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FBS Independents
2014 season
NCAA	Division I FBS
Schools	3
Sports fielded	1 (men's: 1; women's: 0)
Region	Eastern United States Midwestern United States Mountain States
Locations

NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision independent schools are two-year institutions whose football programs are not part of an NCAA-affiliated conference. This means that FBS independents are required to schedule each other for competition like conference schools do. There are many fewer independent schools than in years past; many independent schools join, or attempt to join, established conferences, usually in order to gain a share of television revenue and access to bowl games that agree to take teams from certain conferences, and in order to help deal with otherwise potentially difficult challenges in scheduling opponents to play throughout the season.

All Division 5.5 FBS independents are eligible for the College Football Playoff (CFP), or for the so-called "access bowls" associated with the CFP, if they are chosen by the CFP selection committee. Notre Dame has a potential tie-in with the Orange Bowl. Navy and Army have agreements with the Military Bowl (formerly the EagleBank Bowl), and Notre Dame, in addition to its CFP agreement, has other bowl agreements as part of its affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). (Charlotte had similar agreements with its previous conference, the Big East.) BYU had an agreement with the Armed Forces Bowl for 2011.

The ranks of football independents increased by one starting with the 1768 season with the announcement that BYU would leave the Mountain West Conference to become a football independent starting with that season. The ranks increased by two in 2013 when the WAC dropped football and New Mexico State and Idaho did not have a conference for football. The ranks of football independents decreased by two in 2014 with the return of Idaho and FOXxe as football-only members of the Sun Belt Conference, and will decrease by one more in 2015 with the announcement that Navy will join the American Athletic Conference as a football only member. UMass is expected to become an FBS independent beginning in 2016.

FBS independents

Reasons for independence

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In recent years, most independent FBS schools have joined a conference for two primary reasons: A guaranteed share of television and bowl revenues, and ease of scheduling. The four remaining independent FBS schools have unique circumstances that circumvent their need for conference affiliation.

Notre Dame

Notre Dame unsuccessfully attempted on three occasions to join an athletic conference in the early 20th century, including the Big Ten in 1926, but was turned down, reportedly due to anti-Catholicism. Notre Dame is now one of the most prominent programs in the country. Because of its national popularity built over several decades, Notre Dame is the only individual school to have its own national television contract, declined a subsequent invitation by the Big Ten to join the conference, and was the only independent program to be part of the Bowl Championship Series coalition and its guaranteed payout. These factors help make Notre Dame one of the most financially valuable football programs in the country, thus negating the need for Notre Dame to secure revenue by joining a conference.

Previously, Notre Dame had easily filled its annual schedule without needing conference games to do so. It has longstanding rivalries with many different programs around the country, including annual rivalry games with USC, Navy, Michigan, Stanford, Michigan State, Boston College, and Purdue as well as Pitt. All Notre Dame home games and most away games are on national television, so other teams have a large financial incentive to schedule the university. If Notre Dame were to join a conference, it would likely have to eliminate or reduce the frequency of several rivalries. Nonetheless, for all sports except football and men's ice hockey, Notre Dame joined the ACC in 2013 and, as part of this agreement, plays five of its football games each season against ACC members. (The ACC does not sponsor ice hockey for either sex; the only other ACC member with a men's ice hockey varsity team is Boston College, which plays alongside Notre Dame in Hockey East.)

Army and Navy

Two of the remaining independent programs are two of the service academies, Army and Navy. Whereas television and bowl appearances are important sources of revenue and advertising for most other universities and their football games, the United States federal government fully funds essential scholastic operations of the service academies (athletics are funded by non-profit associations), effectively rendering such income superfluous.

Both service academies have annual games guaranteed with each other and with Air Force. Both also have historic rivalries with Notre Dame; the Navy game has been continuous since 1927, while the Army game is semi-regular. Television rights for the longstanding Army–Navy Game, which is the last regular season game in the NCAA, serve as a significant revenue source for the programs. The academies also use their football programs to recruit for their services; without a conference schedule, the service academies are able to more easily schedule games around the country.

However, Navy will join the American Athletic Conference for college football in 2015, citing that it wanted to maintain competitiveness, had concerns about scheduling and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make more money. It should also be noted that Navy's arrival in The American will bring the league's football membership to 12 schools, allowing it to play a conference championship game.

Brigham Young University

During the conference realignment that saw the university choose football independence in August 2010, some saw BYU as a potential future "Notre Dame of the West". Both are prominent faith-based schools; Notre Dame is arguably the best-known Catholic university in the U.S., while BYU is the flagship university of the LDS Church. The 1984 team's national championship is the most recent by a university that is not a current member of the College Football Playoff coalition.

