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The Big 12 is officially named with the number 12, NOT the word "Twelve". Will create redirect shortly.
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[[WMG:[[center:[-'''[[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball College Football]]'''\\
[[UsefulNotes/FootballBowlSubdivision FBS Conferences]] ([[UsefulNotes/BigTenConferenceFootballPrograms B1G]]) (B12) ([[UsefulNotes/SoutheasternConferenceFootballPrograms SEC]]) | [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootballConferences FCS and Miscellaneous Teams]] (UsefulNotes/IvyLeague)-]]]]]
!!'''Big 12 Conference'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_12.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here for a map of the [=B12=] schools.]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b12_map_2024_9.png[[/labelnote]]]]
->'''Year Established:''' 1994\\
'''Current schools:''' Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, [[UsefulNotes/{{Mormonism}} BYU]], Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah, West Virginia\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Brett Yormark\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Texas\\
'''Website:''' [[https://big12sports.com big12sports.com]]
----
The '''Big 12 Conference''' name is also an ArtifactTitle -- for much of its recent history, it had 10 members, expanding to 14 in 2023 and 16 in 2024. The conference is tied to the Sugar Bowl (no, not [[SugarBowl that one]]).[[note]]In the BCS era, they were tied to the Fiesta Bowl.[[/note]] There are also some very storied teams in this conference as well. The Texas-Oklahoma rivalry ranks right up there with Michigan-Ohio State. The Big 12 is also somewhat unique amongst major conferences in that it is a fairly recent merger (officially formed in 1994, but competition didn't start until 1996) between two older historic conferences: the ''Big Eight Conference'' (consisting of the Midwestern schools, which came together in 1928 as the Big Six after the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association dissolved) and several former members of the ''Southwest Conference'' (where the four Texas schools came from, having played in that conference since 1912) after the latter's fragmentation and demise in the fallout from the SMU "Death Penalty". Because of this, the Big 12's teams have less "loyalty" to each other than most other conferences and suffer from numerous internal tensions, divisions, and schools saying ScrewThisImOuttaHere.
Things boiled over in 2011 when Nebraska and Colorado left for the Big Ten and Pac-12, respectively, briefly costing them the right to host a conference championship game and hurting their members' ability to compete for a national title. Missouri and Texas A&M then moved to the SEC the next year, but the conference (barely) survived by replacing them with TCU and (despite the geographical oddity) West Virginia. While they've so far averted the disintegration that once seemed inevitable, the departure of mainstays Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC in 2024 forced another realignment. Shortly after OU and UT announced their departure, the Big 12 raided the American Athletic Conference, accepting Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF, along with FBS independent BYU. The Big 12 then ended up adding all four Pac-12 "Four Corners" schools (Arizona, Arizona State, [[HesBack Colorado]], and Utah) for 2024, shocking many observers by outliving the conference that very nearly destroyed them a decade prior.\\\
The Big 12 is also [[InsistentTerminology unusually insistent]] that their conference name not be written "Big Twelve" or "Big XII"... [[EpicFail despite the official logo consisting primarily of a large "XII"]]. Despite having a full round-robin regular season format from 2011–2022 and no divisions after 2010, they still hold a championship game for their top two seeded teams.
[[folder:Arizona Wildcats]]
!!!Arizona Wildcats
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arizona_1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Bear Down!]]
->'''Location:''' Tucson, AZ\\
'''School Established:''' 1885[[note]]Predating Arizona's statehood by almost three decades.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1899-1930), Border (1931-61), WAC (1962-77), Pac-12 (1978–2023), Big 12 (2024–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 633-499-33 (.558)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 10-11-1 (.477)\\
'''Colors:''' Cardinal and navy\\
'''Stadium:''' Arizona Stadium (capacity 50,782)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Brent Brennan\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Warren B. Woodson, Dick Tomey, Mike Stoops, Rich Rodriguez, Kevin Sumlin\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Max Zendejas, [[Creator/BradWilliamHenke Brad Henke]], Anthony Smith, Michael Bates, Tedy Bruschi, Lance Briggs, Rob Gronkowski, Nick Foles, Khalil Tate\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 6 (3 Border - 1935-36, 1941; 2 WAC - 1964, 1973; 1 Pac-10 - 1993)
----
The '''University of Arizona''' ("Zona" for short) followed its intrastate rival Arizona State to the Pac-12 in 1978. While fairly well renowned as a basketball school, its football team has mostly just ''existed'' in Tucson. Their 1987 season may well have been the most mediocre campaign in college football history: 4 wins, 4 losses, 3 ties.[[note]]Besides the three ties, they had a 1-point loss to Iowa and a 2-point loss to USC, meaning they were 8 points away from a 9-2 record.[[/note]] Their greatest success came in the 1990s; led by the dominating "Desert Swarm" defense of coach Dick Tomey, they won a share of the Pac-10 title in 1993 and earned a higher ranking than conference-winner UCLA in 1997 by winning more games. However, the team cratered after Tomey's departure and have generally underachieved since despite a succession of high-profile coaches and some notable players. The Wildcats' performance truly cratered in 2020, where they went winless in the COVID-shortened season and won just one in the following year. They've moderately improved since, but it remains to be seen how they'll perform after making the move to the Big 12 in 2024.\\\
The Wildcats' intrastate rivalry with Arizona State is one of the oldest in college football, with their Territorial Cup being ''the'' oldest rivalry trophy in the sport, being first awarded in ''1899'' (though there's a technicality there; it hasn't actually been awarded for most of the rivalry's history, only being renewed in the 21st century). Interestingly enough, despite Arizona State having a much stronger overall football history than Arizona, the Wildcats narrowly lead in this long series due to dominating in the early 20th century. With Zona and ASU joining the Big 12, the rivalry will likely continue in that conference.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Arizona State Sun Devils]]
!!!Arizona State Sun Devils
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arizona_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Forks Up!]]
->'''Location:''' Tempe, AZ[[note]]Home to the main campus and university administration; see more below.[[/note]]\\
'''School Established:''' 1886[[note]]Founded as a teachers college, gained its current name and mission in 1958.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1897–1930), Border (1931–61), WAC (1962–77), Pac-12 (1978–2023), Big 12 (2024–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 638-424-24 (.599)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 15-17-1 (.470)\\
'''Colors:''' Maroon and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Mountain America Stadium (capacity 53,599)[[note]]historically Sun Devil Stadium[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kenny Dillingham\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Dan Devine, Frank Kush, John Cooper, Todd Graham, Herm Edwards\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' John Henry Johnson, Charley Taylor, Curley Culp, Danny White, Mike Haynes, John Jefferson, Gerald Riggs, Luis Zendejas, Randall [=McDaniel=], Eric Allen, Darren Woodson, Creator/IsaiahMustafa, Jake Plummer, Pat Tillman, Todd Heap, Terrell Suggs, Vontaze Burfict, Brock Osweiler, Zane Gonzalez, N'Keal Harry, Jayden Daniels\\
'''National Championships:''' 0[[note]]2 unclaimed (1970, 1975)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 17 (7 Border - 1931, 1939-40, 1952, 1957, 1959, 1961; 7 WAC - 1969-73, 1975, 1977; 3 Pac-10 - 1986, 1996, 2007)
----
'''Arizona State University''' was basically the Boise State of mid-20th century--the Western school that dominated its lower-profile conference on the road to becoming a national power. While a fairly weak football program in the early 20th century, future coaching great Dan Devine led them to an undefeated season in 1957. Frank Kush took over and had even greater success, with two undefeated records in '70 and '75, the latter season ending with a #2 final ranking. This success led the Pac-8 to come calling for ASU (and their rival Arizona in a package deal), with them joining the conference in 1978. However, Kush, a DrillSergeantNasty who took full advantage of the desert sun as discipline, was fired in the middle of the '79 season after a scandal emerged over his harsh treatment of his players, including a lawsuit from a former punter who accused Kush of punching him in the mouth during a game.\\\
Arizona State was the first of the newcomers to win a Pac-10 title and make the Rose Bowl, reaching those heights in 1986 and catapulting John Cooper to his Ohio State gig; a decade later, his Buckeyes would narrowly block the Sun Devils from winning the Rose Bowl, costing them a perfect season and a likely national championship. However, in recent decades, having to compete against the conference's other powers and the arrival of the NFL's Cardinals into the Phoenix market (they shared the school's stadium for 18 years, one of the longer co-tenancies of any pro and college football program) helped diminish the program's prominence and performance. ASU will follow its instate rival Arizona to the Big 12 in 2024, though [[https://www.yahoo.com/sports/arizona-state-quickly-makes-itself-152802741.html it was more or less dragged there kicking and screaming]].\\\
The school itself is also of note as having the largest residential and total enrollments of any FBS member... with some ''major'' caveats.[[note]]ASU actually consists of four physical campuses scattered around the Phoenix area, plus a large online operation. The main campus in Tempe has an enrollment of about 58K, with another 20K-plus attending the other Phoenix-area campuses, taking ASU past Texas A&M as the largest residential school in FBS. The online operation adds another 60K-plus, taking ASU past Liberty (16K residential, over 100K online) as the largest overall university in FBS.[[/note]] ASU's mascot, a classical devil [[DevilsPitchfork with a pitchfork]] named "Sparky", hypes up the crowd before games with a video of him stomping on the other team's bus. Mountain America Stadium (Sun Devil Stadium behind the [[ProductPlacementName corporate name]]), located on top of a hill overlooking the main campus, is pretty notorious for being (forgive the pun) hot as hell.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Baylor Bears]]
!!!Baylor Bears
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/baylor.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Sic 'em, Bears!]]
->'''Location:''' Waco, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1845\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1898-1915),[[note]]Did not play in 1906.[[/note]] SWC (1915-96),[[note]]Did not play 1943-44.[[/note]] Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 630-603-44 (.511)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 14-13 (.519)\\
'''Colors:''' Green and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' [=McLane=] Stadium (capacity 45,140)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Dave Aranda\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Art Briles, Matt Rhule\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Hayden Fry, Del Shofner, Jerry Moore, Goose Gonsoulin, Larry Elkins, Mike Singletary, Matt Bryant, Daniel Sepulveda, Jason Smith, Jon Weeks, Phil Taylor, Danny Watkins, Josh Gordon, Robert Griffin III, Shawn Oakman, Corey Coleman\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (7 SWC – 1915-16, 1922, 1924, 1974, 1980, 1994; 3 Big 12 – 2013-14, 2021)
----
A [[StrawmanU conservative Baptist school]], '''Baylor University''' is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas (founded before the state officially joined the U.S. and starting out in the small town of Independence before moving to Waco in the 1880s). The football team enjoyed some success in the first quarter of the 20th century but then fell into a period of mediocrity. This finally ended with a 1974 Southwest Conference title so improbable that even today, Baylor fans call it the "Miracle on the Brazos". After another major lull in the late 1990s and 2000s, they made a major national splash under Art Briles in 2011 thanks to electric Heisman-winning QB Robert Griffin III during a period of massive sports success that greatly raised the regional school's profile; during the 2011-12 "Year of the Bear", all four of its major programs (football, baseball, men's/women's basketball) finished their season ranked and compiled the best shared win percentage of any school in NCAA history. That period also saw the Bears open their new [=McLane=] Stadium, the joint newest in the Power Five,[[note]]Houston's TDECU Stadium also opened in 2014, though the first game at that venue was two days before Baylor's first in its current stadium.[[/note]] on the banks of the Brazos River. One of three FBS stadiums directly accessible by boat, its 2014 opening marked the first time since 1935 that the Bears played on campus. However, there was a dark side to this success--Briles and the Baylor administration were caught covering up a massive string of sexual assaults by players, leading to a housecleaning of not only the football program but also the top administration. Coach Matt Rhule's swift turnaround of the program's on- and off-field reputation earned him an (ultimately disappointing) NFL gig, and after another brief rebuild, the program has remained competitive since.\\\
Baylor nowadays is probably best known as one of the powerhouses of NCAA women's basketball; the Bears (who didn't drop "Lady" from their nickname until 2021–22) pretty much ruled Big 12 basketball in the 21st century under coach Kim Mulkey (2000–21), including winning three national titles and posting a [[FlawlessVictory perfect 40-0 season]] during The Year of the Bear. Men's basketball added a national title of its own in 2021, a highlight in a program that has been historically associated with tragedies.[[note]]Most notably a catastrophic 1927 bus accident that resulted in the deaths of ten players and the 2003 murder of one player by a former teammate, with the investigation of that crime leading to the uncovering of massive NCAA rules violations that resulted in mass firings and NCAA sanctions; yes, that has been a grim trend at Baylor for many years.[[/note]] Football is regardless a very important part of campus culture; all freshmen participate in the "Baylor Line" that welcomes the team on-field in home games and sits behind opposing teams to heckle them. The school keeps two real black bears, Joy and Lady, as mascots in an on-campus enclosure.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:BYU Cougars]]
!!!BYU Cougars
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/byu.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Rise and Shout!]]
->'''Location:''' Provo, UT\\
'''School Established:''' 1875[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, when school namesake Brigham Young established "Brigham Young Academy". However, BYA was more like a high school than a modern university. College-level instruction didn't start until 1892; a college department wasn't established until 1896 (the same year it was officially absorbed by the LDS Church); it didn't become BYU until 1903, and it didn't receive full accreditation as a university until the 1920s.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' RMAC (1922–37),[[note]]The school's first football season was in 1896, but as noted above it was still more of a high school than a college. After an accidental football-related death in Utah in 1900, the LDS Church banned football at all of its schools until 1919. 1922 was the first year in which BYU played solely against colleges.[[/note]] Skyline (1938–61), WAC (1962–98), MW (1999–2010), Ind. (2011–22), Big 12 (2023–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 617–444–27 (.580)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17–22–1 (.438)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and white\\
'''Stadium:''' [=LaVell=] Edwards Stadium (capacity 63,470)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kalani Sitake\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' [=LaVell=] Edwards\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Virgil Carter, Gifford Nielsen, Brian Billick, Todd Christensen, Marc Wilson, Andy Reid, Jim [=McMahon=], Bart Oates, Kyle Whittingham, Steve Young, Robbie Bosco, Vai Sikahema, Jason Chaffetz, Ty Detmer, Steve Sarkisian, Taysom Hill, Jamaal Williams, Zach Wilson, Puka Nacua\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 (1984)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 23 (19 WAC – 1965, 1974, 1976–85, 1989–93, 1995-96; 4 MW – 1999, 2001, 2006–07)
----
'''Brigham Young University''' is the second FBS member to have been founded by early UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}} leader Brigham Young,[[note]]Read further down for the first.[[/note]] though it wouldn't actually be absorbed by the LDS Church until 1896. BYU had done little in football before [=LaVell=] Edwards, who had arrived at "The Y" as an assistant in 1962, was elevated to the head coaching position in 1972. A major contribution to this turn in football fortunes was the LDS Church disavowing its former anti-Black doctrines and practices in 1978, aiding the Cougars' recruiting; BYU did not admit Black students at all through the 1960s, far after most universities outside of the South, and its team accepted its first Black players in Edwards' first season, making it among the last programs to integrate. Edwards installed a high-powered passing offense that brought the Cougars quick success, helping them claim a national title in 1984 and produce a Heisman winner in Ty Detmer in 1990; they remain the last non-major school to win that latter award. BYU in this era became known as "Quarterback U"; under Edwards, ''nine'' BYU quarterbacks led the NCAA in either passing yards, touchdowns, or rating, more than any other ''program'' in college football history. Since Edwards' retirement after 2000, BYU has remained a generally winning program, though not quite at its 1980s heights.\\\
BYU is well-known for [[StrawmanU taking its faith very seriously]]. The school has a strict honor code that reflects its church's doctrine, and every so often a player will get suspended or dismissed for a violation. Many of its players are also a bit older than typical college athletes due to being returned Mormon missionaries; the LDS Church strongly encourages its young men to spend two years as such, with most doing so immediately after high school graduation.[[labelnote:*]]Before the church lowered the required age for male missionaries from 19 to 18 in the early 2010s, most had to interrupt their college education; the NCAA has long held that missionary service does not count against an athlete's college eligibility. BYU's heavy use of returned missionaries has drawn minor criticism, but because they are not allowed to engage in athletic training during their terms and have minimal time for intense physical activity, it's accepted that BYU gains no significant advantage.[[/labelnote]] BYU also has a firm policy against Sunday play in any sport; while this generally doesn't affect football, it has dramatically affected other sports and caused headaches for scheduling of NCAA championship events. Though it bounced around a number of smaller conferences, BYU felt that it could make far more money as an independent with its built-in LDS following, following the model that Notre Dame established for Catholic fans, and set out on its own in 2011.[[labelnote:*]]The school then placed most of its non-football sports in the West Coast Conference, which doesn't play football and consists entirely of private faith-based schools that don't schedule any in-conference sporting events on Sunday.[[/labelnote]] Nonetheless, a Power Five slot remained a goal for BYU, which it finally reached when it joined the Big 12 in 2023. The Big 12 allowed BYU to maintain its no-Sunday policy; perhaps not coincidentally, it has two other faith-based members (Baylor and TCU, though both will play on Sundays).
