The Conference USA Football Championship Game is an annual

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

game that has determined the season champion of Conference USA (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 Globe Life is a financial services holding company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (GL) which operates through its wholly owned subsidiaries providing life insurance, annuity, and supplemental health insurance products. The company is based ...

, 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 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,

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 ...

, 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

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

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 Round-robin (RR) is one of the algorithms employed by process and network schedulers in computing. Guowang Miao, Jens Zander, Ki Won Sung, and Ben Slimane, Fundamentals of Mobile Data Networks, Cambridge University Press, , 2016. As the term ...

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 broad ...

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 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 stu ...

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

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 New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the state's tw ...

, and Sam Houston 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 The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

to FBS in 2024. *

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

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

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

Former members

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

, Old Dominion, and

Tulane Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

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 wom ...

(since demolished, with TDECU Stadium standing at its former site), UCF's

FBC Mortgage Stadium FBC Mortgage Stadium (formerly known as Bright House Networks Stadium and Spectrum Stadium, also known as the Bounce House) is an American football stadium located in Orlando, Florida, United States, on the main campus of the University of Central ...

(both under its former name of Bright House Networks Stadium), Tulsa's Chapman Stadium, WKU's Houchens Stadium, Florida Atlantic's

FAU Stadium Howard Schnellenberger Field at FAU Stadium is a college football stadium located at the north end of the main campus of Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton, Florida. Opened in 2011, it is home to the Florida Atlantic Owls football te ...

, 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 mil ...

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 The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, including ...

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 The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

. 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