The 1972 NAIA Division I football season was the 17th season of

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

sponsored by the NAIA and the third season of the league's two-division structure. The season was played from August to November 1972 and culminated in the 1972 NAIA Champion Bowl, played on December 9, 1972 in

Commerce, Texas Commerce is a city in Hunt County, Texas, United States, situated on the eastern edge of North Texas, in the heart of the Texas Blackland Prairies. The town is south of the Texas/Oklahoma border. Commerce is the second-largest city in Hunt County ...

. East Texas State (now Texas A&M–Commerce) defeated Carson–Newman in the Division I Championship Bowl, 21–18, to win their first NAIA national title.

Conference realignment

Conference changes

* This was the first season of play for the

Great Plains Athletic Conference The Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) is a List of college athletic conferences in the United States, college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Member institutions are located ...

, which consisted of seven former members of the

Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC), commonly known as the Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC) from approximately 1910 through the late 1960s, is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (N ...

from

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

, and

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

Membership changes

Conference standings

Postseason

*† ''The game ended in a tie, but Carson–Newman advanced based on having more total penetrations within the 20 yard line.''

References