One of the most popular college sports is college football. Teams from all over the United States compete for national championships, conference titles and lots of revenue from fans and television contracts. There are 119 Division I football teams as of January 2011, with 11 conferences and independent teams spread throughout the land.
Major Conferences
Division I college football teams compete in conferences in order to be crowned champions. The major six conference champions earn automatic bids to the season-ending Bowl Championship Series (BCS), which pits schools from different conferences against each other in bowl games for large payouts, bragging rights and national rankings. As of January 2011, the six power conferences are the Big Ten, Big East, Southeastern Conference (SEC), Pac-10, Big 12 and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). This is where the powers of college football are concentrated, though there are one or two exceptions every year.
Minor Conferences and Independents
Colleges and universities that do not compete in the BCS conferences still have leagues that are set up for competition and post-season success. These schools are typically smaller in enrollment and profile, but there are some exceptions. The minor conferences in the NCAA Division I ranks are the Mid-American Conference, Mountain West Conference, Conference USA, Sun Belt Conference and the Western Athletic Conference. There are also four Division I teams -- Army, Navy, Notre Dame and BYU (starting in 2011) -- that compete as independents without any conference affiliation.
Major Teams
The power conferences are filled with some of the storied college football powers in Division I. Six straight national champions from 2007 to 2011 have come from the Southeastern Conference, with Auburn defeating Oregon (from the Pac-10) in the 2011 game. The SEC also includes perennial powers like Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas. The Big Ten is a traditional conference with national powers like Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Wisconsin. The ACC includes Florida State, Virginia Tech and the University of Miami.
Smaller Schools
A team that competes in a non-automatic BCS qualifier conference can be invited to a BCS bowl game as well. Schools like Texas Christian University (TCU) from the Mountain West Conference and Boise State from the Western Athletic Conference have made tremendous strides from 2000 to 2010 and have played in these major bowl games. TCU's increasing national profile earned them an invitation to join the Big East in 2012. Boise State will begin play in the Mountain West Conference in 2011.
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