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Cincinnati Bearcats]]
!!!Cincinnati Bearcats
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cincinnati.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Down the Drive!]]
->'''Location:''' Cincinnati, OH\\
'''School Established:''' 1819[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, when "Cincinnati College" and the "Medical College of Ohio" were established. The undergraduate college closed in 1825 and was reestablished in 1835; the medical school operated without interruption. The undergrad college, after absorbing an existing law school, became the University of Cincinnati in 1870, with the medical school joining UC in 1896. Much like Louisville, it was a municipal school for much of its history; it didn't become part of Ohio's state system until 1977.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1885-1909, 1937-46, 1953-56, 1970-95)[[note]]Did not play in 1907 or 1943-44.[[/note]], OAC (1910-25), Buckeye (1926-36), MAC (1947-52), MVC (1957-69), CUSA (1996-2004), Big East (2005-12), American (2013-22), Big 12 (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 661-606-50 (.521)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 10–12 (.454)[[note]]The NCAA doesn't recognize their 1949 Glass Bowl win, but Cincinnati claims it.[[/note]]\\
'''Colors:''' Red and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Nippert Stadium (capacity 38,088)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Scott Satterfield\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Frank Cavanaugh, Sid Gillman, Watson Brown, Tim Murphy, Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly, Tommy Tuberville, Luke Fickell\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Greg Cook, Urban Meyer, Gino Guidugli, Brent Celek, Kevin Huber, Jason and Travis Kelce, Desmond Ridder, Sauce Gardner\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 16 (2 Buckeye – 1933-34; 4 MAC – 1947, 1949, 1951-52; 2 MVC – 1963-64; 1 CUSA – 2002; 4 Big East – 2008-09, 2011-12; 3 American – 2014, 2020-21)
----
The '''University of Cincinnati''' is primarily known as a basketball school (with back-to-back national titles in the early '60s) and has had an up-and-down history in football. Its historic high peak was serving as Sid Gillman's final college coaching stop before the launch of his pro career. After many years of under achieving and bouncing around second-tier conferences (including being a founding member of CUSA), UC joined the Big East in 2005 and soon surged to national prominence under Brian Kelly in the late 2000s, coming a second away from qualifying for the National Championship game in 2009[[note]]Had Texas lost a controversial Big 12 championship game where the referees gave them extra time for a game-winning field goal, unbeaten Cincinnati would have leapfrogged them into the title game instead.[[/note]] (helping him land his position at Notre Dame). Under coach Luke Fickell, the school became one of the most esteemed non-Power Five programs, and became the only Group of Five program to reach the four-team CFP in 2021 (even if they were quickly bested by Alabama). They wouldn't be Group of Five for long, though, as they took a spot in the Big 12 in 2023.\\\
UC has a fairly close professional relationship with its city's pro team, the Bengals. The Bengals long used UC's indoor practice facilities and played their first few seasons in the school's historic Nippert Stadium. (They have returned the favor by letting the Bearcats play in their own stadium during renovations or major games.) Nippert is one of the oldest venues in college sports. The stands were officially dedicated in 1924, but the field has been in use since at least 1915. It is named after Jimmy Nippert, a UC player who died from blood poisoning in 1923 after a spike wound sustained during a game became infected, most likely from droppings left on the field from a chicken race earlier in the day; his grandfather was a co-founder of Procter & Gamble and paid to have his grandson honored in the name.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colorado Buffaloes]]
!!!Colorado Buffaloes
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colorado_1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Sko Buffs!]]
->'''Location:''' Boulder, CO\\
'''School Established:''' 1876\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1890–92, 1905), CFA[[labelnote:*]]Colorado Football Association, which existed from 1890–1908[[/labelnote]] (1893–1904, 1906–08), RMAC[[labelnote:*]]Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, now D-II[[/labelnote]] (1909–1937), Skyline[[labelnote:*]]formally the Mountain States Athletic Conference but informally known as the Big Seven, Skyline Six, and Skyline Eight during its existence from 1938–62[[/labelnote]] (1938–47), Big 8 (1948–95), Big 12 (1996–2010, 2024–), Pac-12 (2011–2023)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 723-544-36 (.569)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 12-18 (.400)\\
'''Colors:''' Silver, black, and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Folsom Field (capacity 50,183)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Deion Sanders\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Fred Folsom, Chuck Fairbanks, Bill [=McCartney=], Gary Barnett, Mel Tucker\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Byron "Whizzer" White, Tom Brookshier, Hale Irwin, Cliff Branch, Bo Matthews, J.V. Cain, [[Wrestling/{{Vader}} Leon White]], Eric Bieniemy, Darian Hagan, Tom Rouen, Rashaan Salaam, Rae Carruth, Kordell Stewart, Joel Klatt, Mason Crosby, David Bakhtiari, Shadeur Sanders, Travis Hunter\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 (1990)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 27 (8 CFA - 1894-97, 1901-03, 1908; 9 RMAC - 1909-11, 1913, 1923-24, 1934-35, 1937; 4 Skyline - 1939, 1942-44; 5 Big Eight - 1961, 1976, 1989-91; 1 Big 12 - 2001)
----
The '''University of Colorado Boulder''' (the flagship campus of the state's university system, locally abbreviated as "CU") is unsurprisingly home to a powerhouse skiing program, being located in the hub of the sports' popularity (the school has 19 national titles in men's/co-ed skiing). Its other sports have not been as successful,[[note]]though 1960s DB Hale Irwin won an individual NCAA golf title that proved to be the launching pad for his Hall of Fame career in that sport[[/note]] but football has had some moments of prominence. The Colorado football program was a regional power in the late 19th/early 20th century. The hiring of pro coach Chuck Fairbanks in the early '80s brought unwelcome attention when the team cratered under his tenure. Thankfully, his successor Bill [=McCartney=] elevated the program to its greatest heights, earning a split national title in 1990 and producing a Heisman winner in RB Rashaan Salaam in 1994.\\\
The team receded from national prominence when [=McCartney=] retired after Salaam's Heisman win to focus on his Christian ministry organization. The Buffaloes ''could'' have become the first FBS team ever to field a woman, but placekicker Katie Hnida[[labelnote:*]](The "H" is silent.)[[/labelnote]], though making the team and suiting up for a bowl game, never saw the field. Hnida would later report after leaving the school that she had been sexually assaulted by a teammate, one of many controversies that forced the school to fire head coach Gary Barnett and incur several sanctions; the Buffaloes subsequently endured a decade of losing seasons and still have yet to return to their former success. In the midst of this decline, when the Pac-10 tried to swipe up half of the Big 12 in 2010, Colorado was the only school to actually follow through and make the leap. The move didn't last long: Colorado will return to the Big 12 in 2024, now coached by Deion Sanders, whose Hall of Fame playing resume and larger-than-life persona greatly elevated the program's profile (if not its performance).\\\
Colorado's stadium, Folsom Field (named for an early coach who led the team to three straight undefeated seasons in 1909-11), is one of the most picturesque in the nation, located right up against the Rocky Mountains and using the unique "Tuscan Vernacular Revival" architecture of the surrounding campus. Folsom has the highest elevation of any Power Five stadium and the third highest of any in the FBS behind Wyoming and Air Force. The program has strong in-state rivalries with the latter school and with Colorado State. Since adopting the "Buffalo" name in 1934 (prior teams were the "Silver Helmets" or "Frontiersmen"), the school has run an actual buffalo (i.e., bison) named Ralphie along the sidelines of said field.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Houston Cougars]]
!!!Houston Cougars
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/houston.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Whose House? Coogs House!]]
->'''Location:''' UsefulNotes/{{Houston}}, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1927[[note]]As Houston Junior College, initially operated out of a high school; became a four-year university and took its current name in 1934, received a permanent campus in 1939. Officially went by "University of Houston-University Park" from 1983-91.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Lone Star (1946-48), Gulf Coast (1949-50), MVC (1951-59), Ind. (1960-75), SWC (1976-95), CUSA (1996-2012), American (2013-22), Big 12 (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 472-394-15 (.544)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 13–16–1 (.450)\\
'''Colors:''' Scarlet and white\\
'''Stadium:''' TDECU Stadium (capacity 40,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Willie Fritz\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Bill Yeoman, Jack Pardee, Art Briles, Kevin Sumlin, Tom Herman\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Pat Studstill, Wade Phillips, Elmo Wright, Robert Newhouse, Andre Ware, David and Jimmy Klingler, Case Keenum\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 11 (4 MVC – 1952, 1956-57, 1959; 4 SWC – 1976, 1978-79, 1984; 2 C-USA – 1996, 2006; 1 American – 2015)
----
The '''University of Houston''' is one of the largest public universities in Texas. It is most highly decorated in athletics for its golf program, which won an NCAA record ''16'' national titles from the 1950s-'80s[[labelnote:*]]and, for a season in the late '70s, featured future sportscasting icon Jim Nantz[[/labelnote]], and is also known for its successful basketball program, best known for its "Phi Slama Jama" teams of the early '80s that produced [[UsefulNotes/NotableNBAPlayersAThroughF Clyde Drexler]] and [[UsefulNotes/NotableNBAPlayersNThroughZ Hakeem Olajuwon]], Hall of Famers who later brought their college town two NBA titles. The Cougar football program has quite the history of its own, being the point of origin for multiple innovative offenses that also generated multiple NCAA record-breaking quarterbacks. Coach Bill Yeoman used his innovative Veer offense to take the team from a middling independent to a powerhouse of the Southwest during his quarter-century as head coach (1962-86), including a record-setting 100-6 blowout of Tulsa in 1968, only to be fired from the program he helped build due to recruitment violations that essentially amounted to paying players.\\\
Despite the sanctions Yeoman incurred, successor Jack Pardee kept the Cougars successful on the field through his innovative Run N' Shoot offense, which helped Andre Ware smash NCAA passing records in 1989 and win the Heisman. However, said sanctions also included a TV ban that ensured almost nobody actually ''saw'' many of these games, and Pardee was quickly poached by Houston's Oilers (which got their start playing in the university's stadium). The school continued its reputation for prolific passing numbers when David Klingler set many records of his own the following year, but his and Ware's failures at the pro level led to their accomplishments being credited to Houston's system and poor competition. After the team spent a decade as a bottom-feeder, QB Case Keenum helped revive their prospects while shattering many NCAA career passing records during his long tenure as starter (2007-11).\\\
Houston's late arrival to the SWC, history with sanctions, and peaks and valleys during its time in the weak C-USA have largely excluded it from consideration as one of Texas' premier programs. However, as an urban school located in one of Texas's biggest metro areas, donors have pushed hard for years to get the program up to the next level. Most notable among these is Houston Rockets owner and UH alum Tilman Fertitta, whose name graces the Cougars' basketball arena and has made UH the most recent example of a billionaire alum's pet program, following in the tradition set by charter Big 12 member Oklahoma State and incoming Big Ten member Oregon. It ''just'' missed joining the Big East before that conference collapsed, and Houston had to settle for the American despite the school investing millions into building a new stadium to prep for the leap.[[note]]Despite having a stadium built right on-campus from the school's inception, it was fairly small and not actually owned by the university until 1970; the team shared the venue of hated crosstown rival Rice in the '50s and early '60s and then spent more than 30 years in the famous Astrodome, though it left that venue in the late '90s when the dome became obsolete. They even cohabited with the [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueSoccer Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer]] for a few years. Said on-campus stadium was demolished in 2012 to make way for the current one, which opened in 2014.[[/note]] However, all those years of campaigning finally paid off when the impending departure of Oklahoma and Texas for the SEC enabled UH's promotion to the Big 12 for 2023.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Iowa State Cyclones]]
!!!Iowa State Cyclones
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iowa_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Cyclone Power!]]
->'''Location:''' Ames, IA\\
'''School Established:''' 1858[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, when the state chartered the [[OverlyLongName "Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm"]]. However, it didn't actually enroll students until 1868, and didn't start college-level instruction until 1869. It became "Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts" in 1898 and "Iowa State University of Science and Technology" in 1959. However, the short form of Iowa State University is used even in official documents such as diplomas.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892-1907), MVIAA (1908-27), Big 8 (1928-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 566-678-46 (.457)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 5-13 (.278)\\
'''Colors:''' Cardinal and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Jack Trice Stadium (capacity 61,500)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Matt Campbell\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pop Warner, Mike Michalske, Johnny Majors, Earle Bruce\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Jack Trice, John Cooper, Troy Davis, Brock Purdy, Breece Hall\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 2 (MVIAA – 1911, 1912)
----
'''Iowa State University of Science and Technology''''s football program was one of the early stops for Pop Warner and had some success in the late 19th/early 20th century. However, it has largely been a bottom feeder ever since, sitting in the shadow of their intrastate rival Iowa. Like the Hawkeyes, the Cyclones are much better known for their wrestling program, which has won eight national championships and produced Cael Sanderson, commonly held up as the greatest American college wrestler ever. The football team returned to relevance in the late 2010s under coach Matt Campbell, who strung together more consecutive winning seasons than the Cyclones had seen in over a century.\\\
During Warner's brief tenure at the school in 1895, Iowa State's athletic programs were renamed from their old cardinal nickname to one referencing the natural disasters common to the Iowa area. Since it's hard to make a tornado costume, their official mascot remains a cardinal (named "Cy"). Their home venue of Jack Trice Stadium is the sole FBS venue named after an African American, though there is a tragic reason for that; Trice was the school's first Black player, but he was trampled to death in 1923 during his second game, which resulted in Iowa State not playing Minnesota for over 60 years.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Kansas Jayhawks]]
!!!Kansas Jayhawks
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kansas.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Rock Chalk Jayhawk! K-U!]]
