Foundation The PFL was created as a direct result of an NCAA rule change passed in January 1991, which required Division I schools to sponsor all of their sports at the Division I level by 1993. Charter members included
Butler University, the
University of Dayton,
Drake University, the
University of Evansville, and
Valparaiso University. The
University of San Diego joined in 1992, and the league played its first season in 1993. The founding schools came from a variety of football backgrounds. For decades, Drake played the sport at the Division I level in the
Missouri Valley Conference before dropping to Division III for the most recent seven seasons (1986 through 1992). Dayton had made the same move much earlier, in 1977, and appeared in the
Division III championship game five times, winning the title in 1980 and 1989. San Diego had played Division III football the longest, since the creation of the division in 1973. Evansville's program competed in the
National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) from 1988 through 1992 after several years in Division II. Butler and Valparaiso came to the league from the
Midwest Intercollegiate Football Conference in Division II. The three Indiana schools had longstanding football rivalries, having played each other annually for decades in the
Indiana Collegiate Conference and
Heartland Collegiate Conference.
1997–2001 membership changes In 1997, the league was reduced to five members when Evansville downgraded football to club status. In 2001, the conference expanded to nine members and was reorganized into two divisions, with the five existing members forming the North Division and newcomers
Austin Peay State University,
Davidson College,
Jacksonville University and
Morehead State University forming the South Division. Austin Peay and Morehead State had been playing scholarship football at the FCS level in the
Ohio Valley Conference, which continued to be their all-sports home. Davidson, for decades a member of the
Southern Conference, had competed for the past several years as a non-scholarship FCS independent. Jacksonville, a relatively new program, likewise had competed as a non-scholarship FCS independent since its inaugural season in 1998. The reorganization of the PFL brought a new championship system in which the best record holders from each division met in a title game for the conference championship.
2005–2008 membership changes On April 8, 2005, Austin Peay announced its departure from the league effective after the 2005 season, to return to scholarship football competition in the Ohio Valley Conference. As a result, the conference reverted to a single table with the champion determined via regular season round-robin play. On April 7, 2006,
Campbell University announced the revival of a football program dormant since 1950, and on December 5, 2007, accepted an invitation to the PFL for its inaugural season in 2008. In February 2008,
Marist College announced that it would join the PFL for the 2009 season, after its all-sports home, the
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, stopped sponsoring football. Although Campbell moved in 2011 from the
Atlantic Sun Conference to the
Big South Conference, which sponsored football, it did not join the Big South in football and remained in the PFL through the 2017 season.
2013–2018 membership changes and automatic playoff berth On June 13, 2011, new programs
Mercer University and
Stetson University were announced as league members effective 2013, expanding the PFL lineup to 12 schools. In addition, as of 2013, the league champion received an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. Soon after its PFL membership was announced, Mercer accepted an invitation to join the
Southern Conference effective July 1, 2014. During its one season in the league, Mercer set an FCS record for start-up programs by finishing the 2013 campaign with an overall record of 10–2 including an undefeated 8–0 at home. The next change in conference membership was announced on November 14, 2016, when Campbell revealed it would transition to scholarship football and add that sport to its existing Big South membership effective with the 2018 season, temporarily reducing the PFL membership to 10. The PFL soon recruited a replacement, as revealed in the November 20, 2017 announcement that
Presbyterian College would be joining from the Big South, but not until the 2021 season.
Recent history Before Presbyterian began play in the PFL, the league lost a member when Jacksonville, on December 3, 2019, announced that it was discontinuing its football program, effective immediately. The departure of Jacksonville left the PFL with just nine teams for the 2020 season, which was rescheduled to spring 2021 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. After two PFL members chose not to play football at all during the 2020–21 academic year, the conference entered into a scheduling agreement with Presbyterian that included it in the spring 2021 schedule, in advance of its formal entry into the league in the fall of 2021. While PC was not eligible for the PFL title in that season, it was eligible for the league's individual awards and honors. Presbyterian was joined as a new PFL member in 2021 by the
University of St. Thomas, a
Twin Cities school that had been expelled from its longtime Division III home, the
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC), effective in 2021–22. Shortly after the MIAC announced St. Thomas' expulsion, the
Summit League, a non-football Division I conference, offered the
Tommies membership for the rest of their sports. The NCAA announced on July 15, 2020, that it had granted a waiver to allow St. Thomas to make the jump from D-III to D-I on a five-year schedule, instead of the four years used for moves from Division II. After the NCAA reduced the transition period to four years in January 2025, the Tommies completed the transition that July, making them eligible for the FCS playoffs for the first time in the 2025 season. ==Member schools==