AGE THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL CONFERENCES

[Schadenfreude]

Actually, I thought the Ivy League was the oldest

Capital Falcon: You beat me to it! I would have to bet that the Ivy league is older than the Western Conf.(Big 11).....only based upon history of who played FB FIRST, and where the majority of the teams came from.

OTOH, if we're only counting current D-1 conf., then The Big 10 would have the edge.

Again the Ivy League was an idea among sportswriters before it was actually a league. It came together formally after World War II.

http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/WhatIsIvy/history.asp

The oldest conference is the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Albion, still a member, won the first football title in 1894. Past champions include Eastern Michigan and Michigan State.

A history:

http://www.miaa.org/history/

The Big Ten is next-oldest.

Next is the Ohio Athletic Conference, founded in 1902. Practically every football program in Ohio has been a member at some point. Here is a history:

http://www.oac.org/Ohio%20Althletic%20C ... istory.pdf

Some intriguing highlights:

-- Bowling Green was a member of the OAC from 1933-42, leaving because, from the sound of it, most of the rest of the OAC didn't want to schedule the Falcons anymore (even though BGSU never won a title). The league office didn't dictate schedules in that era.

-- For a while, the MAC commissioner also served as commissioner of the OAC. Fred Jacoby, started this in 1981. Both conference offices were located in Toledo.

-- Wooster, Denison, Kenyon, Oberlin and Ohio Wesleyan left in 1982 to found the North Coast Atheltic Conference.

[ChicagoFalcon]

This did turn out to be pretty cool! The Third is the MAC, actually oldest conference is the SEC and the "Big 10 that sucks all the resources from the MAC conference" is the second. Sorry for not putting them in order, but I think yawl are intelligent enough to line em' up.

[Dayons_Den]

According to the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia the first season in which the Ivy League had league standings and awarded a conference championship was 1956.

The term "ivy league" and the schools playing against each other obviously occurred much earlier but perhaps they didn't play a complete schedule and hand out a conference championship officially until 1956.

[jerzyboy247]

isnt the Ivy League an actual conference for D-1 sports. I believe so and heres a fact fot all of you. The first Intercollegiate event was crewing held by Harvard and Yale. The game was played in New Hampshire in 1852. As for the third conference to be developed I would with the Big Ten.

[TG1996]

isnt the Ivy League an actual conference for D-1 sports. I believe so and heres a fact fot all of you. The first Intercollegiate event was crewing held by Harvard and Yale. The game was played in New Hampshire in 1852. As for the third conference to be developed I would with the Big Ten.

Right, but I think what was said earlier is that it was referred to as the "Ivy League" long before it was an actual conference. The collective group of schools were called the Ivy League, but there was no official governing body (I guess you'd say) until much later.

[Schadenfreude]

I'll type this slowly.

These are the oldest conferences in the country:

Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (1894)
Big Ten (1895)
Ohio Athletic Conference (1902)

[ChicagoFalcon]

I didn't include Ivy League since it's not considered Div I. I'm just concentrating on current Div I college conferences

[ChicagoFalcon]

My Bad

[ChicagoFalcon]

Nope, you forgot to include the SEC which was established in 1932. I'm only talking of current BCS and non-BCS conferences and the BIG X is second oldest next being the MAC.