The 1974 NAIA Division I football season was the 19th 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 fifth season of the league's two-division structure. The season was played from August to November 1974 and culminated in the 1974 NAIA Division I Champion Bowl, played on December 14, 1974, on the campus of

Texas A&I University Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...

Kingsville, Texas Kingsville is a city in the southern region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Kleberg County. Located on the U.S. Route 77 corridor between Corpus Christi and Harlingen, Kingsville is the principal city of the Kingsville Micr ...

Texas A&I Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...

defeated in the Champion Bowl, 34–23, to win their third NAIA national title.

Conference realignment

Conferences changes

* This was the first season for the Oklahoma Intercollegiate Conference. The second conference to bear this name, it was formed by six former members of the

Oklahoma Collegiate Conference The Oklahoma Collegiate Conference (OCC), also known as the Oklahoma Collegiate Athletic Conference (OCAC), was an College athletics, intercollegiate athletic conference that existed from 1929 to 1974. The conference's members were located in the st ...

, which disbanded after the prior season. All six initial members were public colleges from

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

. * This was the final season of football for the Carolinas Conference. Before the start of the following season, the league's five members would subsequently join the new, football-only

South Atlantic Conference The South Atlantic Conference (SAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level, which operates in the southeastern United States. The SAC was founded in 1975 as a ...

Conference realignment

Conferences changes

Membership changes

Conference standings

Postseason

See also

References