Navigating the College Football Landscape: A Comprehensive Map of FBS Teams
College football stands as a prominent and passionately followed sport across the United States. With a rich history and a complex organizational structure, understanding the landscape of college football can be enhanced through visualization. One of the most effective ways to grasp the scope of the sport is by examining a college football map.
Mapping the FBS: An Overview
Visualizing the landscape of college football becomes easier with a comprehensive map. Such a map showcases all 134 colleges participating in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) across the United States. Color-coding is often employed to differentiate the conferences to which each school belongs.
The FBS: Defining the Highest Level
The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, represents the pinnacle of college football in the United States. It comprises the largest institutions within the NCAA.
Founded in 1978, the FBS has evolved significantly over the years. The current season, competition, or edition is the 2026 NCAA Division I FBS football season.
Unlike other NCAA divisions and subdivisions, the NCAA does not officially award an FBS football national championship, nor does it sanction a playoff tournament to determine such a champion on the field. As the College Football Playoff did not exist until 2014, organizations such as the Associated Press and AFCA have historically sought to rank the teams and crown a national champion, by taking a vote of sports writers and coaches, respectively.
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Revenue and Spectatorship
The popularity of college football is underscored by the substantial revenue it generates. Top schools amass tens of millions of dollars annually. This financial success is further fueled by the immense fan base, with leading FBS teams drawing tens of thousands of supporters to their games. The fifteen largest American stadiums by capacity all host FBS teams or games.
NIL and Player Compensation
A significant shift occurred on July 1, 2021, when college athletes gained the ability to receive payments for the use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). This landmark change has altered the financial dynamics of college sports, allowing athletes to benefit from their personal brand.
Postseason and Bowl Games
Various cities across the United States have created their own postseason contests, called bowl games, in which they traditionally invite teams to participate. Historically, these bowl games were mostly considered to be exhibition games involving a payout to participating teams. However, in the modern era, some of the bowls serve as quarterfinal or semifinal games of the Playoff and the remainder constitute the de facto postseason for teams that fail to qualify for the Playoff.
The FBS season culminates in the College Football Playoff National Championship game, held in mid-January. Following the conference championship games, 12 teams are selected to compete in the College Football Playoff, while other eligible teams are invited to bowl games. During the 2024-25 bowl season, there were 46 FBS bowl games, including four first-round College Football Playoff games and the College Football Playoff National Championship.
An FBS team typically must have a record of 6-6 or better in order to be bowl eligible. Many bowls have one or more conference tie-ins; for example, the Pop-Tarts Bowl provides a matchup between teams from ACC and the Big 12.
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FBS vs. FCS: A Subdivisional Divide
For every sport but football, the NCAA divides schools into three major divisions: Divisions I, II, and III. However, in football, Division I is further divided into two sub-divisions: the Bowl Subdivision, abbreviated as the FBS, and the Championship Subdivision, abbreviated as the FCS.
Although FCS programs can draw thousands of fans per game, many FCS schools attempt to join the FBS in hopes of increased revenue, corporate sponsorship, alumni donations, prestige, and national exposure.
Conferences: The Building Blocks of the FBS
Divisions are themselves further divided up into conferences, which are groupings of schools that play each other in contention for a conference championship.
The Big Ten (then popularly known as the Western Conference) was founded in 1896, after which several other schools joined to form conferences, including the Pacific Coast Conference, the MVIAA, the Southwest Conference, the Southern Conference, the Mountain States Conference (also known as the Skyline Conference), and the Border Conference. In 1928, six schools seceded from the MVIAA to form the Big Six Conference, which later expanded to the Big Eight in 1957; the remaining schools formed the Missouri Valley Conference. In 1932, several Southern schools formed the SEC after breaking away from the Southern Conference, and in 1953 several more schools seceded from the Southern Conference to form the ACC. In 1946, several Midwestern schools formed the MAC. Several elite Northeastern schools had formed the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League in 1901, and its members (plus Brown University, not an EIBL member at the time) signed the Ivy Group Agreement, which governed football competition between the signatories, in 1945; the Ivy League was formally founded in 1954, when the agreement was extended to cover all sports. In 1959, the Pacific Coast Conference dissolved, and most of its former members formed the new Athletic Association of Western Universities, which became the Pac-8 when more former PCC members joined. In 1962, several schools from the Mountain States Conference and the Border Conference formed the Western Athletic Conference.
