The Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC), formerly the Gateway Football Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) as a football-only conference.
The Missouri Valley Football Conference has a complex history that involves three other conferences:
In 1985, the MVC stopped sponsoring football. At that time, the two remaining I-AA members from the MVC (Illinois State and Southern Illinois) joined Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Southwest Missouri State, and Western Illinois from the AMCU and together became a football conference under the Gateway's auspices.[3] Indiana State, which had left MVC football after the 1981 season to become a Division I-AA independent while remaining a full MVC member, would join the next year.[4]
– Horizon League member – Missouri Valley Conference member – Summit League memberIn 1992, when the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference merged with the MVC,[1] the football conference kept the Gateway charter, with a minor name change to Gateway Football Conference. After Eastern Illinois joined the Ohio Valley Conference for football in 1996, Youngstown State joined in 1997 and was followed by Western Kentucky University in 2001. Southwest Missouri State changed its name to Missouri State in 2005.
Western Kentucky moved to the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A) after the 2006 season,[5] leaving the GFC with seven members for the 2007 season. Great West Football Conference members North Dakota State and South Dakota State[6] were invited to join the conference beginning with the 2008 season.[7] Subsequently, the Gateway Football Conference changed its name to the Missouri Valley Football Conference in June 2008. This change aligned the conference with the Missouri Valley Conference, a conference in which five of the nine Missouri Valley Football schools were (and still are) all-sports members. The conferences continue to share the "Missouri Valley" name, and space in the same building in St. Louis, but remain separate administratively.[8]
The University of South Dakota joined as the 10th member in 2012. The University of North Dakota joined as the 11th member in 2020, bringing back the yearly rivalries among North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota and South Dakota State which had existed under the Division II North Central Conference that NDSU and SDSU left in 2004–05.[9][10][11]
On April 4, 2022, Murray State University, who had previously been announced as a new MVC member effective in July 2022, joined the MVFC in 2023, bringing the league up to a record high of 12 active members.[12] This was short-lived however, as on May 12, 2023, founding member Western Illinois announced that they would be leaving the MVFC and their full time conference, the Summit League, for the Ohio Valley Conference beginning in fall 2023 and 2024. They would leave the Summit beginning in fall 2023, and would leave the Valley after the conclusion of the 2023 football season.[13] Almost exactly a year after that, on May 10, 2024, fellow founding member Missouri State announced that they accepted an invitation to join Conference USA in all sports, beginning with the 2025-26 academic year.[14]
Current members Former members Dual members (list additional conferences)
11 different teams have won MVFC championships. The most recent champion is South Dakota State. The school with the most championships is Northern Iowa, with 16 (10 of them outright).
♯ Now a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
† FCS Record[16]
Media related to Missouri Valley Football Conference at Wikimedia Commons
