60+ Years of College Football Conference Realignment

With the opening of the college season several days away, this article looks at college football conference realignment since 1959. (A recent article looked at changes in the college football landscape changed since 1940 as related to the NCAA adopting its divisional structure.) We’ll also take a quick look at the 1959 NFL (one year before the AFL arrived on the scene) versus today.

As with the previous article, a promotional booklet listing the schedules for conferences nationwide will facilitate our tour. The booklet, published by the Standard Accident Insurance Company, includes the schedules of twelve conferences and major independents (by region). Several conferences no longer exist, and most others are dramatically different.

Eastern Independents and the Ivy League