Division I separated into Division I-A (the predecessor to the FBS) and I-AA (predecessor of the FCS) prior to the 1978 season. At that time, there were several independent I-A schools and twelve Division I-A conferences: the Southeastern Conference (SEC), Big Ten, Pacific-10 (Pac-10), Big 8, Southwest Conference (SWC), Western Athletic Conference (WAC), PCAA (which later changed its name to the Big West), Missouri Valley Conference, Southern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Mid-American Conference (MAC), and the Ivy League. The Ivy League and the Southern Conference left for Division I-AA prior to the 1982 season, while the Missouri Valley Conference stopped sponsoring football prior to the 1985 season. In 1991, the Big East recruited several independents and began sponsoring football, becoming a major conference. In 1996, Conference USA (CUSA), formed the previous year by the merger of the non-football Metro and Great Midwest Conferences, also began sponsoring football. That same year, the Southwest Conference dissolved, and four of its former members joined with the Big 8 to form the Big 12 Conference. In 1999, eight schools broke away from the WAC to form the Mountain West Conference (MW). Prior to the 2000 season, the Big West stopped sponsoring football. The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) began sponsoring football in 2001.
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Most of the 138 FBS schools are members of an FBS conference, but there are also a small number of independent schools.
Since the Western Athletic Conference discontinued football sponsorship prior to the 2013 season, there have been ten conferences in the FBS. Through the 2023 season, all of the FBS conferences had between 10 and 14 members, although independent Notre Dame has a scheduling agreement with the then-14-member ACC.
Financial Considerations and Scholarship Limits
However, FBS programs also face increased expenses in regards to staff salaries, facility improvements, and scholarships. The athletic departments of many FBS schools lose money every year, and these athletic departments must rely on subsidies from the rest of the university. In many states, the highest-paid public employee is the head coach of an FBS team.
Before the settlement of the House v. NCAA legal case took full effect in 2025-26, FBS schools were limited to a total of 85 football players receiving financial assistance. Since then, FBS programs have had a hard roster limit of 105, but all rostered players may receive full scholarships. Nearly all FBS schools that are not on NCAA probation give the full allowed scholarship allotment.
In October 2023, the NCAA announced major changes to FBS membership requirements. The average home attendance requirement, which had largely gone unenforced in the 21st century and was suspended in 2020 due to COVID-19 impacts, was permanently eliminated, effective immediately. Effective in 2027-28, minimums on both the total number of, and spending on, athletic scholarships in all FBS programs will be enforced. The number of required athletic scholarships will increase to 210, and the annual spending requirement rises to $6 million.
Scheduling and Non-Conference Games
For non-conference regular season games, FBS teams are free to schedule matchups against any other FBS team, regardless of conference. A small number of FBS teams are independent and have total control over their own schedule. Non-conference games are scheduled by mutual agreement and often involve "home and homes" (where teams alternate as hosts) and long-established rivalries. In order to balance out the difficulty of their in-conference schedules, teams from the stronger conferences frequently play non-conference games against teams from the weaker conferences or, occasionally, against FCS teams. FBS teams are free to schedule up to 40% of their games against FCS teams, but FBS teams can only use one win per season against an FCS team for the purposes of bowl eligibility.
