FBS independents
| FBS independents | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Established | 1978 |
| Association | NCAA |
| Division | Division I FBS |
| Members | 4 |
| Sports fielded | 1 (men's: 1) |
| Region |
Eastern United States Midwestern United States Mountain States |
| Headquarters | Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Commissioner | Mark Emmert (since November 1, 2010) |
| Website | Official website |
| Locations | |
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National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Football Bowl Subdivision independent schools are four-year institutions whose football programs are not part of an NCAA-affiliated conference. This means that FBS independents are not required to schedule each other for competition like conference schools do.
There are many fewer independent schools than in years past; many independent schools join, or attempt to join, established conferences. The main reasons to join a conference are to gain a share of television revenue and access to bowl games that agree to take teams from certain conferences, and to help deal with otherwise potentially difficult challenges in scheduling opponents to play throughout the season.
All Division I FBS independents are eligible for the College Football Playoff (CFP), or for the so-called "access bowls" associated with the CFP, if they are chosen by the CFP selection committee. Notre Dame has a potential tie-in with the Orange Bowl. Army has an agreement with the Military Bowl (formerly the EagleBank Bowl), and Notre Dame, in addition to its CFP agreement, has other bowl agreements as part of its affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). (Notre Dame had similar agreements with its previous conference, the Big East.) BYU had an agreement with the Armed Forces Bowl for 2011.
The ranks of football independents increased by one starting with the 2011 season with the announcement that BYU would leave the Mountain West Conference (MWC) to become a football independent starting with that season. The ranks increased by two in 2013 when the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) dropped football and New Mexico State and Idaho did not have a conference for football. The ranks of football independents decreased by two in 2014 with the return of Idaho and New Mexico State as football-only members of the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) and decreased by one more in 2015 with Navy joining the American Athletic Conference (AAC) as a football only member.Massachuetts became FBS independent in 2016. Two further teams are slated to join the ranks of FBS independents: New Mexico State, whose membership in the Sun Belt Conference was not extended beyond the 2017 season, and Liberty, who will transition from the Big South Conference of the Football Championship Subdivision in 2018.
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Wikipedia