Mid-major
Mid-major conferences in American college sports at the NCAA Division I level are athletic conferences that are not among the power conferences. The grouping is most commonly used in men's college basketball to describe conferences outside of the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC and Big East which have also been referred to as "high majors".
The term "mid-major" was coined in 1977 by Jack Kvancz, the head coach of men's basketball team at Catholic University of America. The NCAA neither acknowledges nor uses the terms "major" or "mid-major" to differentiate between Division I athletic conferences. Some schools and fans consider it offensive and derogatory, while others embrace the term.
Typically, the title of "mid-major" is not used when discussing College Football. Instead, Division I football conferences and teams are grouped into the FCS, the Group of Six, or the Power Four.
Basketball
In college basketball, the term "mid-major" is used to refer to teams that are members of a conference other than the "power conferences" of the Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, SEC, and ACC. The Big East Conference does not sponsor football and thus is not considered a power conference in that sport, but is universally considered so in basketball, with the term "Power" sometimes used by media to describe the combination of the power football conferences and Big East. The NCAA has officially recognized this distinction in the selection process for the National Invitation Tournament, as these conferences each receive automatic bids for their two highest-ranked teams not invited to the NCAA Tournament, as ranked by the NCAA Evaluation Tool.Beyond that, one men's program outside of these conferences, West Coast Conference member Gonzaga, is now generally considered equivalent to a power program despite its mid-major affiliation. ESPN's Kevin Connors currently defines men's basketball mid-majors as "programs outside the top 7 conferences and Gonzaga". Another ESPN journalist, Jeff Borzello, referred to Gonzaga in 2022 as a "power conference" program. ESPN is not the only major media outlet that does not consider Gonzaga men's basketball to be a mid-major program; CBS Sports journalist Matt Norlander, in his 2022–23 season preview of mid-major conferences and programs, explicitly called Gonzaga "not a mid-major". In 2022, Gonzaga was reportedly in preliminary membership talks with three Power Six conferences—the Big East, Big 12, and Pac-12; after the Pac-12 lost all but two of its members in 2024, Gonzaga would accept membership in the reimagined Pac-12 effective in 2026–27.
Given the sustained success of many so-called "mid-major" conferences, and especially that of the Gonzaga program, higher profile conferences find it more difficult to distinguish themselves with the "mid-major" and "major" labels, unless one takes into account the distinction of being in now-defunct BCS football playing conference. However, only one team from what is now a mid-major conference has won a national championship since the tournament expanded to 64 teams—UNLV in 1990 as a member of the Big West Conference.
Football
Because of the development of the now-defunct Bowl Championship Series in 1998, and the lack of a playoff format for the Football Bowl Subdivision prior to the College Football Playoff, the demarcation line between major and mid-major conferences is much clearer in college football than in other sports. The six conferences of the BCS each had guaranteed appearances in one of the four major bowl games, whereas mid-majors — the teams that were not in one of those six leagues — relied on an at-large bid or a high ranking to qualify for a major bowl. It was rare for any mid-major program to receive one of two at-large bids to one of the four major bowls, even if such a program completed a perfect season. The establishment of the BCS National Championship Game opened two additional at-large berths and mandated invites for mid-major schools above a certain ranking, which led to an increase in mid-major appearances in the four major bowls. Then conference realignment brought about the split of the Big East football conference. Schools that did not join a major conference from the Big East renamed it the American Athletic Conference, now the American Conference, while several non-football schools left and founded a new conference, purchasing the "Big East" name from the newly renamed American. With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the non-Power Five FBS conferences are usually referred to as "Group of Five" conferences rather than mid-majors. No mid-major ever qualified for the BCS title game.Only one mid-major team has won a national championship: the BYU Cougars, then in the Western Athletic Conference, won the 1984 championship on the strength of their perfect record and win in the 1984 Holiday Bowl. BYU largely won the championship by default, since no other team had held an undefeated record, and there were still lingering doubts about the team deserving the honor because it was in a lesser conference. Since the establishment of the Bowl Alliance, no mid-major team had ever been selected for the championship game or tournament until the 2021 Cincinnati Bearcats, then of the American, were selected after an unbeaten regular season, becoming the only mid-major team to play in the CFP during its four-team era. The Bearcats were defeated in the opening round 27–6 by the Alabama Crimson Tide. In the first season of the 12-team CFP in 2024, Mountain West Conference member Boise State received a first-round bye as one of the four highest-ranked conference champions in the final CFP rankings.
