The power conferences or the Power Four are the most prominent athletic conferences in college football in the United States. They are part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I, the highest level of collegiate football in the nation, and are considered the most elite conferences within that tier. Power conferences have provided most of the participants in the College Football Playoff (CFP) and its predecessors, and generally have larger revenue, budgets, and television viewership than other college athletic programs. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) are currently recognized as power conferences.
For decades, the most prominent conferences sent their teams to postseason bowl games, but the season frequently ended with multiple teams claiming the national championship. After the 1990 and 1991 seasons ended with consecutive split championships, several of the most prominent conferences and bowl games formed the Bowl Coalition (1992–1994) and later the Bowl Alliance (1995–1997) to provide a definitive national champion. In 1998, the Power Six—the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, SEC, and Pac-12—and the four most prominent bowl games—the Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar Bowls—formed the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), with conference champions awarded Automatic Qualifying (AQ) status to the bowl games and, provisionally, the National Championship Game.
The defection of three Big East members to the ACC after the 2005 conference realignment gradually diminished its stature, and it eventually split into two following a realignment in the early 2010s; at the same time, the BCS was reorganized into the College Football Playoff, and the remaining AQ conferences were collectively referred to as the Power Five. A further realignment in the early 2020s reduced the Pac-12 left to only two members after the 2023 season; the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC now form the Power Four. As of the 2026 season, the FBS has 138 members, divided between the Power Four, six other conferences known as the Group of Six (G6), and two independent schools; of the two independent schools, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish – which is a non-football member of the ACC – is historically regarded as equivalent to a power conference team.
The term power conference is not defined by the NCAA, but the conferences are identified individually under NCAA rules as "autonomy conferences", which grants them some degree of independence from standard NCAA rules, such as financial compensation for student athletes. The power conferences also compete in other collegiate sports, but are not necessarily the most prominent in each sport; for example, in men's college basketball, the new Big East, which does not sponsor football, is also considered to be a power conference.
List of conferences and teams
The ten FBS conferences as of the 2026–27 academic year are listed. For the Power Four, the members of each conference are also listed:
Power Four conferences and member universitiesACCBig TenBig 12SECBoston CollegeIllinoisArizonaAlabamaCalifornia IndianaArizona StateArkansasClemsonIowaBaylorAuburnDuke MarylandBYUFloridaFlorida StateMichiganCincinnatiGeorgiaGeorgia TechMichigan StateColoradoKentuckyLouisvilleMinnesotaHoustonLSUMiami (FL) NebraskaIowa StateOle MissNorth Carolina NorthwesternKansasMississippi StateNC State Ohio StateKansas StateMissouriPittsburgh OregonOklahoma StateOklahomaSMUPenn StateTCUSouth CarolinaStanfordPurdueTexas TechTennessee Syracuse RutgersUCFTexasVirginiaUCLAUtahTexas A&MVirginia TechUSCWest VirginiaVanderbiltWake ForestWashingtonWisconsin
Other FBS conferences Group of Six conferencesAmerican ConferenceConference USAMid-American ConferenceMountain West ConferencePac-12 ConferenceSun Belt Conference
Independent teams Notre Dame UConn
Map of Power Four teams
Teams by State
State Teams Count Washington Washington 1 Oregon Oregon 1 California California, Stanford, UCLA, USC 4 Utah BYU, Utah 2 Arizona Arizona, Arizona State 2 Colorado Colorado 1 Nebraska Nebraska 1 Kansas Kansas, Kansas State 2 Oklahoma Oklahoma, Oklahoma State 2 Texas Baylor, Houston, SMU, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech 7 Minnesota Minnesota 1 Iowa Iowa, Iowa State 2 Missouri Missouri 1 Arkansas Arkansas 1 Louisiana LSU 1 Wisconsin Wisconsin 1 Illinois Illinois, Northwestern 2 Indiana Indiana, Notre Dame, Purdue 3 Kentucky Kentucky, Louisville 2 Tennessee Tennessee, Vanderbilt 2 Mississippi Mississippi State, Ole Miss 2 Alabama Alabama, Auburn 2 Georgia Georgia, Georgia Tech 2 Florida Florida, Florida State, Miami (FL), UCF 4 Michigan Michigan, Michigan State 2 Ohio Cincinnati, Ohio State 2 New York Syracuse 1 Massachusetts Boston College 1 Pennsylvania Penn State, Pittsburgh 2 New Jersey Rutgers 1 West Virginia West Virginia 1 Maryland Maryland 1 Virginia Virginia, Virginia Tech 2 North Carolina Duke, NC State, UNC, Wake Forest 4 South Carolina Clemson, South Carolina 2
Power conferences in the College Football Playoff era Position within college football and the FBS The power conferences are all part of NCAA Division I, which contains most of the largest and most competitive collegiate athletic programs in the United States, and the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which is the higher of the two levels of college football within NCAA Division I. It is unknown where the term "Power Conference" originated; it is not officially documented by the NCAA, though it has been used since at least 2006. The top conferences in college football are called the "Power Four conferences": the Big Ten Conference, the Big 12 Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Since 2014, the power conferences have held some autonomy from the rest of Division I in regard to issues such as stipends and recruiting rules.
