The 1996 NCAA conference realignment was initiated by the dissolution of the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...

(SWC), the formation of the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

and Conference USA (C-USA), and the expansion of the

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Texas. Due to mos ...

to 16 teams. This "new" WAC ultimately did not last long, as eight of its 16 members left the conference in 1999 and founded the

Mountain West Conference The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations ...

Background

During the 1980s the SWC was plagued by 2/3 of its membership being on probation, at one time or another, for NCAA recruiting violations (only Arkansas, Baylor and Rice avoided NCAA sanctions). The most notable involved the "Pony Express" scandals at SMU resulting in the football team receiving the death penalty in 1987. At that time, the NCAA prohibited a program on probation from appearing on live television. Arkansas' departure from the SWC for the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

in 1990 left the conference with eight members all located in the state of Texas, and took away the one relatively strong sanction-free program (Baylor and Rice were also sanction-free but, both being small private schools, were among the conference's weakest athletic programs). The combination of the number of programs on sanctions and the concentration of schools in only one state (plus the conference's weak on-field performance; its last eight conference champions failed to win their respective bowl games) ultimately led to the SWC's demise. In 1994,

Texas 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 ...

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

, Baylor, and

Texas Tech Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

accepted invitations to join with the members of the Big Eight Conference to form the Big 12 Conference. For the 1996 season, SMU, TCU, and

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

accepted invitations to join the WAC. The C-USA was founded in 1995 by the merger of the Metro Conference and

Great Midwest Conference The Great Midwest Conference was an NCAA Division I athletics conference that existed from 1991 to 1995. History It was formed in 1990 with six members: Cincinnati and Memphis State (now Memphis) from the Metro Conference, UAB from the Sun Bel ...

, two Division I conferences that did not sponsor football at the time. The

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in s ...

left the Southwest Conference for the newly formed C-USA the year after.

Conference changes

;Notes {{reflist, group=n *WAC: In addition to the massive expansion of the league, two pre-expansion members,

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

and

Hawaiʻi Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, brought their women's sports into the conference. Air Force had previously housed its women's sports in the Division II Colorado Athletic Conference, while the Hawaiʻi women had been in the Big West.

Background

Conference changes

See also