->'''Location:''' Lawrence, KS\\
'''School Established:''' 1865[[note]]The university officially dates its founding from the first meeting of its governing board. It was formally chartered in 1863, began instruction as a college prep school in 1866, and taught its first college-level classes in 1869.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' KIAA[[labelnote:*]]Kansas Intercollegiate Athletic Association; now an NAIA league, with the word "Association" replaced by "Conference"[[/labelnote]] (1890-91), WIUFA (1892-97), Ind. (1898-1906), MVIAA (1907-28), Big 8 (1929-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 603-681-58 (.471)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7-7 (.500)\\
'''Colors:''' KU blue and crimson\\
'''Stadium:''' David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium (capacity 47,000)[[note]]Closed for renovations in 2024. The Jayhawks will play their nonconference schedule at Children's Mercy Park (18,467), home to Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City, and their conference games at the Kansas City Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium (76,416).[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Lance Leipold\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Fielding H. Yost, Mark Mangino, Turner Gill, Les Miles\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Bennie Owen, Mike [=McCormack=], Bud Adams, UsefulNotes/BobDole, John Hadl, Gale Sayers, Bobby Douglass, John Riggins, David Verser, Tony Sands, Dana Stubblefield, Jon Cornish\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 6 (MVIAA/Big Eight – 1908, 1923, 1930, 1946-47, 1968)
----
The '''University of Kansas''' (locally abbreviated "KU") is best known for its historic and prestigious men's basketball program, which was founded by basketball inventor James Naismith himself[[note]]ironically, he was the only men's basketball coach to end his KU tenure with a losing record[[/note]], produced UsefulNotes/WiltChamberlain, and holds numerous records and honors (including the second-most wins,[[note]]Before being forced by the NCAA to vacate 15 wins from its 2017–18 season due to fielding an ineligible player, it had the most wins.[[/note]] third-highest lifetime win percentage, four national titles, and the most conference titles of any program). Its football program is ''much'' less esteemed, though it is historic in the sense that it is the only original member of the MVIAA to still be in the Big 12. The Jayhawks have been pretty bad pretty much since that conference dissolved in the 1920s, including a winless 1954 season. The team had an anomalous breakout year in 2007 under HC Mark Mangino only to fall ''very'' hard back to earth quickly after, reclaiming its ButtMonkey status with a vengeance. From 2010-2021, the "Nayhawks" failed to post more than three wins in a season, going completely winless in 2015 and 2020. However, the arrival of current coach Lance Leipold after the 2020 disaster immediately turned things around. In 2022, the Jayhawks surpassed their best win count in over a decade ''just to start their season'' and made it to bowl eligibility; they posted their first winning record since 2008 the next year.\\\
The "Jayhawk" name does not refer to a real animal; it is a reference to the "Jayhawkers" who violently resisted the encroachment of slavery during Kansas's time as a territory in the late 1850s (but their mascot/logo is still a cartoon bird). This history is reflected in the school's most heated historic rivalry with Missouri (where most of the slavers came from), though that has largely gone dormant since Missouri left the conference, leaving the intrastate rivalry with Kansas State to fill the void.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Kansas State Wildcats]]
!!!Kansas State Wildcats
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kansas_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:EMAW!]]
->'''Location:''' Manhattan, KS\\
'''School Established:''' 1863[[note]]as "Kansas State Agricultural College"; became "Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science" in 1931. The current formal name was adopted in 1959 when "College" was replaced by "University". However, like Iowa State, the short form of "Kansas State University" is generally used even in formal documents.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1896-98),[[note]]First game in 1893.[[/note]] KIAA (1899-1912), MVIAA (1913-27), Big 8 (1928-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 570-671-41 (.462)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 11-14 (.462)\\
'''Colors:''' Royal purple and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Bill Snyder Family Stadium (capacity 50,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Chris Klieman\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pappy Waldorf, Sam Francis, Bill Snyder\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Larry Brown (RB), Lynn Dickey, Steve Grogan, Gary Patterson, Kevin and Tyler Lockett, Michael Bishop, Martín Gramática, Darren Sproles, Jordy Nelson, Josh Freeman\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 7 (3 KIAA – 1909-10, 1912; 1 Big Six – 1934; 3 Big 12 – 2003, 2012, 2022)
----
For decades, '''Kansas State University''''s football program was the [[ButtMonkey absolute worst]] in Division I-A football, having put up five winless seasons against just four ''winning'' ones in the half-century before the hiring of Bill Snyder in 1989; that included a period of 28 straight losses from 1945-48, a [[MedalOfDishonor then-record in futility]] that has only been surpassed by one D-I school (Northwestern) in the decades since. In one of the most remarkable turnarounds in college football, Snyder transformed the Wildcats into contenders during his 27 (nonconsecutive) seasons as head coach. Despite seeing general success while a member of the Big 12, the team's historic win record is still the worst in the conference, and the school is one of only two Power Five colleges to have [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut never won a national championship in any team sport]].[[note]]Not counting Pitt or UCF; neither has won an NCAA-awarded team title, but both claim at least one football natty, and Pitt also claims two pre-NCAA men's basketball titles.[[/note]] The school's struggles to get over the hump led to "The Kansas State Rule": in 1998, the Wildcats remained at #3 in the BCS rankings after a heartbreaking double-overtime loss to Texas A&M in the Big 12 Championship Game (costing them a spot in the National Championship Game) but they were snubbed for an at-large bid to one of the other BCS bowls in favor of #8 Florida and #9 Wisconsin. The very next year, a rule was put in place that if a team from an automatic qualifying conference finished at #3 but did not win their conference, they would have to be given an at-large bid before any team ranked #4 or lower could[[note]]If the #3 team ''was'' a conference champion, the same would apply to the #4 team[[/note]]. This failed to help the Wildcats, however, who in 1999 wound up at #6 and again were snubbed in favor of highly prestigious #8 Michigan.\\\
K-State renamed its stadium after Snyder following his [[TenMinuteRetirement first retirement]] in 2005. The venue is one of the more visually distinctive in college football, with limestone battlements resembling a castle. The Wildcats' logo is known as the "Powercat", while their actual mascot "Willie the Wildcat" is best known for [[BadassBiker donning a leather jacket and leading a procession of bikers around the field]] on the school's annual "Harley Day". K-State has strong rivalries with fellow long-suffering Great Plains programs Kansas and Iowa State; it used to have a strong one against Nebraska as well before the Cornhuskers switched conferences.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Oklahoma State Cowboys]]
!!!Oklahoma State Cowboys
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oklahoma_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Pistol's Firing!]]
->'''Location:''' Stillwater, OK\\
'''School Established:''' 1890[[note]]as "Oklahoma Territorial Agricultural and Mechanical College" or "Oklahoma A&M", with classes starting in 1891. The word "Territorial" was dropped upon Oklahoma statehood in 1907. Became "Oklahoma State University of Agricultural and Applied Sciences" in 1958; officially shortened to Oklahoma State University in 1980, with the main campus' location of Stillwater appended not long after when the OSU system was established with four general campuses and two health sciences campuses.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1901-14, 1957-59), SWC (1915-24), MVIAA (1925-27), MVC (1928-56), Big 8 (1960-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 638-572-47 (.526)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 22-12 (.647)\\
'''Colors:''' Orange and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Boone Pickens Stadium (capacity 55,509)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Mike Gundy\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pappy Waldorf, Jimmy Johnson, Les Miles\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Bob Fenimore, Buddy Ryan, Terry Miller, Dexter Manley, Leslie O'Neal, Mike Gundy, Thurman Thomas, Barry Sanders, Kevin Williams, Rashaun Woods, Dez Bryant, Brandon Weeden, Justin Gilbert, Justin Blackmon, Tyreek Hill[[labelnote:*]]began at OK State, ended college career at West Alabama[[/labelnote]], Mason Rudolph\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 (1945)[[note]]1 unclaimed (2011)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (8 MVC - 1926, 1930, 1932-33, 1944-45, 1948, 1953; 1 Big Eight - 1976; 1 Big 12 - 2011)
----
While its football program is AlwaysSecondBest to its dominant intrastate rival, '''Oklahoma State University-Stillwater''' actually claims the most national athletic titles of any school outside the Pac-12 (a distant fourth to Stanford, UCLA, and USC) thanks to its wrestling program, which has won ''34'' championships (the majority of them pre-1970), and golf, which has won 11. On the football field, the Cowboys (known as the "Aggies" or "Tigers" pre-1958, when the school was called Oklahoma A&M, and more colloquially known today as the "Pokes") have fluctuated massively in strength. The program was retroactively awarded a national title for its undefeated 1945 season, but it collapsed to a losing record the following year. In 1951, the Cowboys had a serious "never live it down" episode when one of their players deliberately injured Drake's African-American star Johnny Bright in what most concluded was a racially motivated attack. After going under .500 through the '60s, the team began to recover, culminating in the production of its sole Heisman winner, legendary RB Barry Sanders, in 1988. Unfortunately, Sanders' departure coincided with a host of sanctions that again cratered the program's win record. Thankfully, the hiring of current coach and former star QB Mike Gundy in 2005 set the school on the longest run of sustained success in its history.\\\
OK State's athletic program is also notable for being a pet project of a billionaire alum--in this case, late energy investor and football stadium namesake T. Boone Pickens, who funded the expansion of the stadium and many other OSU projects, both athletic and academic, to the tune of over $1 billion. The prominence of the school's wrestling program is reflected in the position of its arena (also used by the basketball teams) right behind the eastern end zone of the U-shaped Boone. Diehard Poke fans known as "paddle people" sit in the front rows of said stadium and make noise by smacking the sideline wall with giant orange paddles.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:TCU Horned Frogs]]
!!!TCU Horned Frogs
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tcu.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Riff Ram Bah Zoo!]]
->'''Location:''' [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Fort Worth, TX]]\\
'''School Established:''' 1873[[note]]as "Add-Ran Male & Female College"; became "Add-Ran Christian University" in 1889 and Texas Christian University in 1902.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1896-1913, 1921-22),[[note]]Did not play in 1900.[[/note]] TIAA[[labelnote:*]]Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which operated from 1909-32[[/labelnote]] (1914-20), SWC (1923-95), WAC (1996-2000), C-USA (2001-04), MW (2005-11), Big 12 (2012-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 684-574-57 (.541)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 18-17-1 (.514)\\
'''Colors:''' Purple and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Amon G. Carter Stadium (capacity 47,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Sonny Dykes\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Francis Schmidt, Dutch Meyer, Dennis Franchione, Gary Patterson\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Dutch Meyer, Phil Handler, Johnny Vaught, Ki Aldrich, Davey O'Brien, Sammy Baugh, Bob Lilly, Larry Brown (CB), [=LaDainian=] Tomlinson, Andy Dalton, Trevone Boykin, Jalen Reagor, Jeff Gladney, Max Duggan\\
'''National Championships:''' 2 (1935, 1938)[[note]]1 unclaimed (2010)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 18 (1 TIAA – 1920; 9 SWC – 1929, 1932, 1938, 1944, 1951, 1955, 1958-59, 1994; 2 WAC – 1999, 2000; 1 C-USA – 2002; 4 MW – 2005, 2009-11; 1 Big 12 – 2014)
----
The first coeducational college in Texas, '''Texas Christian University''' leaped into football prominence in the 1930s as one of the first teams to make passing the cornerstone of its offense. Sammy Baugh was one of the game's first star passers, and his successor Davey O'Brien was the first QB to win the Heisman Trophy, as he led TCU to an undefeated 1938 season and the second of two national titles in that decade. However, its status as a smaller private school among the state-run behemoths in the Southwest Conference finally caught up with them, and the Horned Frogs were generally terrible in the '60s through the '90s. After head coach Jim Pittman died on the sideline in 1971, they failed to post a winning season from 1972-83, received NCAA sanctions for player benefits (along with virtually every other SWC school) immediately after breaking that streak, and ultimately were left behind when the SWC merged with the Big Eight to form the Big 12.\\\
However, HC Dennis Franchione (and dominant Heisman finalist [=LaDainian=] Tomlinson) began to turn things around in the late 1990s, and when Gary Patterson took over in 2000, TCU turned into a full feel-good revival in the 21st century, climbing up the ranks of FBS conferences and serving as a regular BCS Buster. An undefeated season in 2010 helped them finally gain entry to the Big 12 in 2012, and the program was even on the cusp of an appearance in the first CFP in 2014 before the committee unexpectedly dropped them out of the Top 4. Patterson was fired during the 2021 season after a slide to mediocrity, but TCU ''immediately'' jumped back to contention the following year with an undefeated regular season. Though the Frogs crashed out in overtime of the Big 12 title game, their performance was still sufficient to earn the school its first CFP appearance and to become the first Big 12 team to reach the CFP National Championship game, making them by most metrics the biggest dark horse to make it that far in the modern era (though they ultimately got [[CurbStompBattle historically blown out by Georgia 65-7]]).\\\
The school maintains strong rivalries with its fellow Texas schools, with perhaps the most notable being the "Iron Skillet" matchup with SMU (named after the tool used by one SMU fan to cook some frog legs in a memorable pregame). For what it's worth, the university's unique mascot is ''not'' a frog; it's the state lizard of Texas. In recent years, said mascot has received another nickname: [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} the Hypnotoad]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Texas Tech Red Raiders]]
!!!Texas Tech Red Raiders
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/texas_tech.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Guns Up!]]