The Evolution of College Football
College football has been played for over one hundred years, but the game and the organizational structure of college football have evolved significantly during that time. The first college football game was played in 1869, but the game continued to develop during the late 19th and early 20th century. During this period, Walter Camp pioneered the concept of a line of scrimmage, the system of downs, and the College Football All-America Team. The 1902 Rose Bowl was the first bowl game in college football history, and the event began to be held annually starting with the 1916 Rose Bowl. In the 1930s, other bowl games came into existence, including the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl Classic, and the Orange Bowl. The 1906 college football season was the first season played under the IAAUS (which would later change its name to the NCAA) and the first season in which the forward pass was legal. In 1935, the Heisman Trophy was presented for the first time; the award is generally considered to be college football's most prestigious individual award. In 1965, the NCAA voted to allow the platoon system, in which different players played on offense and defense; teams had previously experimented with the concept in the 1940s. In 1968, the NCAA began allowing freshmen to compete in games; freshmen had previously been required to take a redshirt year. In 1975, after a growth of "grants-in-aid" (scholarships given for athletic rather than academic or need-based reasons), the NCAA voted to limit the number of athletic scholarships each school could offer. In 1968, the NCAA required all teams to identify as members of either the University Division (for larger schools) or the College Division (for smaller schools), and in 1973, the NCAA divided into three divisions. At the urging of several larger schools seeking increased autonomy and commonality, Division I-A was formed prior to the 1978 season; the remaining teams in Division I formed the Football Championship Subdivision or FCS (then known as Division I-AA). In 1981, members of the College Football Association attempted to create a fourth division consisting solely of the most competitive schools, but this effort was defeated. In the 1992 season, the SEC split into divisions and played the first FBS conference championship game.
The Quest for a National Champion
The NCAA does not officially award an FBS football championship, but several teams have claimed national championships. Other organizations have also sought to rank the teams and crown a national champion. The Dickinson System and other methods were formed in the early 20th century to select the best team in the country, and the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll began rankings teams in the middle of the 20th century. In many seasons, selectors such as the AP and the Coaches Poll designated different teams as national champions. Often, more than one team would finish undefeated, as the top teams were not guaranteed to play each other during the regular season or in bowl games. In 1992, five major conferences established the Bowl Coalition in order to determine the FBS champion. In 1998, the two remaining major conferences joined with the other five conferences to form the Bowl Championship Series. The BCS used a rankings system to match up the top two teams in the BCS National Championship Game. However, even the BCS era saw split national championships, as in 2003 the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll selected different national champions.
The Playoff Era
The ten conferences are split into two groups for the purposes of the College Football Playoff. The "Power Four conferences" consist of most of the largest and best-known college athletic programs in the country. A school from one of the power conferences (including the Pac-12, which was a power conference prior to 2024) won every BCS National Championship Game (which operated from 1999 to 2014), and has won every College Football Playoff National Championship. The remaining six conferences are known as the "Group of Six".
Any conference may split its teams into two divisions; however, since the 2024 season, the only FBS conference that uses divisions is the SBC. The American, the Big 12, and CUSA all previously utilized division systems before abandoning them after losing some of their member schools to realignment: UConn left the American in July 2020, and Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss left CUSA in July 2022, leaving both those conferences with an odd number of members, while the Big 12 has not used divisions since the early-2010s conference realignment left it with 10 members. The Pac-12, however, chose to abandon divisions entirely.
The Impact of Television
College football was first broadcast on radio in 1921, and first broadcast on television in 1939. Television became profitable for both schools and the NCAA, which tightly controlled the airing of games in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The NCAA limited each football team to six television appearances over a two-year period. The 1981 Supreme Court case NCAA v.
National networks such as CBS, ABC, NBC, several ESPN networks, and several Fox networks have all covered the FBS, as have several regional and local networks. As conferences negotiate their own television deals, each conference is affiliated with a network that airs its home games. In the mid-2000s, college and conferences began to create their own television networks; such networks include the Big Ten Network, BYUtv, the Longhorn Network (which was folded into the SEC Network in 2024), and the Pac-12 Network.
Name, Image, and Likeness
Since 2021, when the Supreme Court unanimously held in NCAA v. Alston that restrictions on name, image, and likeness compensation violated antitrust law, FBS football players have been able to make money from sources other than college scholarships.
Visualizing the Teams
With over a hundred colleges with football teams in the NCAA across the United States, one of the best ways to visualize them all is on a college football map. Are you a football fan? This map shows all 134 of the colleges in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. In the map, we used color coding to designate the conference each school is in. To add labels to your map, go into the “Settings” page. To make your sports map static instead of interactive, save it as a PNG or PDF. Simply use the Print or Share option, then click “PDF/PNG Image.” You can play around with the settings to get the image to look the way you want it to. With options like satellite image vs.
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