The Conference USA Football Championship Game is an annual

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game that has determined the season champion of

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

(C-USA) since 2005.

History

The championship game from 2005–2021, showcased the C-USA East Division regular season champion against the West Division regular season champion. From the 2022 season, the game pits the number one (1) team in the season standings versus the number two (2) team. The game is typically played on the first Saturday of December. The 2018 edition of the game, sponsored by Globe Life, was played on December 1, 2018, and televised by

CBSSN CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Television also known a ...

Ryan LLC Ryan LLC, based in Dallas, Texas, is a tax services and software provider. Ryan LLC has more than 18,000 clients in over 60 countries. The company has over 113 locations around the globe, including locations in Canada, the Netherlands, the United ...

currently holds sponsorship rights to the game. Seven of the nine current C-USA members have played in the Conference USA Football Championship Game. The overall series between both divisions is led 10–8 by the East Division. While seven current C-USA members have played in the game, only five have won:

Florida Atlantic Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce. FAU belongs to the 12-cam ...

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

, UAB and UTSA, and

Western Kentucky Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state. ;Always included * The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogniz ...

of the current member schools. Of these five schools, only Western Kentucky will be a C-USA member in the 2023 season. The C-USA Football Championship Game had been aired on

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or its affiliates since 2005, but the 2018 Championship Game was aired on CBSSN.

Results

Conference USA champions (1996–2004)

Before 2005, each member of the conference played in a round-robin scheduling to determine the champion of the conference. In this time period, Southern Miss won the most titles with four. During this time frame, the winner of the C-USA Championship customarily received a berth to play in the

Liberty Bowl The Liberty Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in late December or early January since 1959. For its first five years, it was played at Philadelphia Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia before being held at Atlantic City ...

against a member of the SEC. If two teams tied for the best conference record, co-champions were declared. Final rankings from

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broadca ...

shown.

Conference USA Championship Game (2005–present)

Below are the results from all Conference USA Football Championship Games played. The winning team appears in bold font, on a background of their primary team color. Rankings are from the

released prior to the game.

Results by team

Current members

FIU Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Miami-Dade County. Founded in 1965, the school opened its doors to students in 1972. FIU has grown to become the third-largest university in Florida ...

and

UTEP The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public research university in El Paso, Texas. It is a member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the United States to have a majority Mexican American stude ...

have yet to make an appearance in a Conference USA Championship Game. *

Jacksonville State Jacksonville State University (JSU) is a public university in Jacksonville, Alabama. Founded in 1883, Jacksonville State offers programs of study in six academic schools leading to bachelor's, master's, education specialist, and doctorate degrees ...

Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

, New Mexico State, and

Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two i ...

will join C-USA in July 2023. Jacksonville State and Sam Houston will not be eligible to appear in the title game until completing transitions from Division I FCS to FBS in 2024. *

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB, and UTSA will leave C-USA in July 2023 for the American Athletic Conference.

Former members

, Memphis,

Old Dominion Old Dominion most commonly refers to: *The Old Dominion, a nickname for the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia ** Colony of Virginia *Old Dominion University, a public university in Norfolk, Virginia **Old Dominion Monarchs, the athletic teams represe ...

, and Tulane did not make an appearance in a Conference USA Championship Game while members of the conference.

Game location

The team with the best overall conference win percentage will be the team that hosts the championship game. Six venues have hosted two title games—Houston's

Robertson Stadium John O'Quinn Field at Corbin J. Robertson Stadium (often referred to as simply Robertson Stadium) was a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, located on the campus of the University of Houston. It was the home of the Houston Cougars football and wome ...

(since demolished, with

TDECU Stadium John O'Quinn Field at TDECU Stadium is an American football stadium on the campus of the University of Houston. The stadium serves as the home of the Houston Cougars football team, which represents the University of Houston in collegiate ...

standing at its former site), UCF's FBC Mortgage Stadium (both under its former name of Bright House Networks Stadium), Tulsa's Chapman Stadium, WKU's Houchens Stadium, Florida Atlantic's FAU Stadium, and UTSA's

Alamodome The Alamodome is a 64,000-seat domed indoor multi-purpose stadium in San Antonio, Texas. It is located on the southeastern fringe of downtown San Antonio. The facility opened on May 15, 1993, having been constructed at a cost of $186 milli ...

In most recent years, Marshall and Rice both finished with 7–1 records in conference play in 2013, and did not play one another in the regular season, the site was chosen based on the BCS rankings at that time on December 1. Although only 25 teams were explicitly ranked, the ranking formula could be used to determine the relative rankings of any two teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Since 2014, when the BCS was replaced with the College Football Playoff rankings (CFP), national rankings have been removed from the tiebreaker process. Following the 2022 contest, the home team is 13–5 overall in C-USA football championship games.

Game records

Source:

Selection criteria

Division standings are based on each team's overall conference record. Often, two or more teams tie for the best record in their division and each team is recognized as a divisional co-champion. However, tiebreakers are used to determine who will represent the division in the championship game.

Two-team tie-breaker procedure

# Highest regular season winning percentage based on overall Conference USA play. # If tied, head-to-head between tied teams. # If still tied, team with highest CFP ranking. ''NOTE: Although all division rivals meet during the season and NCAA overtime is played in case of a tie game, the CUSA has provisions in case a game ends in a tie under NCAA Rule 3–3–3 (c) and (d), Suspending the Game, or if the two tied teams did not play an official game because of weather. As such, CUSA rules still contain the remaining procedures if those circumstances were to happen.

Three or more-team procedure

(Once the tie has been reduced to two teams, go to the two-team tie-breaker format.) # Highest regular season winning percentage based on overall CUSA play. # If tied, head-to-head between tied teams. # If still tied, highest winning percentage within division. # If still tied, compare records against divisional opponents in descending order of finish. # If still tied, compare records with common cross-divisional opponents. # If still tied, compare records against cross-divisional opponents in descending order of finish. # If still tied, team with highest CFP ranking. # If still tied, the representative will be the team that has not participated in the championship game most recently. # If at any point the tie is broken in a multiple team tie, the remaining teams will begin the process again at #2.

References

{{ESPN College Football