Roughly half of the schools in the FBS play in one of the Power Four conferences. The remaining schools are either independent or play in one of the conferences known as the Group of Six conferences, which consists of the American Conference ("American"), Conference USA (CUSA), the Mid-American Conference (MAC), the Mountain West Conference (MW), the Pac-12 Conference ("Pac-12"), and the Sun Belt Conference (SBC). The term "Power Four conferences" is often shortened to "P4", while the remaining conferences are referred to as the "Group of Six conferences", or "Group of Five conferences" before the Pac-12's loss of autonomy. The FBS has two independents as of the 2026 season: the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the UConn Huskies. Notre Dame is considered equal to the Power Four schools, being a full (with the exception of football) member of the ACC with an annual five-game football scheduling agreement with that conference; Notre Dame also has its own national television contract and its own arrangement for access to the CFP-affiliated bowl games should it meet stated competitive criteria. The other independents are generally considered to be on the same level as the G6 conferences.
Compared to the G6 conferences, power conference schools have significantly higher revenue, due to television deals with major networks and streaming services. In 2022, the power conferences generated a combined $3.3 billion in revenue. College football games often draw strong television ratings, and, along with the NFL, college football was one of the few television properties to grow in live ratings between 2013 and 2023. In 2022, college football games between power conference teams made up five of the ten most-watched non-NFL sporting events among U.S. viewers. With 22.56 million viewers, the 2022 national championship game ranked as the most watched college football game of the year, and as the 33rd most-watched sporting event in the United States; only NFL games ranked higher. Almost every Power Four school has a home stadium capacity of at least 40,000, and the power conferences all had an average attendance of at least 48,000 in 2025. This compares to an FBS average attendance of just under 42,000 and Group of Six average attendance that ranged between 13,000 and just over 25,000 for each conference, with legacy Pac-12 members Oregon State and Washington State respectively averaging about 30,000 and 26,500. This revenue advantage allows Power Four conferences to pay higher salaries to coaches and invest in expensive athletic facilities and amenities. Although schools cannot directly pay student athletes, since 2021 school boosters and other third parties can pay student athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. Much of this NIL money goes to Power Four conference athletes, although numerous athletes from other conferences have also received NIL compensation.
Scheduling and college football playoff Teams in the Power Four conferences play an eight or nine-game conference schedule, and play an additional three or four non-conference games to fill out their 12-game regular season schedule. Teams from the Power Four and the Group of Six often play non-conference games against each other during the season, and sometimes also play against teams from the FCS, the lower tier of division one football. However, many coaches of power conference schools have argued that power conference schools should only be allowed to schedule games against other power conference schools. All Power Four conferences that require their members to schedule at least one power conference opponent in nonconference play consider Notre Dame to be a power conference opponent for such purposes; the Big Ten and SEC also count Army as such an opponent. Though not required to do so, all Power Four conferences hold conference championship games following the conclusion of the regular season and prior to the College Football Playoff. The power conferences previously each had two divisions and matched the winner of each division in the conference championship game, but all of the Power Four conferences have scrapped divisions, and conference championship games take place between the two highest-ranking teams.
The College Football Playoff takes place after the conference championship games and contemporaneously with several other bowl games. Following several changes after the 2023 college football season, the playoff consists of 12 teams, with the top five conference champions receiving automatic bids to the playoffs. At least one Group of Five Conference will be awarded one of the automatic bids in each playoff. The College Football Playoff requires that a conference have at least eight teams in order to be eligible for an automatic qualifying bid, so the two-member Pac-12 is not eligible to receive an automatic bid. The four highest-ranked conference champions receive first-round byes, while the remaining eight teams play in the opening round of the playoffs at the home fields of the higher seeds. The "New Year's Six" bowls, which have held an important role in the college football postseason since before the establishment of the College Football Playoff, host the quarterfinals and semifinals on a rotating basis. The College Football Playoff National Championship, the final game of the College Football Playoff, is held at a separately determined neutral site.
History
Origins of the power conferences