This is a page on the history of Missouri Valley Conference football. The

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the fourth-oldest collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the Midwestern Unite ...

sponsored football from 1907 through the 1985 school year. The conference voted to drop football as a sport on April 30, 1985. At the time the Conference was a mixture of NCAA division I-A programs (Tulsa and Wichita State) and NCAA division I-AA programs (Drake, Illinois State, Indiana State, Southern Illinois, and West Texas State).

History

The Missouri Valley Conference started sponsoring football in the fall of 1907. In 1951 Drake University and Bradley University left the Missouri Valley Conference as a result of the Johnny Bright incident, a racially motivated on-field attack against Drake's

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

star Johnny Bright by a

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

Oklahoma A&M player. Both schools returned to the MVC for non-football sports several years later (Bradley in 1955 and Drake in 1956), but Bradley never rejoined for football (dropping the sport in 1970), and Drake didn't rejoin in football until 1971. Washburn University competed in football from 1935 through 1940. Saint Louis University dropped football after the 1949 season. By the late 1960s, rising costs for football meant that basketball could no longer help subsidize football programs. According to a 2017 story in '' The Wichita Eagle'', "The MVC looked west to find football and alienated its basketball powers." The first schools brought in during this period were New Mexico State and West Texas State (now West Texas A&M), respectively joining in 1970 and 1971; the conference also established a tie-in with the now-defunct Pasadena Bowl. The new additions almost immediately led to conflict between several established members and the conference office. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis State (now Memphis) complained about travel costs, and Memphis State was bitterly opposed to a full round-robin conference schedule, wishing to play more games within its region. All three schools left the MVC within a four-year period in the 1970s—Cincinnati in 1971, Memphis State in 1973, and Louisville in 1975. At the time of Memphis State's departure, Bradley's then-athletic director publicly said, "We sort of pushed Memphis out. They didn’t want to play everybody in football and we said that they must." These were not the only departures from the conference during this period; non-football member Saint Louis left in 1974, wishing to compete with urban basketball-focused schools like itself, and North Texas State (now North Texas) went independent in 1975 due to a desire for more scheduling flexibility. The MVC attempted to reload by adding Southern Illinois (1974 for non-football sports, 1977 for football), Indiana State (1976), and Illinois State (1980 for non-football sports, 1981 for football). The two schools whose arrival led to this instability would themselves leave in the 1980s—New Mexico State left after the 1982 season, and West Texas State left after the conference's final football season of 1985. On December 5, 2006 the Missouri Valley Conference released its All-Centennial team.

Membership timeline

This membership timeline reflects only Missouri Valley Conference football, not the Missouri Valley Conference as a whole. DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1907 till:1991 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:barcolor id:line value:black id:bg value:white id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote) id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Full from:1907 till:1909 text:

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

(1907–1908) bar:2 color:Full from:1907 till:1919 text:

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

(1907–1918, 1921–1927) bar:2 color:Full from:1921 till:1928 bar:3 color:Full from:1907 till:1928 text:

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

(1907–1927) bar:4 color:Full from:1907 till:1928 text:

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

(1907–1927) bar:5 color:Full from:1907 till:1943 text: Washington U (1907–1942) bar:6 color:Full from:1908 till:1928 text: Iowa State (1908–1927) bar:7 color:Full from:1908 till:1952 text:

Drake Drake may refer to: Animals and creatures * A male duck * Drake (mythology), a term related to and often synonymous with dragon People and fictional characters * Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family ...

(1908–1951, 1971–1985) bar:7 color:Full from:1971 till:1986 bar:8 color:Full from:1913 till:1928 text: Kansas State (1913–1927) bar:9 color:Full from:1919 till:1939 text: Grinnell (1919–1938) bar:10 color:Full from:1920 till:1928 text:

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

(1920–1927) bar:11 color:Full from:1925 till:1957 text: Oklahoma A&M (1925–1956) bar:12 color:Full from:1928 till:1943 text: Creighton (1928–1942) bar:13 color:Full from:1932 till:1934 text:

Butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments, with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantr ...

(1932–1933) bar:14 color:Full from:1935 till:1941 text: Washburn (1935–1940) bar:15 color:Full from:1935 till:1986 text:

Tulsa Tulsa ( ) is the second-most-populous city in the state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tul ...

(1935–1985) bar:16 color:Full from:1937 till:1950 text: Saint Louis (1937–1949) bar:17 color:Full from:1945 till:1986 text:

Wichita State Wichita State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 ...

(1945–1985) bar:18 color:Full from:1948 till:1952 text: Bradley (1948–1951) bar:19 color:Full from:1949 till:1957 text:

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

(1949–1956) bar:20 color:Full from:1951 till:1960 text:

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

(1951–1959) bar:21 color:Full from:1957 till:1970 text:

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

(1957–1969) bar:22 color:Full from:1957 till:1975 text: North Texas State (1957–1974) bar:23 color:Full from:1963 till:1975 text:

Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

(1963–1974) bar:24 color:Full from:1968 till:1973 text: Memphis State (1968–1972) bar:25 color:Full from:1970 till:1983 text:

New Mexico State New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a Public university system, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1888, it is the state's oldest public institution ...

(1970–1982) bar:26 color:Full from:1971 till:1986 text: West Texas State (1971–1985) bar:27 color:Full from:1974 till:1986 text:

Southern Illinois Southern Illinois is a region of the U.S. state of Illinois comprising the southern third of the state, principally south of Interstate 70. Part of downstate Illinois, it is bordered by the two List of U.S. rivers by discharge, most voluminous ri ...

(1974–1985) bar:28 color:Full from:1976 till:1986 text: Indiana State (1976–1985) bar:29 color:Full from:1980 till:1986 text: Illinois State (1980–1985) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:10 start:1907 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center) text:^"Missouri Valley Conference Membership History" #> If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. <#

Champions by year

Championships by school

References

{{Reflist Articles which contain graphical timelines