The first bowl game appearance by a WAC team was at the 1964 Liberty Bowl, where Utah defeated West Virginia of the Southern Conference, 32–6. Main article: WAC Championship Game Bowl games TeamĬonference championships By year Ī 2007 WAC game, Boise State at Hawaii Season
Wac conference teams full#
Games against these schools do not count in alliance standings, although games against full WAC members count in the separate WAC league table. Utah Tech (Dixie State) and Tarleton are included in alliance scheduling, but because of their ongoing transitions from NCAA Division II to Division I are ineligible for the playoffs until the 2024 season. The WAC–ASUN Challenge consists of the seven teams that are eligible for the FCS playoffs.
All are incoming members of the ASUN Conference, which plans to start an FCS football league in 2022. By the end of January 2021, three more schools were brought into WAC football for the 2021 fall season only. On the same day that WAC confirmed the return of football, full conference member UTRGV announced that it would start an FCS football program no later than 2024. Before the reinstatement of football was officially announced, media reports indicated that the WAC might add two more schools to join the conference for football. The WAC resumed play in the 2021 fall season with 9 members. The WAC has 26 former football-playing members.
Under the partnership, three FCS programs that are joining the ASUN in July 2021 will play alongside current WAC members. The ASUN plans to start its own FCS football league, but not until at least 2022. The program would most likely compete as part of the newly-reinstated WAC football conference.įor at least its first season in 2021, the relaunched WAC football league will be branded as the ASUN–WAC (or WAC–ASUN) Challenge, with the WAC establishing a temporary football partnership with the ASUN Conference. On the same day, news broke that The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), a non-football playing member of the conference, had committed to create an FCS football program by 2024. The conference has been speculated to move back up to the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) in the future following the reestablishment of the football conference at the FCS level. The conference also announced that it will most likely add another football-playing institution at a later date. The WAC football league will also include Dixie State University and Tarleton State University, both of which played as FCS independents in 2020–21 after having moved from NCAA Division II to the WAC for non-football sports in July 2020. Southern Utah's entry remains on the 2022 schedule. Original plans were for all new members to join in July 2022, but after the Southland Conference expelled its departing members, the WAC moved the arrival of those four schools and the relaunch of football to July 2021. Austin State University, all currently of the Southland Conference, along with Southern Utah University, currently of the Big Sky Conference. The new members announced include: Abilene Christian University, Lamar University, Sam Houston State University, and Stephen F. On January 14, 2021, the WAC announced its intention to reinstate football as a conference-sponsored sport at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level, as well as the addition of five new members to the conference in all sports, including football. Once considered one of the best conferences in college football, steady attrition from 1999 to 2012 forced the WAC to drop football after fifty-one years. The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) sponsored football and crowned a champion every year from 1962 to 2012.