->'''Location:''' Lubbock, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1923[[note]]as the "Texas Technological College"; classes started in 1925. A push to rename it Texas State University in TheSixties failed (the former Southwest Texas State took that name in 2003). Renamed Texas Tech University (''NOT'' "Technological") in 1969.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1925-31, 1957-59), Border (1932-56), SWC (1960-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 597-481-32 (.552)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17-23-1 (.427)\\
'''Colors:''' Scarlet and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Jones AT&T Stadium (capacity 60,862)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Joey [=McGuire=]\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Jerry Moore, Mike Leach, Tommy Tuberville\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Dave Parks, Gabriel Rivera, Timmy Smith, Zach Thomas, Lincoln Riley, Kliff Kingsbury, Wes Welker, B.J. Symons, Taurean Henderson, Graham Harrell, Michael Crabtree, Baker Mayfield[[labelnote:*]]played one season, had far more success at Oklahoma[[/labelnote]], Patrick Mahomes\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 11 (9 Border – 1937, 1942, 1947-49, 1951, 1953-55; 2 SWC – 1976, 1994)
----
'''Texas Tech University''' was long considered a junior sibling to Texas and Texas A&M among the state-run Texas schools. Efforts to lure Texas to the Big Ten or Pac-10 in 2010 were considered hobbled by the perception that any expansion scenario involving the Longhorns would require them to also admit the much less desirable Tech, which has never finished in the AP Poll's Top 10 and is one of the most geographically isolated Power 5 schools. Even still, the Red Raiders have managed to carve out a solid if not spectacular football legacy. The arrival of HC Mike Leach in 2000 jump-started their greatest period of success, with his pass-heavy Air Raid offense bringing a succession of record-breaking quarterbacks to the team, though some football observers derided them as marginally-talented "system [=QBs=]". One of those [=QBs=], Kliff Kingsbury, later took over as HC in 2013. Kingsbury was cut loose after six unspectacular seasons most notable for producing Patrick Mahomes.\\\
Prior to adopting the "Red Raiders" moniker in 1937, the team were known as the Matadors, reflecting the Spanish Renaissance architecture that distinguishes the Texas Tech campus and stadium. The team and its fans now embrace cowboy imagery, with a Masked Rider mascot and a signature FingerGun hand gesture.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:UCF Knights]]
!!!UCF Knights
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ucf.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Charge On!]]
->'''Location:''' UsefulNotes/{{Orlando}}, FL[[note]]actually in unincorporated Orange County, though with an Orlando mailing address[[/note]]\\
'''School Established:''' 1963[[note]]As Florida Technological University; held first classes in 1968, adopted current name in 1979.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (D-III 1979–81, D-II 1982–89, I-AA 1990–95, I-A 1996–2001), MAC (2002-04), CUSA (2005-12), American (2013-22), Big 12 (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 295-233-1 (.558)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6–9 (.400)\\
'''Colors:''' Black and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' FBC Mortgage Stadium (capacity 44,206)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Gus Malzahn\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Lou Saban, George O'Leary, Scott Frost, Josh Heupel\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Daunte Culpepper, Brandon Marshall, Matt Prater, Kevin Smith, Blake Bortles, Latavius Murray, Shaquill and Shaquem Griffin, [=McKenzie=] Milton, Dillon Gabriel\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 claimed (2017)[[note]]By an obscure computer ranking that's nonetheless an NCAA-recognized FBS championship selector; see more below.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 6 (2 C-USA – 2007, 2010; 4 American – 2013-14, 2017-18)
----
While the '''University of Central Florida''' is one of the newer D-I schools by founding date and start of football and is currently the youngest school in the Power 5, it has grown at a tremendous pace and now has the largest undergraduate enrollment of any single university campus in the country (close to 60,000), with only Texas A&M having a larger total enrollment.[[note]]While incoming Big 12 member Arizona State and Conference USA member Liberty have considerably larger total enrollments than either UCF or A&M, it's only because of both schools' online operations (ASU's being large, and LU's being absolutely ''massive''). The distinction of most on-campus students belongs to ASU, but its enrollment is split between ''four'' Phoenix-area campuses; the main campus in Tempe has fewer total students than UCF has undergrads.[[/note]] The Knights football program had a momentous ascent from their first season in D-III in 1979, becoming the first football program to play at all four current levels of NCAA competition (James Madison became the second in 2022). Three years later, UCF moved to D-II, and later managed to lure former NFL coach Lou Saban, though he enjoyed far less success than in the pros, stepping down in the middle of his second season. The university nearly dropped football, but it became successful in D-II in the last half of the '80s and took the jump to Division I-AA (now FCS) in 1990. In the then-Golden Knights' first I-AA season, they became the first team ever to qualify for the I-AA/FCS playoffs in their first season of eligibility and enjoyed reasonable success until making the jump to I-A/FBS in 1996. After modest success as an independent and a decline in the early 2000s as a football-only member of the MAC, the program was reinvigorated by the arrival of HC George O'Leary in 2004. While the Knights went winless in their last MAC season, they turned things around upon joining CUSA in 2005, winning two conference titles and playing for two others. O'Leary also oversaw UCF's move to The American in 2013, where it won conference titles in its first two seasons. However, his tenure [[BookEnds ended in 2015 as it began]]--with a winless season.\\\
Scott Frost quickly righted the ship, making a bowl in his first season alongside program-redefining freshman QB [=McKenzie=] Milton. 2017 saw Milton set multiple school records while leading the Knights to an unbeaten season, finishing it off in the Peach Bowl by beating an Auburn team that had laid double-digit defeats on both participants in that year's CFP title game (Alabama and Georgia). The program claimed a national title on the basis of a single computer ranking, with Bama the consensus champion; Floridians were so incensed that the school was not even given the opportunity to fight for the title in the Playoff that the state legislature ''passed a resolution'' recognizing it. The following year, with Frost gone to Nebraska and Josh Heupel replacing him, UCF again went unbeaten until losing to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl, having lost Milton to a catastrophic knee injury in its final regular-season game. This Group of Five success bore fruit when Knights joined the Big 12 in 2023.\\\
UCF was known as the "Golden Knights" before 2007; before that, the team had been known as the "Knights of the Pegasus", and before ''that'' (indeed, before the football program was founded) the mascot was briefly [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d1/Florida_Tech_Citronauts.png/207px-Florida_Tech_Citronauts.png "The Citronaut"]], an anthropomorphic orange that was also an astronaut (basically '60s Central UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} in a nutshell). The football team plays in what had been one of the most uniquely named stadiums in college football, the Bounce House.[[note]]The "Bounce House" nickname was actually gleaned off its original corporate naming rights deal with cable provider Bright House Networks, now part of Spectrum (the brand name of Charter Communications). That deal lapsed after the 2019 season.[[/note]] After playing in the off-campus Citrus Bowl for several decades, the university built a more modern facility on-campus in 2007. Unfortunately, the stadium wasn't exactly up to snuff; in addition to lacking water fountains on opening day (a code violation and a major problem in the Florida heat), the stadium noticeably shook when fans were on their feet, giving it the nickname that briefly became official when naming rights sponsorships dried up in 2020 (though the stadium now shakes much less--and has water--after renovations). Despite its relatively small size, UCF's stadium has arguably one of the best home-field advantages in the sport, with frequent sellout crowds that deafen visiting offenses. UCF's primary rival is USF (South Florida), down the road in Tampa, though as of 2022 it's on ice (at least temporarily) since USF was left in The American. [=UConn=] tried to form a rivalry with UCF called the "Civil [[FunWithAcronyms ConFLiCT]]" when both were in The American; [[UnknownRival UCF disavowed the "rivalry"]], and it essentially died when [=UConn=] left the conference after 2019.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Utah Utes]]
!!!Utah Utes
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/utah_2.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Light the U!]]
->'''Location:''' Salt Lake City, UT\\
'''School Established:''' 1850[[note]]as the "University of Deseret", but closed in 1853, reopened in 1867, and became [[SpellMyNameWithAThe The]] University of Utah in 1892[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892–1909),[[note]]Did not play in 1893...[[/note]] RMAC (1910–37),[[note]]...or 1918.[[/note]] Skyline (1938–61), WAC (1962–98), MW (1999–2010), Pac-12 (2011–2023), Big 12 (2024–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 719–482–31 (.596)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17–10 (.630)\\
'''Colors:''' Crimson and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Rice–Eccles Stadium (capacity 51,444)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kyle Whittingham\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Ike Armstrong, Jim Fassel, Ron [=McBride=], Urban Meyer\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Mac Speedie, Larry Wilson, George Seifert, Bob Trumpy, Scott Mitchell, Jamal Anderson, Kevin and Andre Dyson, Mike Anderson, Steve Smith Sr., Alex Smith, Brian Johnson\\
'''National Championships:''' 0[[note]]1 unclaimed (2008)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 26 (8 RMAC – 1922, 1926, 1928–33; 10 Skyline – 1938, 1940–42, 1947, 1948, 1951–53, 1957; 2 WAC – 1964, 1995; 4 MW – 1999, 2003–04, 2008; 2 Pac-12 – 2021–22)
----
The '''University of Utah''' is one of two FBS universities founded by early UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}} leader Brigham Young and the ''other'' school known to its students and fans as "The U", complete with a hand signal very similar to Miami's. Utah was a regional football power for much of its history, with some dominant years in the 1920s and '30s under the long tenure of Hall of Fame coach Ike Armstrong (1925-49). The Utes were inconsistent after his departure and regressed in the '70s with the rise of BYU hurting them in recruiting. The program turned things around in the '90s and made a national splash in the 2000s, becoming the first "BCS Buster" in 2004 under HC Urban Meyer and star QB Alex Smith and becoming the first two-time BCS Buster in 2008 under current HC Kyle Whittingham, winning both bowl games on the way to undefeated seasons. Their nine-game bowl win streak from 1999-2009 is tied for the second-longest ever. They parlayed this success into an invitation from the former Pac-10 in 2011, eventually settling in there as a solid competitor. After the loss of two players to gun deaths before and during the 2021 season, the program retired its #22 in their honor and won the conference the next two seasons. The Utes joined their Four Corners compatriots in abandoning the Pac-12 in 2024.\\\
The Utes are also known for their spicy rivalry with LDS Church-owned BYU (nicknamed "the Holy War"); they have similar but less extreme rivalries with Utah State and Colorado. After playing most of their history in Ute Stadium (renamed Robert L. Rice Stadium in the '70s after the main benefactor of a facility renovation), their home venue was almost completely demolished and rebuilt in 1998 so it could be used as the main stadium of the 2002 Winter Olympics (with the Eccles family, major benefactors for the university as a whole, getting their name added to the pre-existing "Rice" name). Like Florida State, Utah has explicit permission from a Native American tribe to use a tribal nickname, in its case the various Ute tribes, one of which (the Northern Ute, consisting of three bands) has its reservation in the state. The U (presumably) gained considerable goodwill from the Ute nation when it scrapped its "Redskins" nickname in 1972, well before most other schools with similar nicknames did so, and gained more when it dropped Native mascots. The Ute nation also signed off on the use of two feathers in the school's athletic logo and the school's current mascot, an anthropomorphic red-tailed hawk. Outside of football, the school is known for its strong programs in men's basketball, women's gymnastics (nine national championships in the '80s and '90s), and co-ed skiing (13 national titles). The university is symbolized by a large concrete block "U" on a nearby hillside (built in 1907, inspired by similar hillside letters at UC Berkeley and BYU), which is visible throughout the Salt Lake Valley and is lit up whenever a Ute team wins a contest.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:West Virginia Mountaineers]]
!!!West Virginia Mountaineers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/west_virginia_2.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Take me home, Country Roads!]]
->'''Location:''' Morgantown, WV\\
'''School Established:''' 1867[[note]]as the "Agricultural College of West Virginia"; took the current name the following year.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1891-1924, 1928-49, 1968-90)[[note]]Did not play in 1892 or 1918.[[/note]], WVIAC[[labelnote:*]]West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, a now-defunct league that last played in D-II in 2012. The D-II Mountain East Conference is its successor in all but name (and charter).[[/labelnote]] (1925-27), [=SoCon=] (1950-67), Big East (1991-2011), Big 12 (2012-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 783-524-45 (.596)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17–23 (.425)\\
'''Colors:''' Old gold and blue\\
'''Stadium:''' Milan Puskar Stadium (capacity 60,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Neal Brown\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Bobby Bowden, Don Nehlen, Rich Rodriguez\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Fielding H. Yost, Ben Schwartzwalder, Joe Strahan, Sam Huff, Chuck Howley, Dick Leftridge, Oliver Luck, Jeff Hostetler, Rich Rodriguez, Brian Jozwiak, Mike Vanderjagt, Todd Sauerbrun, Marc Bulger, Chris Henry, Adam "Pacman" Jones, Pat [=McAfee=], Pat White, Bruce Irvin, Geno Smith, Tavon Austin, Kevin White, Stedman Bailey\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 15 (8 [=SoCon=] – 1953-56, 1958, 1964-65, 1967; 7 Big East: 1993, 2003-05, 2007, 2010-11)[[note]]Won 1 Lambert Trophy for "Best Team in the East" as an independent (1988)[[/note]]
----
Athletically, '''West Virginia University''' has enjoyed the most success in the niche sport of rifle--it's won 19 NCAA team titles--but its football program is quite strong and has had moments of national prominence. The school was able to attract some decent talent and coaches for decades, with notable runs of regional success in the 1920s (when it was the centerpiece of a regional conference) and '50s (when it joined the [=SoCon=] shortly before all its power schools left to form the ACC). However, the hiring of Don Nehlen as head coach in 1980 truly kickstarted the program. In his [[LongRunner two decades]] as HC, Nehlen guided the team into joining the Big East and introduced the distinctive "Flying WV" helmet logo. A standout year was 1988, when the Mountaineers finished the regular season undefeated and played #1 Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl with the national championship on the line (Notre Dame won 34-21). This turned out to be a trend for the Nehlen-led program, which lost [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut 9 of 13 bowl appearances]]. WVU partially shed this choking reputation in the 2000s when star QB Pat White took them to four straight bowl wins, which enabled it to be in the right place at the right time as the Big East imploded, finding a place in the Big 12.[[labelnote:*]]WVU's AD at the time, Oliver Luck ([[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueQuarterbacks Andrew's]] father), was a graduate of UT's law school, providing him contacts with many of that state's power brokers.[[/labelnote]] However, the Mountaineers failed to compete for a national title in 2007 thanks to an upset loss to nearby rival Pitt, and the school hasn't come close to that level of national relevance since.\\\
As the highest-profile representative of a small rural state that lacks any pro teams, West Virginians are pretty diehard for the team in Morgantown (unless they're [[Film/WeAreMarshall Marshall]] fans[[note]]This "rivalry" is not particularly strong, as the schools don't play each other anymore and the Herd never managed to beat the Mountaineers when they did; WVU has much fiercer (and competitive) rivalries with schools right across state lines, most notably Pitt.[[/note]]). When WVU fills its stadium, it becomes the largest "city" in the state by a healthy margin.[[labelnote:*]]As of the 2020 census, the population of the state capital of Charleston was about 49,000; Huntington (home to Marshall) was second at a hair less than 47K. Morgantown itself has around 30K.[[/labelnote]][[note]]WVU has possibly the most fragmented campus in America due to its geography, with central campus on the other side of downtown from the other two. Shuttling students between the campuses created megacity-level gridlock, so a federally funded experimental light rail system was built in the 1970s to connect the campuses.[[/note]] Home games at the stadium echo with the sound of "Take Me Home, Country Roads"; Music/JohnDenver himself performed the song at the dedication of the school's hilltop stadium in 1980. Reflecting the school's UsefulNotes/{{Appalachia}}n heritage and success in rifle, games open with the Mountaineer mascot firing a rifle into the air.
