Missouri Valley Conference football

Missouri Valley Conference football (MVC)
Established	1907
Dissolved	1985
Association	NCAA
Division	Division I-A Division I-AA
Members	7 (final), 29 (total)
Sports fielded	1 (football) (men's: 1; women's: 0)
Region	Midwest
Locations

This is a page on the history of Missouri Valley Conference football. The Missouri Valley Conference sponsored football from 1907 through the 1985 school year. The conference voted to drop football as a sport on April 30, 1985. At the time the Conference was a mixture of NCAA division I programs (Tulsa and Wichita State) and NCAA division I-AA programs (Drake, Illinois State, Indiana State, Southern Illinois, and West Texas State).

The Missouri Valley Conference started sponsoring football in the fall of 1907. In 1951 Drake University and Bradley University left the Missouri Valley Conference as a result of the Johnny Bright incident, a racially motivated on-field attack against Drake's black star Johnny Bright by a white Oklahoma A&M player. Both schools returned to the MVC for non-football sports several years later (Bradley in 1955 and Drake in 1956), but Bradley never rejoined for football (dropping the sport in 1970), and Drake didn't rejoin in football until 1971. Washburn University competed in football from 1935 through 1940. Saint Louis University dropped football after the 1949 season. New Mexico State University participated in football from 1970 through 1982. Southern Illinois University joined the conference in 1974, but did not compete for a Missouri Valley Conference title until 1977. Illinois State joined the conference in 1980, but didn't compete for the title until 1981.

On December 5, 2006 the Missouri Valley Conference released its All-Centennial team.

This membership timeline reflects only Missouri Valley Conference football, not the Missouri Valley Conference as a whole.

...
Wikipedia