The Big Eight Conference is a defunct college athletic conference that was formerly affiliated with the NCAA's Division I-A (now known as FBS).
The Big Eight Conference was a successful football conference, with its member schools being recognized as consensus national champion on eleven occasions, including the last two football seasons the conference existed (1994 and 1995). Seven players from the Big Eight won the Heisman Trophy, the most prestigious national award for college football players.
The conference was formed in 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA) by five charter schools: the University of Kansas, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, University of Iowa, and Washington University in St. Louis. After the MVIAA grew to ten schools, six state schools split away on their own in 1928, becoming known as the "Big Six": Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. The University of Colorado was added in 1948, and the conference became known as the "Big Seven Conference". Oklahoma State joined in 1958, becoming the eighth and final member. The conference broke up when its members joined the Big 12 Conference in 1996.