[[/folder]]
[[UsefulNotes/FootballBowlSubdivision FBS Conferences]] ([[UsefulNotes/BigTenConferenceFootballPrograms B1G]]) (B12) ([[UsefulNotes/SoutheasternConferenceFootballPrograms SEC]]) | [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootballConferences FCS and Miscellaneous Teams]] (UsefulNotes/IvyLeague)-]]]]]
!!'''Big 12 Conference'''
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_12.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here for a map of the [=B12=] schools.]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b12_map_2024_9.png[[/labelnote]]]]
->'''Year Established:''' 1994\\
'''Current schools:''' Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, [[UsefulNotes/{{Mormonism}} BYU]], Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah, West Virginia\\
'''Current commissioner:''' Brett Yormark\\
'''Reigning champion:''' Texas\\
'''Website:''' [[https://big12sports.com big12sports.com]]
----
The '''Big 12 Conference''' name is also an ArtifactTitle -- for much of its recent history, it had 10 members, expanding to 14 in 2023 and 16 in 2024. The conference is tied to the Sugar Bowl (no, not [[SugarBowl that one]]).[[note]]In the BCS era, they were tied to the Fiesta Bowl.[[/note]] There are also some very storied teams in this conference as well. The Texas-Oklahoma rivalry ranks right up there with Michigan-Ohio State. The Big 12 is also somewhat unique amongst major conferences in that it is a fairly recent merger (officially formed in 1994, but competition didn't start until 1996) between two older historic conferences: the ''Big Eight Conference'' (consisting of the Midwestern schools, which came together in 1928 as the Big Six after the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association dissolved) and several former members of the ''Southwest Conference'' (where the four Texas schools came from, having played in that conference since 1912) after the latter's fragmentation and demise in the fallout from the SMU "Death Penalty". Because of this, the Big 12's teams have less "loyalty" to each other than most other conferences and suffer from numerous internal tensions, divisions, and schools saying ScrewThisImOuttaHere.
Things boiled over in 2011 when Nebraska and Colorado left for the Big Ten and Pac-12, respectively, briefly costing them the right to host a conference championship game and hurting their members' ability to compete for a national title. Missouri and Texas A&M then moved to the SEC the next year, but the conference (barely) survived by replacing them with TCU and (despite the geographical oddity) West Virginia. While they've so far averted the disintegration that once seemed inevitable, the departure of mainstays Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC in 2024 forced another realignment. Shortly after OU and UT announced their departure, the Big 12 raided the American Athletic Conference, accepting Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF, along with FBS independent BYU. The Big 12 then ended up adding all four Pac-12 "Four Corners" schools (Arizona, Arizona State, [[HesBack Colorado]], and Utah) for 2024, shocking many observers by outliving the conference that very nearly destroyed them a decade prior.\\\
The Big 12 is also [[InsistentTerminology unusually insistent]] that their conference name not be written "Big Twelve" or "Big XII"... [[EpicFail despite the official logo consisting primarily of a large "XII"]]. Despite having a full round-robin regular season format from 2011–2022 and no divisions after 2010, they still hold a championship game for their top two seeded teams.
[[folder:Arizona Wildcats]]
!!!Arizona Wildcats
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arizona_1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Bear Down!]]
->'''Location:''' Tucson, AZ\\
'''School Established:''' 1885[[note]]Predating Arizona's statehood by almost three decades.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1899-1930), Border (1931-61), WAC (1962-77), Pac-12 (1978–2023), Big 12 (2024–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 633-499-33 (.558)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 10-11-1 (.477)\\
'''Colors:''' Cardinal and navy\\
'''Stadium:''' Arizona Stadium (capacity 50,782)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Brent Brennan\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Warren B. Woodson, Dick Tomey, Mike Stoops, Rich Rodriguez, Kevin Sumlin\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Max Zendejas, [[Creator/BradWilliamHenke Brad Henke]], Anthony Smith, Michael Bates, Tedy Bruschi, Lance Briggs, Rob Gronkowski, Nick Foles, Khalil Tate\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 6 (3 Border - 1935-36, 1941; 2 WAC - 1964, 1973; 1 Pac-10 - 1993)
----
The '''University of Arizona''' ("Zona" for short) followed its intrastate rival Arizona State to the Pac-12 in 1978. While fairly well renowned as a basketball school, its football team has mostly just ''existed'' in Tucson. Their 1987 season may well have been the most mediocre campaign in college football history: 4 wins, 4 losses, 3 ties.[[note]]Besides the three ties, they had a 1-point loss to Iowa and a 2-point loss to USC, meaning they were 8 points away from a 9-2 record.[[/note]] Their greatest success came in the 1990s; led by the dominating "Desert Swarm" defense of coach Dick Tomey, they won a share of the Pac-10 title in 1993 and earned a higher ranking than conference-winner UCLA in 1997 by winning more games. However, the team cratered after Tomey's departure and have generally underachieved since despite a succession of high-profile coaches and some notable players. The Wildcats' performance truly cratered in 2020, where they went winless in the COVID-shortened season and won just one in the following year. They've moderately improved since, but it remains to be seen how they'll perform after making the move to the Big 12 in 2024.\\\
The Wildcats' intrastate rivalry with Arizona State is one of the oldest in college football, with their Territorial Cup being ''the'' oldest rivalry trophy in the sport, being first awarded in ''1899'' (though there's a technicality there; it hasn't actually been awarded for most of the rivalry's history, only being renewed in the 21st century). Interestingly enough, despite Arizona State having a much stronger overall football history than Arizona, the Wildcats narrowly lead in this long series due to dominating in the early 20th century. With Zona and ASU joining the Big 12, the rivalry will likely continue in that conference.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Arizona State Sun Devils]]
!!!Arizona State Sun Devils
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arizona_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Forks Up!]]
->'''Location:''' Tempe, AZ[[note]]Home to the main campus and university administration; see more below.[[/note]]\\
'''School Established:''' 1886[[note]]Founded as a teachers college, gained its current name and mission in 1958.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1897–1930), Border (1931–61), WAC (1962–77), Pac-12 (1978–2023), Big 12 (2024–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 638-424-24 (.599)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 15-17-1 (.470)\\
'''Colors:''' Maroon and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Mountain America Stadium (capacity 53,599)[[note]]historically Sun Devil Stadium[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kenny Dillingham\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Dan Devine, Frank Kush, John Cooper, Todd Graham, Herm Edwards\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' John Henry Johnson, Charley Taylor, Curley Culp, Danny White, Mike Haynes, John Jefferson, Gerald Riggs, Luis Zendejas, Randall [=McDaniel=], Eric Allen, Darren Woodson, Creator/IsaiahMustafa, Jake Plummer, Pat Tillman, Todd Heap, Terrell Suggs, Vontaze Burfict, Brock Osweiler, Zane Gonzalez, N'Keal Harry, Jayden Daniels\\
'''National Championships:''' 0[[note]]2 unclaimed (1970, 1975)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 17 (7 Border - 1931, 1939-40, 1952, 1957, 1959, 1961; 7 WAC - 1969-73, 1975, 1977; 3 Pac-10 - 1986, 1996, 2007)
----
'''Arizona State University''' was basically the Boise State of mid-20th century--the Western school that dominated its lower-profile conference on the road to becoming a national power. While a fairly weak football program in the early 20th century, future coaching great Dan Devine led them to an undefeated season in 1957. Frank Kush took over and had even greater success, with two undefeated records in '70 and '75, the latter season ending with a #2 final ranking. This success led the Pac-8 to come calling for ASU (and their rival Arizona in a package deal), with them joining the conference in 1978. However, Kush, a DrillSergeantNasty who took full advantage of the desert sun as discipline, was fired in the middle of the '79 season after a scandal emerged over his harsh treatment of his players, including a lawsuit from a former punter who accused Kush of punching him in the mouth during a game.\\\
Arizona State was the first of the newcomers to win a Pac-10 title and make the Rose Bowl, reaching those heights in 1986 and catapulting John Cooper to his Ohio State gig; a decade later, his Buckeyes would narrowly block the Sun Devils from winning the Rose Bowl, costing them a perfect season and a likely national championship. However, in recent decades, having to compete against the conference's other powers and the arrival of the NFL's Cardinals into the Phoenix market (they shared the school's stadium for 18 years, one of the longer co-tenancies of any pro and college football program) helped diminish the program's prominence and performance. ASU will follow its instate rival Arizona to the Big 12 in 2024, though [[https://www.yahoo.com/sports/arizona-state-quickly-makes-itself-152802741.html it was more or less dragged there kicking and screaming]].\\\
The school itself is also of note as having the largest residential and total enrollments of any FBS member... with some ''major'' caveats.[[note]]ASU actually consists of four physical campuses scattered around the Phoenix area, plus a large online operation. The main campus in Tempe has an enrollment of about 58K, with another 20K-plus attending the other Phoenix-area campuses, taking ASU past Texas A&M as the largest residential school in FBS. The online operation adds another 60K-plus, taking ASU past Liberty (16K residential, over 100K online) as the largest overall university in FBS.[[/note]] ASU's mascot, a classical devil [[DevilsPitchfork with a pitchfork]] named "Sparky", hypes up the crowd before games with a video of him stomping on the other team's bus. Mountain America Stadium (Sun Devil Stadium behind the [[ProductPlacementName corporate name]]), located on top of a hill overlooking the main campus, is pretty notorious for being (forgive the pun) hot as hell.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Baylor Bears]]
!!!Baylor Bears
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/baylor.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Sic 'em, Bears!]]
->'''Location:''' Waco, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1845\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1898-1915),[[note]]Did not play in 1906.[[/note]] SWC (1915-96),[[note]]Did not play 1943-44.[[/note]] Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 630-603-44 (.511)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 14-13 (.519)\\
'''Colors:''' Green and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' [=McLane=] Stadium (capacity 45,140)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Dave Aranda\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Art Briles, Matt Rhule\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Hayden Fry, Del Shofner, Jerry Moore, Goose Gonsoulin, Larry Elkins, Mike Singletary, Matt Bryant, Daniel Sepulveda, Jason Smith, Jon Weeks, Phil Taylor, Danny Watkins, Josh Gordon, Robert Griffin III, Shawn Oakman, Corey Coleman\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (7 SWC – 1915-16, 1922, 1924, 1974, 1980, 1994; 3 Big 12 – 2013-14, 2021)
----
A [[StrawmanU conservative Baptist school]], '''Baylor University''' is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas (founded before the state officially joined the U.S. and starting out in the small town of Independence before moving to Waco in the 1880s). The football team enjoyed some success in the first quarter of the 20th century but then fell into a period of mediocrity. This finally ended with a 1974 Southwest Conference title so improbable that even today, Baylor fans call it the "Miracle on the Brazos". After another major lull in the late 1990s and 2000s, they made a major national splash under Art Briles in 2011 thanks to electric Heisman-winning QB Robert Griffin III during a period of massive sports success that greatly raised the regional school's profile; during the 2011-12 "Year of the Bear", all four of its major programs (football, baseball, men's/women's basketball) finished their season ranked and compiled the best shared win percentage of any school in NCAA history. That period also saw the Bears open their new [=McLane=] Stadium, the joint newest in the Power Five,[[note]]Houston's TDECU Stadium also opened in 2014, though the first game at that venue was two days before Baylor's first in its current stadium.[[/note]] on the banks of the Brazos River. One of three FBS stadiums directly accessible by boat, its 2014 opening marked the first time since 1935 that the Bears played on campus. However, there was a dark side to this success--Briles and the Baylor administration were caught covering up a massive string of sexual assaults by players, leading to a housecleaning of not only the football program but also the top administration. Coach Matt Rhule's swift turnaround of the program's on- and off-field reputation earned him an (ultimately disappointing) NFL gig, and after another brief rebuild, the program has remained competitive since.\\\
Baylor nowadays is probably best known as one of the powerhouses of NCAA women's basketball; the Bears (who didn't drop "Lady" from their nickname until 2021–22) pretty much ruled Big 12 basketball in the 21st century under coach Kim Mulkey (2000–21), including winning three national titles and posting a [[FlawlessVictory perfect 40-0 season]] during The Year of the Bear. Men's basketball added a national title of its own in 2021, a highlight in a program that has been historically associated with tragedies.[[note]]Most notably a catastrophic 1927 bus accident that resulted in the deaths of ten players and the 2003 murder of one player by a former teammate, with the investigation of that crime leading to the uncovering of massive NCAA rules violations that resulted in mass firings and NCAA sanctions; yes, that has been a grim trend at Baylor for many years.[[/note]] Football is regardless a very important part of campus culture; all freshmen participate in the "Baylor Line" that welcomes the team on-field in home games and sits behind opposing teams to heckle them. The school keeps two real black bears, Joy and Lady, as mascots in an on-campus enclosure.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:BYU Cougars]]
!!!BYU Cougars
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/byu.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Rise and Shout!]]
->'''Location:''' Provo, UT\\
'''School Established:''' 1875[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, when school namesake Brigham Young established "Brigham Young Academy". However, BYA was more like a high school than a modern university. College-level instruction didn't start until 1892; a college department wasn't established until 1896 (the same year it was officially absorbed by the LDS Church); it didn't become BYU until 1903, and it didn't receive full accreditation as a university until the 1920s.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' RMAC (1922–37),[[note]]The school's first football season was in 1896, but as noted above it was still more of a high school than a college. After an accidental football-related death in Utah in 1900, the LDS Church banned football at all of its schools until 1919. 1922 was the first year in which BYU played solely against colleges.[[/note]] Skyline (1938–61), WAC (1962–98), MW (1999–2010), Ind. (2011–22), Big 12 (2023–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 617–444–27 (.580)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17–22–1 (.438)\\
'''Colors:''' Blue and white\\
'''Stadium:''' [=LaVell=] Edwards Stadium (capacity 63,470)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kalani Sitake\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' [=LaVell=] Edwards\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Virgil Carter, Gifford Nielsen, Brian Billick, Todd Christensen, Marc Wilson, Andy Reid, Jim [=McMahon=], Bart Oates, Kyle Whittingham, Steve Young, Robbie Bosco, Vai Sikahema, Jason Chaffetz, Ty Detmer, Steve Sarkisian, Taysom Hill, Jamaal Williams, Zach Wilson, Puka Nacua\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 (1984)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 23 (19 WAC – 1965, 1974, 1976–85, 1989–93, 1995-96; 4 MW – 1999, 2001, 2006–07)
----
'''Brigham Young University''' is the second FBS member to have been founded by early UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}} leader Brigham Young,[[note]]Read further down for the first.[[/note]] though it wouldn't actually be absorbed by the LDS Church until 1896. BYU had done little in football before [=LaVell=] Edwards, who had arrived at "The Y" as an assistant in 1962, was elevated to the head coaching position in 1972. A major contribution to this turn in football fortunes was the LDS Church disavowing its former anti-Black doctrines and practices in 1978, aiding the Cougars' recruiting; BYU did not admit Black students at all through the 1960s, far after most universities outside of the South, and its team accepted its first Black players in Edwards' first season, making it among the last programs to integrate. Edwards installed a high-powered passing offense that brought the Cougars quick success, helping them claim a national title in 1984 and produce a Heisman winner in Ty Detmer in 1990; they remain the last non-major school to win that latter award. BYU in this era became known as "Quarterback U"; under Edwards, ''nine'' BYU quarterbacks led the NCAA in either passing yards, touchdowns, or rating, more than any other ''program'' in college football history. Since Edwards' retirement after 2000, BYU has remained a generally winning program, though not quite at its 1980s heights.\\\
BYU is well-known for [[StrawmanU taking its faith very seriously]]. The school has a strict honor code that reflects its church's doctrine, and every so often a player will get suspended or dismissed for a violation. Many of its players are also a bit older than typical college athletes due to being returned Mormon missionaries; the LDS Church strongly encourages its young men to spend two years as such, with most doing so immediately after high school graduation.[[labelnote:*]]Before the church lowered the required age for male missionaries from 19 to 18 in the early 2010s, most had to interrupt their college education; the NCAA has long held that missionary service does not count against an athlete's college eligibility. BYU's heavy use of returned missionaries has drawn minor criticism, but because they are not allowed to engage in athletic training during their terms and have minimal time for intense physical activity, it's accepted that BYU gains no significant advantage.[[/labelnote]] BYU also has a firm policy against Sunday play in any sport; while this generally doesn't affect football, it has dramatically affected other sports and caused headaches for scheduling of NCAA championship events. Though it bounced around a number of smaller conferences, BYU felt that it could make far more money as an independent with its built-in LDS following, following the model that Notre Dame established for Catholic fans, and set out on its own in 2011.[[labelnote:*]]The school then placed most of its non-football sports in the West Coast Conference, which doesn't play football and consists entirely of private faith-based schools that don't schedule any in-conference sporting events on Sunday.[[/labelnote]] Nonetheless, a Power Five slot remained a goal for BYU, which it finally reached when it joined the Big 12 in 2023. The Big 12 allowed BYU to maintain its no-Sunday policy; perhaps not coincidentally, it has two other faith-based members (Baylor and TCU, though both will play on Sundays).