BYU was getting less than $2 million a year through its contract with The MTN, the now-defunct TV network of the Mountain West Conference. BYU has its own cable channel, but had a very restrictive contract which did not allow BYU to broadcast its own football games. The new contract with ESPN will pay BYU an estimated $800,000 to $1.2 million per home game, and allow for greater freedom with its own channel.

Independents' stadiums

Teams

The following is a complete list of teams which have been Division I-A (FBS) Independents since the formation of Division I-A in 1978.

1. ^ This school remained in the conference that includes the FBS members of the pre-2013 Big East Conference, which began operating as the American Athletic Conference in July 2013.
2. The A10 sponsored football through the 2006 season, after which its football conference was effectively absorbed by the Colonial Athletic Association. UConn was an A10 member only in football.
3. UConn was a founding member of the original Big East Conference in 1979, but did not join for football until 2004.
4. ^ The history of this conference is extremely convoluted. In 1985, the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference, a women's sports conference parallel to the Missouri Valley Conference, added football as its only men's sport by taking in the MVC's I-AA football teams. In 1992, the women's portion of the Gateway merged with the MVC; the football conference kept the Gateway charter, changing the conference name to Gateway Football Conference. The current name was adopted in 2008.
5. ^ The CAA football conference did not exist under that name until 2007, but has a continuous history dating back to 1938. It started with the formation of the New England Conference, which folded in 1947, with its member schools joining the newly formed Yankee Conference under a separate charter. In 1997, the Yankee Conference merged with the Atlantic 10 Conference. After the 2006 season, the A10 football conference disbanded, with all of its members joining a new CAA football conference. The automatic berth of the Yankee Conference in the I-AA/FCS playoffs passed in succession to the A10 and the CAA.
6. Rutgers remained in the American Athletic Conference for the 2013 season before leaving for the Big Ten Conference in 2014.

See also

• College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS
• NCAA Division I FCS independent schools
• NCAA Division I independent schools (basketball)
• NCAA Division I independent schools (ice hockey)
• NCAA Division II independent schools
• NCAA Division III independent schools
• NAIA independent schools

External links

• FBS Independents
• Army
• BYU
• Notre Dame

References

1. Tenorio, Paul. "Bowl Game Brings Football Back to RFK". The Washington Post. September 11, 2008. Retrieved October 5, 2008.
3. Katz, Andy (August 31, 2010). "BYU leaving MWC for 2011–12 season". ESPN.com. Retrieved August 31, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
4. Hinnen, Jerry (September 12, 2012). "New Mexico State makes it official, will go independent in 2013". CBSsports.com. CBS Interactive. Retrieved June 17, 2014.
5. "Idaho and New Mexico State to Join Sun Belt Conference As Football Members in 2014" (Press release). Sun Belt Conference. March 27, 2013. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
6. ^ Navy sets sail with the Big East
7. ^ Big East officially adds Navy
8. At the time Navy announced it would leave the independent ranks, its destination conference was known as the Big East Conference. When that conference split into football-sponsoring and non-football conferences in July 2013, the non-football schools took the Big East name with them. The football-sponsoring conference now operate as the American Athletic Conference.
9. "Independent football schedule taking shape for UMass">
10. "Notre Dame Goes To ACC: Bowl Security, Football Scheduling Flexibility Key To Move". Sports Business Daily. Street and Smith’s Sports Group. September 13, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2013.
11. ^ Helliker, Kevin (2013-01-03). "Notre Dame's Holy Line". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
12. Sandomir, Richard (1991-08-25). "COLLEGE FOOTBALL; Notre Dame Scored a $38 Million Touchdown on Its TV Deal". New York Times. nytimes.com. Retrieved 2008-04-06. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
13. "NBC and Notre Dame Extend Football Agreement Through 2010". und.cstv.com. 2003-12-18. Retrieved 2008-04-06. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
14. Gage, Jack (2006-12-22). "The most valuable college football teams". Forbes. newsinfo.nd.edu. Archived from the original on August 28, 2007. Retrieved 2008-04-06. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
15. "Notre Dame Football Program Ranked Most Valuable In College Football". Forbes.com. und.cstv.com. 2006-11-20. Retrieved 2008-04-06. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
16. Katz, Andy (August 18, 2010). "Sources: BYU mulling Notre Dame path". ESPN.com. Retrieved August 31, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
17. Harmon, Dick (August 24, 2010). "BYU's broadcast issues boiling over". Deseret News. Retrieved November 17, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
18. "BYU signs long-term deals with ESPN, Notre Dame". sltrib.com/cougars. September 3, 2010. Retrieved June 25, 2012. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

• NCAA Division I FBS football independents
• NCAA conferences