members that offered scholarships or wanted to compete against those who did became Division II, while those who did not want to offer scholarships became Division III. For college football only, D-I schools are further divided into

4158-576: The larger schools (the University of Kansas , University of Missouri , University of Nebraska , Iowa Agricultural College (now Iowa State University ), Kansas State University , and University of Oklahoma ) forming a conference that retained the MVIAA name; this conference evolved into the Big Eight Conference . The Big Eight merged with four Texas schools of the Southwest Conference to form

4235-632: The latter of which will move football to the Patriot League in 2025). The MAAC stopped sponsoring football in 2007, after most of its members gradually stopped fielding teams. Among current MAAC members that were in the conference before 2007, only Marist , which plays in the Pioneer Football League, still sponsors football. From 2013 to 2021, the Western Athletic Conference was a non-football league, having dropped football after

4312-413: The latter two were considered the strongest candidates, but that all three were likely to receive invitations in the coming months. On January 7, 2022, the MVC announced that Murray State would officially join the conference on July 1 of that year. UT Arlington would soon remove itself from the list of candidates by announcing a 2022 move to the Western Athletic Conference . Shortly before Murray State

4389-501: The median spending per-school at $ 742,000. In 2014, the NCAA and the student athletes debated whether student athletes should be paid. In April, the NCAA approved students-athletes getting free unlimited meals and snacks. The NCAA stated "The adoption of the meals legislation finished a conversation that began in the Awards, Benefits, Expenses and Financial Aid Cabinet. Members have worked to find appropriate ways to ensure student-athletes get

4466-526: The membership totals to 14 in 2023 and 16 effective in 2024. On the other hand, the Pac-12 Conference used names (official or unofficial) that have reflected the number of members from the establishment of its current charter in 1959 until its collapse in 2024 . The conference unofficially used "Big Five" (1959–62), "Big Six" (1962–64), and "Pacific-8" (1964–68) before officially adopting the "Pacific-8" name. The name duly changed to "Pacific-10" in 1978 with

4543-410: The name even after it expanded to 11 members with the addition of Penn State in 1990, 12 with the addition of Nebraska in 2011 , and 14 with the arrival of Maryland and Rutgers in 2014 . The Big 12 Conference was established in 1996 with 12 members, but continues to use that name even after a number of departures and a few replacements left the conference with 10 members, and later expansions brought

4620-457: The nutrition they need without jeopardizing Pell Grants or other federal aid received by the neediest student-athletes. With their vote, members of the council said they believe loosening NCAA rules on what and when food can be provided from athletics departments is the best way to address the issue." According to the finance section of the NCAA page, "The NCAA receives most of its annual revenue from two sources: television and marketing rights for

4697-848: The only remaining in-state OVC member, Morehead State , and Murray State , which left the OVC in 2022 for the Missouri Valley Conference . NCAA Division I NCAA Division I ( D-I ) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States , which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic powers, with large budgets, more elaborate facilities and more athletic scholarships than Division II and Division III as well as many smaller schools committed to

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4774-532: The roster of sports came in the 2024–25 school year, when the MVC reinstated men's swimming & diving after a 22-year absence. The inaugural season of the relaunched league features 7 sponsoring members, with full members Evansville, UIC, Missouri State, Southern Illinois, and Valparaiso joined by new affiliates Ball State and Miami (OH) — previously, all these programs were housed in the Mid-American Conference . Men's varsity sports not sponsored by

4851-477: The same season. The Pioneer Football League earned an automatic bid beginning in 2013. The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) began abstaining from the playoffs with the 2015 season. Like the SWAC, its members are eligible for at-large bids, and the two conferences have faced off in the Celebration Bowl as an alternative postseason game since the 2015 season. Schools in a transition period after joining

4928-700: The school's official team nickname was the "Maroons" from the start of intercollegiate competition in 1909–10 until 1963, when then-president Robert Martin changed the nickname to the "Colonels". A member of the ASUN Conference since July 2021, Eastern Kentucky University sponsors teams in eight men's and nine women's NCAA sanctioned sports. EKU competes in 18 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, tennis and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, beach volleyball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field and volleyball. Eastern has traditionally been quite successful on

5005-447: The sport in which multi-sport athletes are to be counted, with the basic rules being: Subdivisions in Division I exist only in football . In all other sports, all Division I conferences are equivalent. The subdivisions were recently given names to reflect the differing levels of football play in them. As of the 2023 season, the main distinctions between Bowl Subdivision and Championship Subdivision schools are scholarship policies and