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Cincinnati Bearcats]]
!!!Cincinnati Bearcats
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cincinnati.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Down the Drive!]]
->'''Location:''' Cincinnati, OH\\
'''School Established:''' 1819[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, when "Cincinnati College" and the "Medical College of Ohio" were established. The undergraduate college closed in 1825 and was reestablished in 1835; the medical school operated without interruption. The undergrad college, after absorbing an existing law school, became the University of Cincinnati in 1870, with the medical school joining UC in 1896. Much like Louisville, it was a municipal school for much of its history; it didn't become part of Ohio's state system until 1977.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1885-1909, 1937-46, 1953-56, 1970-95)[[note]]Did not play in 1907 or 1943-44.[[/note]], OAC (1910-25), Buckeye (1926-36), MAC (1947-52), MVC (1957-69), CUSA (1996-2004), Big East (2005-12), American (2013-22), Big 12 (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 661-606-50 (.521)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 10–12 (.454)[[note]]The NCAA doesn't recognize their 1949 Glass Bowl win, but Cincinnati claims it.[[/note]]\\
'''Colors:''' Red and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Nippert Stadium (capacity 38,088)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Scott Satterfield\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Frank Cavanaugh, Sid Gillman, Watson Brown, Tim Murphy, Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly, Tommy Tuberville, Luke Fickell\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Greg Cook, Urban Meyer, Gino Guidugli, Brent Celek, Kevin Huber, Jason and Travis Kelce, Desmond Ridder, Sauce Gardner\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 16 (2 Buckeye – 1933-34; 4 MAC – 1947, 1949, 1951-52; 2 MVC – 1963-64; 1 CUSA – 2002; 4 Big East – 2008-09, 2011-12; 3 American – 2014, 2020-21)
----
The '''University of Cincinnati''' is primarily known as a basketball school (with back-to-back national titles in the early '60s) and has had an up-and-down history in football. Its historic high peak was serving as Sid Gillman's final college coaching stop before the launch of his pro career. After many years of under achieving and bouncing around second-tier conferences (including being a founding member of CUSA), UC joined the Big East in 2005 and soon surged to national prominence under Brian Kelly in the late 2000s, coming a second away from qualifying for the National Championship game in 2009[[note]]Had Texas lost a controversial Big 12 championship game where the referees gave them extra time for a game-winning field goal, unbeaten Cincinnati would have leapfrogged them into the title game instead.[[/note]] (helping him land his position at Notre Dame). Under coach Luke Fickell, the school became one of the most esteemed non-Power Five programs, and became the only Group of Five program to reach the four-team CFP in 2021 (even if they were quickly bested by Alabama). They wouldn't be Group of Five for long, though, as they took a spot in the Big 12 in 2023.\\\
UC has a fairly close professional relationship with its city's pro team, the Bengals. The Bengals long used UC's indoor practice facilities and played their first few seasons in the school's historic Nippert Stadium. (They have returned the favor by letting the Bearcats play in their own stadium during renovations or major games.) Nippert is one of the oldest venues in college sports. The stands were officially dedicated in 1924, but the field has been in use since at least 1915. It is named after Jimmy Nippert, a UC player who died from blood poisoning in 1923 after a spike wound sustained during a game became infected, most likely from droppings left on the field from a chicken race earlier in the day; his grandfather was a co-founder of Procter & Gamble and paid to have his grandson honored in the name.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colorado Buffaloes]]
!!!Colorado Buffaloes
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/colorado_1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Sko Buffs!]]
->'''Location:''' Boulder, CO\\
'''School Established:''' 1876\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1890–92, 1905), CFA[[labelnote:*]]Colorado Football Association, which existed from 1890–1908[[/labelnote]] (1893–1904, 1906–08), RMAC[[labelnote:*]]Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, now D-II[[/labelnote]] (1909–1937), Skyline[[labelnote:*]]formally the Mountain States Athletic Conference but informally known as the Big Seven, Skyline Six, and Skyline Eight during its existence from 1938–62[[/labelnote]] (1938–47), Big 8 (1948–95), Big 12 (1996–2010, 2024–), Pac-12 (2011–2023)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 723-544-36 (.569)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 12-18 (.400)\\
'''Colors:''' Silver, black, and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Folsom Field (capacity 50,183)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Deion Sanders\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Fred Folsom, Chuck Fairbanks, Bill [=McCartney=], Gary Barnett, Mel Tucker\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Byron "Whizzer" White, Tom Brookshier, Hale Irwin, Cliff Branch, Bo Matthews, J.V. Cain, [[Wrestling/{{Vader}} Leon White]], Eric Bieniemy, Darian Hagan, Tom Rouen, Rashaan Salaam, Rae Carruth, Kordell Stewart, Joel Klatt, Mason Crosby, David Bakhtiari, Shadeur Sanders, Travis Hunter\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 (1990)\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 27 (8 CFA - 1894-97, 1901-03, 1908; 9 RMAC - 1909-11, 1913, 1923-24, 1934-35, 1937; 4 Skyline - 1939, 1942-44; 5 Big Eight - 1961, 1976, 1989-91; 1 Big 12 - 2001)
----
The '''University of Colorado Boulder''' (the flagship campus of the state's university system, locally abbreviated as "CU") is unsurprisingly home to a powerhouse skiing program, being located in the hub of the sports' popularity (the school has 19 national titles in men's/co-ed skiing). Its other sports have not been as successful,[[note]]though 1960s DB Hale Irwin won an individual NCAA golf title that proved to be the launching pad for his Hall of Fame career in that sport[[/note]] but football has had some moments of prominence. The Colorado football program was a regional power in the late 19th/early 20th century. The hiring of pro coach Chuck Fairbanks in the early '80s brought unwelcome attention when the team cratered under his tenure. Thankfully, his successor Bill [=McCartney=] elevated the program to its greatest heights, earning a split national title in 1990 and producing a Heisman winner in RB Rashaan Salaam in 1994.\\\
The team receded from national prominence when [=McCartney=] retired after Salaam's Heisman win to focus on his Christian ministry organization. The Buffaloes ''could'' have become the first FBS team ever to field a woman, but placekicker Katie Hnida[[labelnote:*]](The "H" is silent.)[[/labelnote]], though making the team and suiting up for a bowl game, never saw the field. Hnida would later report after leaving the school that she had been sexually assaulted by a teammate, one of many controversies that forced the school to fire head coach Gary Barnett and incur several sanctions; the Buffaloes subsequently endured a decade of losing seasons and still have yet to return to their former success. In the midst of this decline, when the Pac-10 tried to swipe up half of the Big 12 in 2010, Colorado was the only school to actually follow through and make the leap. The move didn't last long: Colorado will return to the Big 12 in 2024, now coached by Deion Sanders, whose Hall of Fame playing resume and larger-than-life persona greatly elevated the program's profile (if not its performance).\\\
Colorado's stadium, Folsom Field (named for an early coach who led the team to three straight undefeated seasons in 1909-11), is one of the most picturesque in the nation, located right up against the Rocky Mountains and using the unique "Tuscan Vernacular Revival" architecture of the surrounding campus. Folsom has the highest elevation of any Power Five stadium and the third highest of any in the FBS behind Wyoming and Air Force. The program has strong in-state rivalries with the latter school and with Colorado State. Since adopting the "Buffalo" name in 1934 (prior teams were the "Silver Helmets" or "Frontiersmen"), the school has run an actual buffalo (i.e., bison) named Ralphie along the sidelines of said field.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Houston Cougars]]
!!!Houston Cougars
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/houston.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Whose House? Coogs House!]]
->'''Location:''' UsefulNotes/{{Houston}}, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1927[[note]]As Houston Junior College, initially operated out of a high school; became a four-year university and took its current name in 1934, received a permanent campus in 1939. Officially went by "University of Houston-University Park" from 1983-91.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Lone Star (1946-48), Gulf Coast (1949-50), MVC (1951-59), Ind. (1960-75), SWC (1976-95), CUSA (1996-2012), American (2013-22), Big 12 (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 472-394-15 (.544)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 13–16–1 (.450)\\
'''Colors:''' Scarlet and white\\
'''Stadium:''' TDECU Stadium (capacity 40,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Willie Fritz\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Bill Yeoman, Jack Pardee, Art Briles, Kevin Sumlin, Tom Herman\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Pat Studstill, Wade Phillips, Elmo Wright, Robert Newhouse, Andre Ware, David and Jimmy Klingler, Case Keenum\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 11 (4 MVC – 1952, 1956-57, 1959; 4 SWC – 1976, 1978-79, 1984; 2 C-USA – 1996, 2006; 1 American – 2015)
----
The '''University of Houston''' is one of the largest public universities in Texas. It is most highly decorated in athletics for its golf program, which won an NCAA record ''16'' national titles from the 1950s-'80s[[labelnote:*]]and, for a season in the late '70s, featured future sportscasting icon Jim Nantz[[/labelnote]], and is also known for its successful basketball program, best known for its "Phi Slama Jama" teams of the early '80s that produced [[UsefulNotes/NotableNBAPlayersAThroughF Clyde Drexler]] and [[UsefulNotes/NotableNBAPlayersNThroughZ Hakeem Olajuwon]], Hall of Famers who later brought their college town two NBA titles. The Cougar football program has quite the history of its own, being the point of origin for multiple innovative offenses that also generated multiple NCAA record-breaking quarterbacks. Coach Bill Yeoman used his innovative Veer offense to take the team from a middling independent to a powerhouse of the Southwest during his quarter-century as head coach (1962-86), including a record-setting 100-6 blowout of Tulsa in 1968, only to be fired from the program he helped build due to recruitment violations that essentially amounted to paying players.\\\
Despite the sanctions Yeoman incurred, successor Jack Pardee kept the Cougars successful on the field through his innovative Run N' Shoot offense, which helped Andre Ware smash NCAA passing records in 1989 and win the Heisman. However, said sanctions also included a TV ban that ensured almost nobody actually ''saw'' many of these games, and Pardee was quickly poached by Houston's Oilers (which got their start playing in the university's stadium). The school continued its reputation for prolific passing numbers when David Klingler set many records of his own the following year, but his and Ware's failures at the pro level led to their accomplishments being credited to Houston's system and poor competition. After the team spent a decade as a bottom-feeder, QB Case Keenum helped revive their prospects while shattering many NCAA career passing records during his long tenure as starter (2007-11).\\\
Houston's late arrival to the SWC, history with sanctions, and peaks and valleys during its time in the weak C-USA have largely excluded it from consideration as one of Texas' premier programs. However, as an urban school located in one of Texas's biggest metro areas, donors have pushed hard for years to get the program up to the next level. Most notable among these is Houston Rockets owner and UH alum Tilman Fertitta, whose name graces the Cougars' basketball arena and has made UH the most recent example of a billionaire alum's pet program, following in the tradition set by charter Big 12 member Oklahoma State and incoming Big Ten member Oregon. It ''just'' missed joining the Big East before that conference collapsed, and Houston had to settle for the American despite the school investing millions into building a new stadium to prep for the leap.[[note]]Despite having a stadium built right on-campus from the school's inception, it was fairly small and not actually owned by the university until 1970; the team shared the venue of hated crosstown rival Rice in the '50s and early '60s and then spent more than 30 years in the famous Astrodome, though it left that venue in the late '90s when the dome became obsolete. They even cohabited with the [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueSoccer Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer]] for a few years. Said on-campus stadium was demolished in 2012 to make way for the current one, which opened in 2014.[[/note]] However, all those years of campaigning finally paid off when the impending departure of Oklahoma and Texas for the SEC enabled UH's promotion to the Big 12 for 2023.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Iowa State Cyclones]]
!!!Iowa State Cyclones
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iowa_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Cyclone Power!]]
->'''Location:''' Ames, IA\\
'''School Established:''' 1858[[note]]...is the "official" founding date, when the state chartered the [[OverlyLongName "Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm"]]. However, it didn't actually enroll students until 1868, and didn't start college-level instruction until 1869. It became "Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts" in 1898 and "Iowa State University of Science and Technology" in 1959. However, the short form of Iowa State University is used even in official documents such as diplomas.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892-1907), MVIAA (1908-27), Big 8 (1928-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 566-678-46 (.457)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 5-13 (.278)\\
'''Colors:''' Cardinal and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' Jack Trice Stadium (capacity 61,500)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Matt Campbell\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pop Warner, Mike Michalske, Johnny Majors, Earle Bruce\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Jack Trice, John Cooper, Troy Davis, Brock Purdy, Breece Hall\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 2 (MVIAA – 1911, 1912)
----
'''Iowa State University of Science and Technology''''s football program was one of the early stops for Pop Warner and had some success in the late 19th/early 20th century. However, it has largely been a bottom feeder ever since, sitting in the shadow of their intrastate rival Iowa. Like the Hawkeyes, the Cyclones are much better known for their wrestling program, which has won eight national championships and produced Cael Sanderson, commonly held up as the greatest American college wrestler ever. The football team returned to relevance in the late 2010s under coach Matt Campbell, who strung together more consecutive winning seasons than the Cyclones had seen in over a century.\\\
During Warner's brief tenure at the school in 1895, Iowa State's athletic programs were renamed from their old cardinal nickname to one referencing the natural disasters common to the Iowa area. Since it's hard to make a tornado costume, their official mascot remains a cardinal (named "Cy"). Their home venue of Jack Trice Stadium is the sole FBS venue named after an African American, though there is a tragic reason for that; Trice was the school's first Black player, but he was trampled to death in 1923 during his second game, which resulted in Iowa State not playing Minnesota for over 60 years.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Kansas Jayhawks]]
!!!Kansas Jayhawks
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kansas.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Rock Chalk Jayhawk! K-U!]]