Currently, the Group of Five football conferences are the American Conference, Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, and the Sun Belt Conference. After the 2024 collapse of the Pac-12 Conference, that league has often been included with the other non-power conferences in a notional "Group of Six". Several conferences that no longer sponsor football were considered mid-majors; two that existed in the BCS era were the Big West Conference and the Western Athletic Conference.
Mid-major schools have compiled a record of 9–7 in the major bowl games since the 2004 football season. Since 2004, only the 2005 and 2011 seasons did not see a mid-major team in one of the major bowl games. The 2010 Fiesta Bowl featured two unbeaten mid-majors ; this is the only time two mid-majors have qualified for top-tier bowls. Prior to 2012, each of these teams entered its bowl undefeated, until Northern Illinois qualified following the 2012 season. UCF qualified for the January 2014 Fiesta Bowl, in the final year of the BCS, because the American Athletic Conference retained the Big East's automatic slot in the BCS. The current arrangement of the New Year's Six bowl games mandates that the highest-ranked Group of Five conference champion be awarded a New Year's Six bowl berth. This has been most recently invoked for the 2021 Cotton Bowl Classic, which featured a Cincinnati team that became the first Group of Five team to be selected to a College Football Playoff semifinal. The 2018 season saw a controversy that also involved UCF, which went on to win the 2018 Peach Bowl and end the season as the only undefeated FBS team. The Knights were denied a CFP bid in favor of four teams which had all lost one game.
The American Conference and Mountain West Conference have so far been the most successful of the Group of Five at placing their champions in major bowls, respectively doing so eight and six times. However, four of the MW's appearances were in the BCS era, when the conference now operating as the American was known as the Big East and was a primary BCS partner. The Western Athletic Conference, which no longer sponsors FBS football, has done so three times; both schools which went to major bowls as WAC champions now play football in the MW. The Mid-American Conference has done so once in the BCS era and once in the CFP era, and Conference USA has done so once in the CFP era. The Sun Belt Conference has never qualified a champion for a BCS or New Year's Six bowl. The only team from the group conferences to have reached a major bowl since the 2024 expansion of the CFP is the aforementioned 2024 Boise State team ; the American and SBC each qualified one team to the 2025 CFP.
The mid-major team that has qualified for the most major bowl games is Boise State with four appearances, twice each in the WAC and MW. UCF qualified three times while in the American. Cincinnati, TCU, and Utah have each done so twice. Cincinnati, TCU, UCF, and Utah are now members of "power conferences"—TCU is now in the Big 12, qualified for the 2014 Peach Bowl and played for the national championship following the 2022 season while there; Utah, which joined the Pac-12 in 2011 and moved to the Big 12 in 2024, played in the Rose Bowl in 2022 and 2023; and Cincinnati and UCF joined the Big 12 in 2023.
Before the 2023 departure of Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF for the Big 12, the American was widely considered the best football conference that is not in the Power 5. Since its reorganization and split from the Big East Conference in 2013, they have sent five programs to New Year's Six bowl games: Houston in 2015, UCF in 2013, 2017, and 2018, Memphis in 2019, Cincinnati in 2020 and 2021, and Tulane in 2022. These programs have gone 4–4 in the games played to date. USF, UCF, Houston, Navy, Cincinnati, SMU, and Memphis, all either current or former American Conference teams, are very successful programs in FBS play. In 2017, UCF was the first team from the American to go undefeated; its schedule included two wins against Memphis and a win against USF, and the team won its bowl game against #7 Auburn, a team which had beaten both CFP championship game teams that year. The Knights also completed an unbeaten regular season in 2018, but lost to LSU in their bowl game after having lost McKenzie Milton, the quarterback who had led them in both 2017 and 2018, to a catastrophic knee injury in their final regularly scheduled game. Cincinnati also entered its bowl games unbeaten in both 2020 and 2021, but lost both times, narrowly to Georgia in 2020 and more convincingly to Alabama in 2021. However, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF joined the Big 12 in 2023, and SMU joined the ACC in 2024.
The bowl game to host the most mid-major conference champions is the Fiesta Bowl, which has hosted at least one such team eight times, with the 2010 edition involving two mid-majors. The Cotton Bowl Classic has featured a mid-major champion four times, and the Peach Bowl has done so three times, with all such games for both bowls taking place in the CFP era. The Sugar Bowl did so twice in the BCS era. The Rose Bowl Game and Orange Bowl each did so once in the BCS era.