5082-570: The subdivisions grant the FCS an advantage to have the best record in college football history, 17–0, while the FBS only allows a 15–0 record. FBS attendance requirements were abolished early in the 2023 season, effective immediately. In their place, Division I added new requirements for athletic funding. Effective in 2027–28, FBS schools must fund the equivalent of at least 210 full scholarships across all of their NCAA sports; spend at least $ 6 million annually on athletic scholarships; and provide at least 90% of

5159-417: The total number of allowed scholarship equivalents across 16 sports, including football. Division I Football Bowl Subdivision ( FBS ), formerly known as Division I-A , is the top level of college football . Schools in Division I FBS compete in post-season bowl games , with the champions of five conferences, along with the highest-ranked champion of the other five conferences, receiving automatic bids to

5236-524: The two that most recently sponsored football were the Atlantic 10 and MAAC. The A-10 football league dissolved in 2006 with its members going to CAA Football, the technically separate football league operated by the all-sports Coastal Athletic Association. In addition, four A-10 schools ( Dayton , Fordham , Duquesne , and Massachusetts ) play football in a conference other CAA Football, which still includes two full-time A-10 members ( Rhode Island and Richmond ,

5313-400: The winners of each of two divisions, with each team having played a full round-robin schedule within its division, or (2) between the conference's top two teams after a full round-robin conference schedule. Before 2016, "exempt" championship games could only be held between the divisional winners of conferences that had at least 12 football teams and split into divisions. The prize is normally

5390-480: The women's teams were formerly known as the Lady Colonels, the school now emphasizes that all teams are now Colonels. The ASUN did not officially sponsor football until the 2022 season. In 2021, EKU football competed as a de facto associate member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), competing in a football partnership between the two leagues officially branded as the "ASUN–WAC Challenge". The ASUN–WAC alliance

5467-696: Was a 12-team tournament; this expanded to 16 teams in 1986. The playoffs expanded to 20 teams starting in 2010, then grew to 24 teams in 2013. Since the 2010 season, the title game is held in early January at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas . From 1997 through 2009, the title game was played in December in Chattanooga, Tennessee , preceded by five seasons in Huntington, West Virginia . The Football Championship Subdivision includes several conferences which do not participate in

5544-635: Was invited to the national championship playoff as an at-large bid (something the Pioneer league, at least, never received), the second-place team would play in the Gridiron Classic. That game was scrapped after the 2009 season when its four-year contract ran out; this coincided with the NCAA's announcement that the Northeast Conference would get an automatic bid to the tournament starting in 2010. The Big South Conference also received an automatic bid in

5621-475: Was likely. Brown noted that with the MVC losing Loyola, league officials believed that maintaining a presence in the city was a top priority, stating (emphasis in original): Throughout this process, multiple administrators at MVC institutions stressed the importance of getting access to new urban areas to recruit more students , not just athletes. With so many schools depending heavily on Chicago, and especially Chicago's suburbs, for enrollment, continuing to have

5698-525: Was officially announced as an incoming MVC member, Matt Brown of the Extra Points college sports blog reported that the MVC was also in membership discussions with the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), then a member of the Horizon League . On the same weekend that Murray State's arrival was officially announced, MVC officials made a site visit to UIC. Brown's sources indicated that an invitation to UIC

5775-546: Was renewed for the 2022 season, and the two conferences fully merged their football leagues after that season, announcing the football league's new branding of United Athletic Conference in April 2023. NCAA EKU's intercollegiate athletics teams are nicknamed the Colonels. Maroon has been the official color of Eastern athletics since the school was begun as the Eastern Kentucky State Normal School in 1906, and

5852-472: Was renewed for the 2022 season, with five ASUN and three WAC schools participating, though each conference will play its own schedule. After the 2022 season, the ASUN and WAC announced a full football merger for 2023 and beyond under the banner of the United Athletic Conference . Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply " The Valley ")

5929-445: Was the spinoff, though the Big Eight would go on to become the more prestigious of the two. During the Big Eight's run, both conferences claimed 1907 as their founding date, and the same history through 1927. MVC teams held a 74–27 non-conference record during the 2006–07 college basketball season , including a record of 44–1 at home. The Valley finished in the top six of the RPI and ahead of

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