![]() “This represents a new start, and a new era for Leatherneck Athletics against some old rivalries, as well as some new teams in our geographic footprint,” said WIU Director of Athletics Paul A. ![]() Western Illinois has been a member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference since 1985, when it was then known as the Gateway Football Conference. “We are excited to join our peers of similar size and communities, and we look forward to great competition.” “This is going to be an excellent new endeavor for Western Illinois University,” said WIU President Dr. All other Leathernecks athletics teams will depart the Summit League and will join the OVC effective July 1, 2023. Western Illinois will officially depart the Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC) after the 2023 football season and will join the Ohio Valley Conference beginning in the fall of 2024. Locations of current Missouri Valley Football Conference member institutions.The Western Illinois Leathernecks have accepted an invitation to join the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) in 2024, the school announced on Friday. The conferences will share the "Missouri Valley" name but will remain separate administratively. This change aligns the conference with the Missouri Valley Conference, a conference in which five of the nine Missouri Valley Football schools participate. On June 6, 2008, the Gateway Football Conference changed its name to the Missouri Valley Football Conference, effective immediately. On March 7, 2007, the conference announced that both schools would join the conference beginning with the 2008 season. However, Great West Football Conference members North Dakota State and South Dakota State were asked to submit information about themselves and to attend the conference presidents' meeting. ![]() ĭue to Western Kentucky's move, the Gateway was left with 7 members for the 2007 season. The Hilltoppers left the GFC after the 2006 season, went through the two-year "reclassification" period mandated by the NCAA for schools moving from the FCS to the FBS, and became a football member of its all-sports conference, the Sun Belt Conference, in 2009. On November 2, 2006, Western Kentucky's Board of Regents approved a proposal by the school's president to upgrade the football program to the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS formerly Division I-A). The Gateway changed its name to the Missouri Valley Football Conference in 2008. Southwest Missouri State changed its name to Missouri State in 2005. After Eastern Illinois joined the Ohio Valley Conference for football in 1995, Youngstown State joined in 1997 and was followed by Western Kentucky in 2001. In 1992, when the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference merged with the MVC, the football conference kept the Gateway charter, with a minor name change to Gateway Football Conference. The football programs joined with the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference, which at the time was a women's athletic conference that roughly paralleled the MVC. At that time, the I-AA members from the MVC (Illinois State, Indiana State, and Southern Illinois) joined Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Southwest Missouri State, and Western Illinois to form the Association of Mid-Continent Universities, later the Mid-Continent Conference and now The Summit League, for sports other than football. The conference was formed from the remnant football schools of the old Missouri Valley when it stopped sponsoring its hybrid I-A/I-AA football league in 1985. The Missouri Valley Football Conference has a convoluted history.
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