Before the 2016 season, the NCAA required that a conference have a minimum of 12 teams and play in two divisions in order to hold a football championship game that did not count against the limit of 12 regular-season games per team.
Twelve-team conferences The first post-regular season conference championship game played in Division I-A football (what is now Division I FBS) was the
1992 SEC Championship Game, won by
Alabama over
Florida. The SEC had gone from being a 10-team conference in
1991, to being a 12-team conference—divided into two six-team divisions—in
1992. The next championship games to debut were that of the
Big 12 Conference and
Western Athletic Conference (WAC), starting in
1996. That year, the
Big Eight Conference and
Southwest Conference dissolved and were essentially replaced by the Big 12, with twelve teams divided into six-team divisions; while the WAC expanded to sixteen teams, divided into eight-team divisions. This was followed in
1997 by the
Mid-American Conference, which expanded from ten to twelve teams, divided into six-team divisions. Prior to the
1999 season, eight schools left the WAC to form the
Mountain West Conference (MW); the WAC thus discontinued its championship games (the conference would stop sponsoring football after 2012; it reinstated football in 2021 in
Division I FCS). New championship games were next added in
2005, when both the
Atlantic Coast Conference and
Conference USA expanded from eleven teams to twelve teams and implemented six-team divisions. is the only conference to discontinue and restart its scheduling of championship games. The requirement for a conference to have 12 teams in order to stage a championship game caused the Big 12 to discontinue its championship game after the
2010 season, as the conference
contracted to 10 members in 2011 (while retaining its name). In
2011, the
Big Ten Conference added its twelfth team (while retaining its name), split into six-team divisions, and added a championship game. That same season, what had been the Pacific-10 Conference added two teams, split into six-team divisions, renamed itself the
Pac-12 Conference, and initiated its own championship game. The MW grew to twelve teams in
2013, as did the American Athletic Conference (now known as the
American Conference) in
2015; both structured themselves into six-team divisions and began staging championship games.
Smaller conferences At the conclusion of the 2015 season, only the Big 12 and the
Sun Belt Conference (SBC) did not have championship games, as neither conference had the required minimum of 12 teams. In January 2016, the NCAA approved championship games for smaller conferences, provided the championship game features either (1) the top two teams at the end of a full
round-robin conference schedule, or (2) the winners of each of two divisions, with each team playing a full round-robin schedule within its division. Following that change to NCAA rules, the Big 12 reinstated its championship game in
2017, operating with 10 teams in a single division while playing a full round-robin schedule. In
2017, the SBC grew to 12 members with the addition of
Coastal Carolina. At that time, the SBC operated with all teams in a single division but did not play a full round-robin schedule and did not hold a championship game. The conference dropped to 10 football members after the football-only memberships of
Idaho and
New Mexico State were not extended following the 2017 season. The conference announced that it would begin playing a championship game in
2018, which it facilitated by splitting into two five-team divisions. Thus, 2018 was the first season that all FBS conferences held a championship game. Prior to the 2022 season, the NCAA gave conferences full freedom to determine the participants in their championship games. The Pac-12 scrapped its football divisions, effective immediately, on the very same day that the NCAA passed this rule change, soon followed by the MW and ACC effective in 2023. The Big Ten, MAC, and SEC all eliminated football divisions after the 2023 season, leaving the SBC as the only FBS conference using a divisional alignment in football. Beginning in the 2024–25 season the top 5 ranked winners of conference receive automatic bids to the College Football Playoff with the top 4 ranked conference champions receiving a bye to the second round. Since every conference champion is decided by a championship game as of that season, the games can serve as de facto playoff qualification games. (Especially for teams in the power 4.) ==Championship games==