->'''Location:''' Lawrence, KS\\
'''School Established:''' 1865[[note]]The university officially dates its founding from the first meeting of its governing board. It was formally chartered in 1863, began instruction as a college prep school in 1866, and taught its first college-level classes in 1869.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' KIAA[[labelnote:*]]Kansas Intercollegiate Athletic Association; now an NAIA league, with the word "Association" replaced by "Conference"[[/labelnote]] (1890-91), WIUFA (1892-97), Ind. (1898-1906), MVIAA (1907-28), Big 8 (1929-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 603-681-58 (.471)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 7-7 (.500)\\
'''Colors:''' KU blue and crimson\\
'''Stadium:''' David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium (capacity 47,000)[[note]]Closed for renovations in 2024. The Jayhawks will play their nonconference schedule at Children's Mercy Park (18,467), home to Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City, and their conference games at the Kansas City Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium (76,416).[[/note]]\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Lance Leipold\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Fielding H. Yost, Mark Mangino, Turner Gill, Les Miles\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Bennie Owen, Mike [=McCormack=], Bud Adams, UsefulNotes/BobDole, John Hadl, Gale Sayers, Bobby Douglass, John Riggins, David Verser, Tony Sands, Dana Stubblefield, Jon Cornish\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 6 (MVIAA/Big Eight – 1908, 1923, 1930, 1946-47, 1968)
----
The '''University of Kansas''' (locally abbreviated "KU") is best known for its historic and prestigious men's basketball program, which was founded by basketball inventor James Naismith himself[[note]]ironically, he was the only men's basketball coach to end his KU tenure with a losing record[[/note]], produced UsefulNotes/WiltChamberlain, and holds numerous records and honors (including the second-most wins,[[note]]Before being forced by the NCAA to vacate 15 wins from its 2017–18 season due to fielding an ineligible player, it had the most wins.[[/note]] third-highest lifetime win percentage, four national titles, and the most conference titles of any program). Its football program is ''much'' less esteemed, though it is historic in the sense that it is the only original member of the MVIAA to still be in the Big 12. The Jayhawks have been pretty bad pretty much since that conference dissolved in the 1920s, including a winless 1954 season. The team had an anomalous breakout year in 2007 under HC Mark Mangino only to fall ''very'' hard back to earth quickly after, reclaiming its ButtMonkey status with a vengeance. From 2010-2021, the "Nayhawks" failed to post more than three wins in a season, going completely winless in 2015 and 2020. However, the arrival of current coach Lance Leipold after the 2020 disaster immediately turned things around. In 2022, the Jayhawks surpassed their best win count in over a decade ''just to start their season'' and made it to bowl eligibility; they posted their first winning record since 2008 the next year.\\\
The "Jayhawk" name does not refer to a real animal; it is a reference to the "Jayhawkers" who violently resisted the encroachment of slavery during Kansas's time as a territory in the late 1850s (but their mascot/logo is still a cartoon bird). This history is reflected in the school's most heated historic rivalry with Missouri (where most of the slavers came from), though that has largely gone dormant since Missouri left the conference, leaving the intrastate rivalry with Kansas State to fill the void.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Kansas State Wildcats]]
!!!Kansas State Wildcats
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kansas_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:EMAW!]]
->'''Location:''' Manhattan, KS\\
'''School Established:''' 1863[[note]]as "Kansas State Agricultural College"; became "Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science" in 1931. The current formal name was adopted in 1959 when "College" was replaced by "University". However, like Iowa State, the short form of "Kansas State University" is generally used even in formal documents.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1896-98),[[note]]First game in 1893.[[/note]] KIAA (1899-1912), MVIAA (1913-27), Big 8 (1928-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 570-671-41 (.462)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 11-14 (.462)\\
'''Colors:''' Royal purple and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Bill Snyder Family Stadium (capacity 50,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Chris Klieman\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pappy Waldorf, Sam Francis, Bill Snyder\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Larry Brown (RB), Lynn Dickey, Steve Grogan, Gary Patterson, Kevin and Tyler Lockett, Michael Bishop, Martín Gramática, Darren Sproles, Jordy Nelson, Josh Freeman\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 7 (3 KIAA – 1909-10, 1912; 1 Big Six – 1934; 3 Big 12 – 2003, 2012, 2022)
----
For decades, '''Kansas State University''''s football program was the [[ButtMonkey absolute worst]] in Division I-A football, having put up five winless seasons against just four ''winning'' ones in the half-century before the hiring of Bill Snyder in 1989; that included a period of 28 straight losses from 1945-48, a [[MedalOfDishonor then-record in futility]] that has only been surpassed by one D-I school (Northwestern) in the decades since. In one of the most remarkable turnarounds in college football, Snyder transformed the Wildcats into contenders during his 27 (nonconsecutive) seasons as head coach. Despite seeing general success while a member of the Big 12, the team's historic win record is still the worst in the conference, and the school is one of only two Power Five colleges to have [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut never won a national championship in any team sport]].[[note]]Not counting Pitt or UCF; neither has won an NCAA-awarded team title, but both claim at least one football natty, and Pitt also claims two pre-NCAA men's basketball titles.[[/note]] The school's struggles to get over the hump led to "The Kansas State Rule": in 1998, the Wildcats remained at #3 in the BCS rankings after a heartbreaking double-overtime loss to Texas A&M in the Big 12 Championship Game (costing them a spot in the National Championship Game) but they were snubbed for an at-large bid to one of the other BCS bowls in favor of #8 Florida and #9 Wisconsin. The very next year, a rule was put in place that if a team from an automatic qualifying conference finished at #3 but did not win their conference, they would have to be given an at-large bid before any team ranked #4 or lower could[[note]]If the #3 team ''was'' a conference champion, the same would apply to the #4 team[[/note]]. This failed to help the Wildcats, however, who in 1999 wound up at #6 and again were snubbed in favor of highly prestigious #8 Michigan.\\\
K-State renamed its stadium after Snyder following his [[TenMinuteRetirement first retirement]] in 2005. The venue is one of the more visually distinctive in college football, with limestone battlements resembling a castle. The Wildcats' logo is known as the "Powercat", while their actual mascot "Willie the Wildcat" is best known for [[BadassBiker donning a leather jacket and leading a procession of bikers around the field]] on the school's annual "Harley Day". K-State has strong rivalries with fellow long-suffering Great Plains programs Kansas and Iowa State; it used to have a strong one against Nebraska as well before the Cornhuskers switched conferences.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Oklahoma State Cowboys]]
!!!Oklahoma State Cowboys
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oklahoma_state.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Pistol's Firing!]]
->'''Location:''' Stillwater, OK\\
'''School Established:''' 1890[[note]]as "Oklahoma Territorial Agricultural and Mechanical College" or "Oklahoma A&M", with classes starting in 1891. The word "Territorial" was dropped upon Oklahoma statehood in 1907. Became "Oklahoma State University of Agricultural and Applied Sciences" in 1958; officially shortened to Oklahoma State University in 1980, with the main campus' location of Stillwater appended not long after when the OSU system was established with four general campuses and two health sciences campuses.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1901-14, 1957-59), SWC (1915-24), MVIAA (1925-27), MVC (1928-56), Big 8 (1960-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 638-572-47 (.526)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 22-12 (.647)\\
'''Colors:''' Orange and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Boone Pickens Stadium (capacity 55,509)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Mike Gundy\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Pappy Waldorf, Jimmy Johnson, Les Miles\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Bob Fenimore, Buddy Ryan, Terry Miller, Dexter Manley, Leslie O'Neal, Mike Gundy, Thurman Thomas, Barry Sanders, Kevin Williams, Rashaun Woods, Dez Bryant, Brandon Weeden, Justin Gilbert, Justin Blackmon, Tyreek Hill[[labelnote:*]]began at OK State, ended college career at West Alabama[[/labelnote]], Mason Rudolph\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 (1945)[[note]]1 unclaimed (2011)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 10 (8 MVC - 1926, 1930, 1932-33, 1944-45, 1948, 1953; 1 Big Eight - 1976; 1 Big 12 - 2011)
----
While its football program is AlwaysSecondBest to its dominant intrastate rival, '''Oklahoma State University-Stillwater''' actually claims the most national athletic titles of any school outside the Pac-12 (a distant fourth to Stanford, UCLA, and USC) thanks to its wrestling program, which has won ''34'' championships (the majority of them pre-1970), and golf, which has won 11. On the football field, the Cowboys (known as the "Aggies" or "Tigers" pre-1958, when the school was called Oklahoma A&M, and more colloquially known today as the "Pokes") have fluctuated massively in strength. The program was retroactively awarded a national title for its undefeated 1945 season, but it collapsed to a losing record the following year. In 1951, the Cowboys had a serious "never live it down" episode when one of their players deliberately injured Drake's African-American star Johnny Bright in what most concluded was a racially motivated attack. After going under .500 through the '60s, the team began to recover, culminating in the production of its sole Heisman winner, legendary RB Barry Sanders, in 1988. Unfortunately, Sanders' departure coincided with a host of sanctions that again cratered the program's win record. Thankfully, the hiring of current coach and former star QB Mike Gundy in 2005 set the school on the longest run of sustained success in its history.\\\
OK State's athletic program is also notable for being a pet project of a billionaire alum--in this case, late energy investor and football stadium namesake T. Boone Pickens, who funded the expansion of the stadium and many other OSU projects, both athletic and academic, to the tune of over $1 billion. The prominence of the school's wrestling program is reflected in the position of its arena (also used by the basketball teams) right behind the eastern end zone of the U-shaped Boone. Diehard Poke fans known as "paddle people" sit in the front rows of said stadium and make noise by smacking the sideline wall with giant orange paddles.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:TCU Horned Frogs]]
!!!TCU Horned Frogs
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tcu.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Riff Ram Bah Zoo!]]
->'''Location:''' [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Fort Worth, TX]]\\
'''School Established:''' 1873[[note]]as "Add-Ran Male & Female College"; became "Add-Ran Christian University" in 1889 and Texas Christian University in 1902.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1896-1913, 1921-22),[[note]]Did not play in 1900.[[/note]] TIAA[[labelnote:*]]Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which operated from 1909-32[[/labelnote]] (1914-20), SWC (1923-95), WAC (1996-2000), C-USA (2001-04), MW (2005-11), Big 12 (2012-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 684-574-57 (.541)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 18-17-1 (.514)\\
'''Colors:''' Purple and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Amon G. Carter Stadium (capacity 47,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Sonny Dykes\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Francis Schmidt, Dutch Meyer, Dennis Franchione, Gary Patterson\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Dutch Meyer, Phil Handler, Johnny Vaught, Ki Aldrich, Davey O'Brien, Sammy Baugh, Bob Lilly, Larry Brown (CB), [=LaDainian=] Tomlinson, Andy Dalton, Trevone Boykin, Jalen Reagor, Jeff Gladney, Max Duggan\\
'''National Championships:''' 2 (1935, 1938)[[note]]1 unclaimed (2010)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 18 (1 TIAA – 1920; 9 SWC – 1929, 1932, 1938, 1944, 1951, 1955, 1958-59, 1994; 2 WAC – 1999, 2000; 1 C-USA – 2002; 4 MW – 2005, 2009-11; 1 Big 12 – 2014)
----
The first coeducational college in Texas, '''Texas Christian University''' leaped into football prominence in the 1930s as one of the first teams to make passing the cornerstone of its offense. Sammy Baugh was one of the game's first star passers, and his successor Davey O'Brien was the first QB to win the Heisman Trophy, as he led TCU to an undefeated 1938 season and the second of two national titles in that decade. However, its status as a smaller private school among the state-run behemoths in the Southwest Conference finally caught up with them, and the Horned Frogs were generally terrible in the '60s through the '90s. After head coach Jim Pittman died on the sideline in 1971, they failed to post a winning season from 1972-83, received NCAA sanctions for player benefits (along with virtually every other SWC school) immediately after breaking that streak, and ultimately were left behind when the SWC merged with the Big Eight to form the Big 12.\\\
However, HC Dennis Franchione (and dominant Heisman finalist [=LaDainian=] Tomlinson) began to turn things around in the late 1990s, and when Gary Patterson took over in 2000, TCU turned into a full feel-good revival in the 21st century, climbing up the ranks of FBS conferences and serving as a regular BCS Buster. An undefeated season in 2010 helped them finally gain entry to the Big 12 in 2012, and the program was even on the cusp of an appearance in the first CFP in 2014 before the committee unexpectedly dropped them out of the Top 4. Patterson was fired during the 2021 season after a slide to mediocrity, but TCU ''immediately'' jumped back to contention the following year with an undefeated regular season. Though the Frogs crashed out in overtime of the Big 12 title game, their performance was still sufficient to earn the school its first CFP appearance and to become the first Big 12 team to reach the CFP National Championship game, making them by most metrics the biggest dark horse to make it that far in the modern era (though they ultimately got [[CurbStompBattle historically blown out by Georgia 65-7]]).\\\
The school maintains strong rivalries with its fellow Texas schools, with perhaps the most notable being the "Iron Skillet" matchup with SMU (named after the tool used by one SMU fan to cook some frog legs in a memorable pregame). For what it's worth, the university's unique mascot is ''not'' a frog; it's the state lizard of Texas. In recent years, said mascot has received another nickname: [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} the Hypnotoad]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Texas Tech Red Raiders]]
!!!Texas Tech Red Raiders
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/texas_tech.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Guns Up!]]
->'''Location:''' Lubbock, TX\\
'''School Established:''' 1923[[note]]as the "Texas Technological College"; classes started in 1925. A push to rename it Texas State University in TheSixties failed (the former Southwest Texas State took that name in 2003). Renamed Texas Tech University (''NOT'' "Technological") in 1969.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1925-31, 1957-59), Border (1932-56), SWC (1960-95), Big 12 (1996-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 597-481-32 (.552)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17-23-1 (.427)\\
'''Colors:''' Scarlet and black\\
'''Stadium:''' Jones AT&T Stadium (capacity 60,862)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Joey [=McGuire=]\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Jerry Moore, Mike Leach, Tommy Tuberville\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Dave Parks, Gabriel Rivera, Timmy Smith, Zach Thomas, Lincoln Riley, Kliff Kingsbury, Wes Welker, B.J. Symons, Taurean Henderson, Graham Harrell, Michael Crabtree, Baker Mayfield[[labelnote:*]]played one season, had far more success at Oklahoma[[/labelnote]], Patrick Mahomes\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 11 (9 Border – 1937, 1942, 1947-49, 1951, 1953-55; 2 SWC – 1976, 1994)
----
'''Texas Tech University''' was long considered a junior sibling to Texas and Texas A&M among the state-run Texas schools. Efforts to lure Texas to the Big Ten or Pac-10 in 2010 were considered hobbled by the perception that any expansion scenario involving the Longhorns would require them to also admit the much less desirable Tech, which has never finished in the AP Poll's Top 10 and is one of the most geographically isolated Power 5 schools. Even still, the Red Raiders have managed to carve out a solid if not spectacular football legacy. The arrival of HC Mike Leach in 2000 jump-started their greatest period of success, with his pass-heavy Air Raid offense bringing a succession of record-breaking quarterbacks to the team, though some football observers derided them as marginally-talented "system [=QBs=]". One of those [=QBs=], Kliff Kingsbury, later took over as HC in 2013. Kingsbury was cut loose after six unspectacular seasons most notable for producing Patrick Mahomes.\\\
Prior to adopting the "Red Raiders" moniker in 1937, the team were known as the Matadors, reflecting the Spanish Renaissance architecture that distinguishes the Texas Tech campus and stadium. The team and its fans now embrace cowboy imagery, with a Masked Rider mascot and a signature FingerGun hand gesture.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:UCF Knights]]
!!!UCF Knights
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ucf.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Charge On!]]
