July 1 is New Year's Day in college athletics, the day the page officially turns from one academic year to the next. In 2025, July 1 is the date the House settlement goes, officially dividing the history of college athletics into "before" and "after" periods. No one knows exactly what college sports will look like 5, 15 and 25 years from now, but July 1, 2025 will be the date we officially started moving from here to there.
In more typical news, July 1 is also the date that conference realignment moves become official. In 2025, a modest three universities will switch their conference affiliations, but this is merely Chapter 6 in a 7-part saga. When the Houston Chronicle reported on July 22, 2021, that Oklahoma and Texas had reached out to the SEC to inquire about membership, and when the Red River rivals officially accepted invitations eight days later, it kicked off a wave that...
... affected every FBS school and all 10 conferences
... saw 42 institutions change conferences
... pushed FBS membership from 130 teams to 136
There were downstream effects as well. The Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC formed The Alliance in response to the SEC's move. Together, those moves upended the harmony that built the brand-new, yet-to-be-played 12-team College Football Playoff bracket, to debut in the 2024 season. The Big Ten and SEC, now in control of the sport's championship tournament, remain at odds at how the postseason will look for 2026 and beyond. So seismic were the moves that began in 2021 that the Associated Press named the demise of the Pac-12 as its Sports Story of the Year for 2023.
Below is the timeline of all the moves that came, come, or will become official on July 1 (or thereabouts) during this ongoing wave of realignment in FBS.
July 1, 2022
-- Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss join the Sun Belt from Conference USA. James Madison joins from the CAA.
July 1, 2023
-- Big 12 adds Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF from the American. BYU, a football independent and Olympic sports member of the West Coast Conference, joins as well.
-- American adds Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA from Conference USA
-- Conference USA welcomes Jacksonville State, Liberty, New Mexico State, and Sam Houston
July 1, 2024
-- SEC adds Oklahoma, Texas from Big 12
-- SMU leaves the AAC for the ACC
-- Army joins the American as a football-only member
Aug. 1, 2024
-- Big Ten adds Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington
Aug. 2, 2024
-- Big 12 officially adds Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah
-- ACC welcomes Cal, Stanford
-- Kennesaw State joins Conference USA
July 1, 2025
-- Conference USA, at one point down to five members, adds Delaware and Missouri State as its 11th and 12th members
-- UMass joins the MAC
July 1, 2026
-- Pac-12 to add Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Texas State
-- Mountain West adding UTEP as a full member and Northern Illinois as football-only
-- Sun Belt to add Louisiana Tech (anticipated)
When Oklahoma and Texas agreed to leave the Big 12 for the SEC in July 2021, they surely had no idea that their decision would one day lead to the University of California in the ACC, Texas State in the Pac-12, Northern Illinois in the Mountain West and UMass in the Mid-American. Of course, the Sooners and Longhorns would argue their move was simply a reaction to the moves that came before them. When did the original Big 12 die? Was it when the Red River rivals left, or when Missouri and Texas A&M joined the SEC in 2012, or was it when Nebraska joined the Big Ten and Colorado the Pac-10? Historians would likely argue the war began in 2004, when negotiations ESPN declined to agree to the rights fees increase sought by the Big Ten, causing commissioner Jim Delany to begin exploring the viability of a Big Ten TV network.
And because of all that came before, Delaware and Missouri State officially become FBS's 135th and 136th FBS schools in Tuesday. Happy New Year's, everyone.