Big Eight Conference

The Big Eight Conference, a former NCAA-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored American football, was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MVIAA) by its charter member schools: the University of Kansas, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, and Washington University in St. Louis. Additionally, the University of Iowa was a joint member of the newly formed MVIAA and the older Western Conference (now the Big Ten Conference).

The Big Eight's headquarters were in Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City fought to be the home for the headquarters of the new Big 12 Conference, but pressure from the four Texas schools coming over from the Southwest Conference led to the office being located in Dallas, Texas.

History

1908 saw the departure of Iowa, however the addition of Drake University and Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) increased conference membership to six. Kansas State University joined the conference in 1913. Nebraska left in 1919 to play two seasons as an independent. That year, the conference added Grinnell College, with the University of Oklahoma following suit in 1920; its intrastate rival Oklahoma A&M College joined in 1925.

1928 proved to be a pivotal year as the conference split up. The larger state schools of Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma remained together as the MVIAA, which became known informally to fans and the media as the Big Six Conference, while the smaller schools formed a new conference, the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC). The similarity of the two conferences' official names, as well as the competing claims of the two conferences has led to considerable debate over which conference was the original and which was the spin-off (even though the MVIAA eventually went on to become the more prestigious of the two). Both conferences considered 1907 as their founding date, and claimed the same history through 1927.

The conference membership remained unchanged until the addition of the University of Colorado in 1948 from the Skyline Conference (a forerunner of the Western Athletic Conference). The conference's unofficial name became the Big Seven Conference. Oklahoma A&M, which by this time had changed its name to Oklahoma State, rejoined in 1958, and the conference's unofficial name became the Big Eight.

In 1964 the MVIAA officially renamed itself the Big Eight Conference. In 1968 the conference began its long association with the Orange Bowl, sending its champion annually to play to the prestigious bowl game in Miami, Florida.

The conference remained essentially unchanged until 1996, when the eight member schools combined with four former members of the now-defunct Southwest Conference (Baylor University, University of Texas, Texas A&M University, and Texas Tech University) to form the Big 12 Conference. The Big 12 considers itself a new conference and does not claim the Big Eight's history as its own. However, many consider the Big 12 to be an enlarged Big Eight.^{[citation needed]}

Members

Conference champions

Basketball

Regular season champions since 1928-29

1929: Oklahoma
1930: Missouri
1931: Kansas
1932: Kansas
1933: Kansas
1934: Kansas
1935: Iowa State
1936: Kansas
1937: Kansas & Nebraska
1938: Kansas
1939: Missouri & Oklahoma
1940: Kansas & Missouri & Oklahoma
1941: Iowa State & Kansas
1942: Kansas & Oklahoma
1943: Kansas
1944: Iowa State & Oklahoma
1945: Iowa State
1946: Kansas
1947: Oklahoma
1948: Kansas State
1949: Nebraska & Oklahoma
1950: Kansas State & Kansas & Nebraska
1951: Kansas State
1952: Kansas (National Champions)
1953: Kansas
1954: Kansas & Colorado
1955: Colorado
1956: Kansas State
1957: Kansas
1958: Kansas State
1959: Kansas State
1960: Kansas & Kansas State
1961: Kansas State
1962: Colorado
1963: Colorado & Kansas State
1964: Kansas State
1965: Oklahoma State
1966: Kansas
1967: Kansas
1968: Kansas State
1969: Colorado
1970: Kansas State
1971: Kansas
1972: Kansas State
1973: Kansas State
1974: Kansas
1975: Kansas
1976: Missouri
1977: Kansas State
1978: Kansas
1979: Oklahoma
1980: Missouri
1981: Missouri
1982: Missouri
1983: Missouri
1984: Oklahoma
1985: Oklahoma
1986: Kansas
1987: Missouri
1988: Oklahoma (Kansas were National Champions)
1989: Oklahoma
1990: Missouri
1991: Oklahoma State & Kansas
1992: Kansas
1993: Kansas
1994: Missouri
1995: Kansas
1996: Kansas

Tournament champions:

1977: Kansas State
1978: Missouri
1979: Oklahoma
1980: Kansas State
1981: Kansas
1982: Missouri
1983: Oklahoma State
1984: Kansas
1985: Oklahoma
1986: Kansas
1987: Missouri
1988: Oklahoma
1989: Missouri
1990: Oklahoma
1991: Missouri
1992: Kansas
1993: Missouri
1994: Nebraska
1995: Oklahoma State
1996: Iowa State

Football

Following are the MVIAA/Big Eight conference championships for each Big Eight team from 1907 to 1995.

Colorado (3 outright/5 total): 1961; 1976 (Co-Champions); 1989; 1990; 1991 (Co-Champions)

Iowa State (0/2): 1911 (Co-Champions); 1912 (Co-Champions)

Kansas (2/5): 1908; 1930; 1946 (Co-Champions); 1947 (Co-Champions); 1968 (Co-Champions)

Kansas State (1/1): 1934

Missouri (10/12): 1909; 1913 (Co-Champions); 1919; 1924; 1925; 1927; 1939; 1941; 1942; 1945; 1960; 1969 (Co-Champions)

Nebraska (30/41): 1907 (Co-Champions with the University of Iowa); 1910; 1911 (Co-Champions); 1912 (Co-Champions); 1913 (Co-Champions); 1914; 1915; 1916; 1917; 1921; 1922; 1923; 1928; 1929; 1931; 1932; 1933; 1935; 1936; 1937; 1940; 1963; 1964; 1965; 1966; 1969 (Co-Champions); 1970; 1971; 1972; 1975 (Co-Champions); 1978 (Co-Champions); 1981; 1982; 1983; 1984 (Co-Champions); 1988; 1991 (Co-Champions); 1992; 1993; 1994; 1995

Oklahoma (24/33): 1920; 1938; 1943; 1944; 1946 (Co-Champions); 1947 (Co-Champions); 1948; 1949; 1950; 1951; 1952; 1953; 1954; 1955; 1956; 1957; 1958; 1959; 1962; 1967; 1968 (Co-Champions); 1973; 1974; 1975 (Co-Champions); 1976 (Co-Champions); 1977; 1978 (Co-Champions); 1979; 1980; 1984 (Co-Champions); 1985; 1986; 1987

Oklahoma State (1/2): 1926; 1976 (Co-Champions)