->'''Location:''' UsefulNotes/{{Orlando}}, FL[[note]]actually in unincorporated Orange County, though with an Orlando mailing address[[/note]]\\
'''School Established:''' 1963[[note]]As Florida Technological University; held first classes in 1968, adopted current name in 1979.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (D-III 1979–81, D-II 1982–89, I-AA 1990–95, I-A 1996–2001), MAC (2002-04), CUSA (2005-12), American (2013-22), Big 12 (2023-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 295-233-1 (.558)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 6–9 (.400)\\
'''Colors:''' Black and gold\\
'''Stadium:''' FBC Mortgage Stadium (capacity 44,206)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Gus Malzahn\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Lou Saban, George O'Leary, Scott Frost, Josh Heupel\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Daunte Culpepper, Brandon Marshall, Matt Prater, Kevin Smith, Blake Bortles, Latavius Murray, Shaquill and Shaquem Griffin, [=McKenzie=] Milton, Dillon Gabriel\\
'''National Championships:''' 1 claimed (2017)[[note]]By an obscure computer ranking that's nonetheless an NCAA-recognized FBS championship selector; see more below.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 6 (2 C-USA – 2007, 2010; 4 American – 2013-14, 2017-18)
----
While the '''University of Central Florida''' is one of the newer D-I schools by founding date and start of football and is currently the youngest school in the Power 5, it has grown at a tremendous pace and now has the largest undergraduate enrollment of any single university campus in the country (close to 60,000), with only Texas A&M having a larger total enrollment.[[note]]While incoming Big 12 member Arizona State and Conference USA member Liberty have considerably larger total enrollments than either UCF or A&M, it's only because of both schools' online operations (ASU's being large, and LU's being absolutely ''massive''). The distinction of most on-campus students belongs to ASU, but its enrollment is split between ''four'' Phoenix-area campuses; the main campus in Tempe has fewer total students than UCF has undergrads.[[/note]] The Knights football program had a momentous ascent from their first season in D-III in 1979, becoming the first football program to play at all four current levels of NCAA competition (James Madison became the second in 2022). Three years later, UCF moved to D-II, and later managed to lure former NFL coach Lou Saban, though he enjoyed far less success than in the pros, stepping down in the middle of his second season. The university nearly dropped football, but it became successful in D-II in the last half of the '80s and took the jump to Division I-AA (now FCS) in 1990. In the then-Golden Knights' first I-AA season, they became the first team ever to qualify for the I-AA/FCS playoffs in their first season of eligibility and enjoyed reasonable success until making the jump to I-A/FBS in 1996. After modest success as an independent and a decline in the early 2000s as a football-only member of the MAC, the program was reinvigorated by the arrival of HC George O'Leary in 2004. While the Knights went winless in their last MAC season, they turned things around upon joining CUSA in 2005, winning two conference titles and playing for two others. O'Leary also oversaw UCF's move to The American in 2013, where it won conference titles in its first two seasons. However, his tenure [[BookEnds ended in 2015 as it began]]--with a winless season.\\\
Scott Frost quickly righted the ship, making a bowl in his first season alongside program-redefining freshman QB [=McKenzie=] Milton. 2017 saw Milton set multiple school records while leading the Knights to an unbeaten season, finishing it off in the Peach Bowl by beating an Auburn team that had laid double-digit defeats on both participants in that year's CFP title game (Alabama and Georgia). The program claimed a national title on the basis of a single computer ranking, with Bama the consensus champion; Floridians were so incensed that the school was not even given the opportunity to fight for the title in the Playoff that the state legislature ''passed a resolution'' recognizing it. The following year, with Frost gone to Nebraska and Josh Heupel replacing him, UCF again went unbeaten until losing to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl, having lost Milton to a catastrophic knee injury in its final regular-season game. This Group of Five success bore fruit when Knights joined the Big 12 in 2023.\\\
UCF was known as the "Golden Knights" before 2007; before that, the team had been known as the "Knights of the Pegasus", and before ''that'' (indeed, before the football program was founded) the mascot was briefly [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d1/Florida_Tech_Citronauts.png/207px-Florida_Tech_Citronauts.png "The Citronaut"]], an anthropomorphic orange that was also an astronaut (basically '60s Central UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} in a nutshell). The football team plays in what had been one of the most uniquely named stadiums in college football, the Bounce House.[[note]]The "Bounce House" nickname was actually gleaned off its original corporate naming rights deal with cable provider Bright House Networks, now part of Spectrum (the brand name of Charter Communications). That deal lapsed after the 2019 season.[[/note]] After playing in the off-campus Citrus Bowl for several decades, the university built a more modern facility on-campus in 2007. Unfortunately, the stadium wasn't exactly up to snuff; in addition to lacking water fountains on opening day (a code violation and a major problem in the Florida heat), the stadium noticeably shook when fans were on their feet, giving it the nickname that briefly became official when naming rights sponsorships dried up in 2020 (though the stadium now shakes much less--and has water--after renovations). Despite its relatively small size, UCF's stadium has arguably one of the best home-field advantages in the sport, with frequent sellout crowds that deafen visiting offenses. UCF's primary rival is USF (South Florida), down the road in Tampa, though as of 2022 it's on ice (at least temporarily) since USF was left in The American. [=UConn=] tried to form a rivalry with UCF called the "Civil [[FunWithAcronyms ConFLiCT]]" when both were in The American; [[UnknownRival UCF disavowed the "rivalry"]], and it essentially died when [=UConn=] left the conference after 2019.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Utah Utes]]
!!!Utah Utes
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/utah_2.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Light the U!]]
->'''Location:''' Salt Lake City, UT\\
'''School Established:''' 1850[[note]]as the "University of Deseret", but closed in 1853, reopened in 1867, and became [[SpellMyNameWithAThe The]] University of Utah in 1892[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1892–1909),[[note]]Did not play in 1893...[[/note]] RMAC (1910–37),[[note]]...or 1918.[[/note]] Skyline (1938–61), WAC (1962–98), MW (1999–2010), Pac-12 (2011–2023), Big 12 (2024–)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 719–482–31 (.596)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17–10 (.630)\\
'''Colors:''' Crimson and white\\
'''Stadium:''' Rice–Eccles Stadium (capacity 51,444)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Kyle Whittingham\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Ike Armstrong, Jim Fassel, Ron [=McBride=], Urban Meyer\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Mac Speedie, Larry Wilson, George Seifert, Bob Trumpy, Scott Mitchell, Jamal Anderson, Kevin and Andre Dyson, Mike Anderson, Steve Smith Sr., Alex Smith, Brian Johnson\\
'''National Championships:''' 0[[note]]1 unclaimed (2008)[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 26 (8 RMAC – 1922, 1926, 1928–33; 10 Skyline – 1938, 1940–42, 1947, 1948, 1951–53, 1957; 2 WAC – 1964, 1995; 4 MW – 1999, 2003–04, 2008; 2 Pac-12 – 2021–22)
----
The '''University of Utah''' is one of two FBS universities founded by early UsefulNotes/{{Mormon|ism}} leader Brigham Young and the ''other'' school known to its students and fans as "The U", complete with a hand signal very similar to Miami's. Utah was a regional football power for much of its history, with some dominant years in the 1920s and '30s under the long tenure of Hall of Fame coach Ike Armstrong (1925-49). The Utes were inconsistent after his departure and regressed in the '70s with the rise of BYU hurting them in recruiting. The program turned things around in the '90s and made a national splash in the 2000s, becoming the first "BCS Buster" in 2004 under HC Urban Meyer and star QB Alex Smith and becoming the first two-time BCS Buster in 2008 under current HC Kyle Whittingham, winning both bowl games on the way to undefeated seasons. Their nine-game bowl win streak from 1999-2009 is tied for the second-longest ever. They parlayed this success into an invitation from the former Pac-10 in 2011, eventually settling in there as a solid competitor. After the loss of two players to gun deaths before and during the 2021 season, the program retired its #22 in their honor and won the conference the next two seasons. The Utes joined their Four Corners compatriots in abandoning the Pac-12 in 2024.\\\
The Utes are also known for their spicy rivalry with LDS Church-owned BYU (nicknamed "the Holy War"); they have similar but less extreme rivalries with Utah State and Colorado. After playing most of their history in Ute Stadium (renamed Robert L. Rice Stadium in the '70s after the main benefactor of a facility renovation), their home venue was almost completely demolished and rebuilt in 1998 so it could be used as the main stadium of the 2002 Winter Olympics (with the Eccles family, major benefactors for the university as a whole, getting their name added to the pre-existing "Rice" name). Like Florida State, Utah has explicit permission from a Native American tribe to use a tribal nickname, in its case the various Ute tribes, one of which (the Northern Ute, consisting of three bands) has its reservation in the state. The U (presumably) gained considerable goodwill from the Ute nation when it scrapped its "Redskins" nickname in 1972, well before most other schools with similar nicknames did so, and gained more when it dropped Native mascots. The Ute nation also signed off on the use of two feathers in the school's athletic logo and the school's current mascot, an anthropomorphic red-tailed hawk. Outside of football, the school is known for its strong programs in men's basketball, women's gymnastics (nine national championships in the '80s and '90s), and co-ed skiing (13 national titles). The university is symbolized by a large concrete block "U" on a nearby hillside (built in 1907, inspired by similar hillside letters at UC Berkeley and BYU), which is visible throughout the Salt Lake Valley and is lit up whenever a Ute team wins a contest.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:West Virginia Mountaineers]]
!!!West Virginia Mountaineers
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/west_virginia_2.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Take me home, Country Roads!]]
->'''Location:''' Morgantown, WV\\
'''School Established:''' 1867[[note]]as the "Agricultural College of West Virginia"; took the current name the following year.[[/note]]\\
'''Conference Affiliations:''' Ind. (1891-1924, 1928-49, 1968-90)[[note]]Did not play in 1892 or 1918.[[/note]], WVIAC[[labelnote:*]]West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, a now-defunct league that last played in D-II in 2012. The D-II Mountain East Conference is its successor in all but name (and charter).[[/labelnote]] (1925-27), [=SoCon=] (1950-67), Big East (1991-2011), Big 12 (2012-)\\
'''Overall Win Record:''' 783-524-45 (.596)\\
'''Bowl Record:''' 17–23 (.425)\\
'''Colors:''' Old gold and blue\\
'''Stadium:''' Milan Puskar Stadium (capacity 60,000)\\
'''Current Head Coach:''' Neal Brown\\
'''Notable Historic Coaches:''' Bobby Bowden, Don Nehlen, Rich Rodriguez\\
'''Notable Historic Players:''' Fielding H. Yost, Ben Schwartzwalder, Joe Strahan, Sam Huff, Chuck Howley, Dick Leftridge, Oliver Luck, Jeff Hostetler, Rich Rodriguez, Brian Jozwiak, Mike Vanderjagt, Todd Sauerbrun, Marc Bulger, Chris Henry, Adam "Pacman" Jones, Pat [=McAfee=], Pat White, Bruce Irvin, Geno Smith, Tavon Austin, Kevin White, Stedman Bailey\\
'''National Championships:''' 0\\
'''Conference Championships:''' 15 (8 [=SoCon=] – 1953-56, 1958, 1964-65, 1967; 7 Big East: 1993, 2003-05, 2007, 2010-11)[[note]]Won 1 Lambert Trophy for "Best Team in the East" as an independent (1988)[[/note]]
----
Athletically, '''West Virginia University''' has enjoyed the most success in the niche sport of rifle--it's won 19 NCAA team titles--but its football program is quite strong and has had moments of national prominence. The school was able to attract some decent talent and coaches for decades, with notable runs of regional success in the 1920s (when it was the centerpiece of a regional conference) and '50s (when it joined the [=SoCon=] shortly before all its power schools left to form the ACC). However, the hiring of Don Nehlen as head coach in 1980 truly kickstarted the program. In his [[LongRunner two decades]] as HC, Nehlen guided the team into joining the Big East and introduced the distinctive "Flying WV" helmet logo. A standout year was 1988, when the Mountaineers finished the regular season undefeated and played #1 Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl with the national championship on the line (Notre Dame won 34-21). This turned out to be a trend for the Nehlen-led program, which lost [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut 9 of 13 bowl appearances]]. WVU partially shed this choking reputation in the 2000s when star QB Pat White took them to four straight bowl wins, which enabled it to be in the right place at the right time as the Big East imploded, finding a place in the Big 12.[[labelnote:*]]WVU's AD at the time, Oliver Luck ([[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueQuarterbacks Andrew's]] father), was a graduate of UT's law school, providing him contacts with many of that state's power brokers.[[/labelnote]] However, the Mountaineers failed to compete for a national title in 2007 thanks to an upset loss to nearby rival Pitt, and the school hasn't come close to that level of national relevance since.\\\
As the highest-profile representative of a small rural state that lacks any pro teams, West Virginians are pretty diehard for the team in Morgantown (unless they're [[Film/WeAreMarshall Marshall]] fans[[note]]This "rivalry" is not particularly strong, as the schools don't play each other anymore and the Herd never managed to beat the Mountaineers when they did; WVU has much fiercer (and competitive) rivalries with schools right across state lines, most notably Pitt.[[/note]]). When WVU fills its stadium, it becomes the largest "city" in the state by a healthy margin.[[labelnote:*]]As of the 2020 census, the population of the state capital of Charleston was about 49,000; Huntington (home to Marshall) was second at a hair less than 47K. Morgantown itself has around 30K.[[/labelnote]][[note]]WVU has possibly the most fragmented campus in America due to its geography, with central campus on the other side of downtown from the other two. Shuttling students between the campuses created megacity-level gridlock, so a federally funded experimental light rail system was built in the 1970s to connect the campuses.[[/note]] Home games at the stadium echo with the sound of "Take Me Home, Country Roads"; Music/JohnDenver himself performed the song at the dedication of the school's hilltop stadium in 1980. Reflecting the school's UsefulNotes/{{Appalachia}}n heritage and success in rifle, games open with the Mountaineer mascot firing a rifle into the air.
[[/folder]]
