With the start of a new college football season comes the need for reminders.

A lot has changed in the nearly eight months since the last season ended, which means that the agonizing wait between games can cause just as much confusion as ecstasy once the long-awaited first game kicks off.

What players discovered new homes through the transfer portal? What coaches and coordinators are at new schools? How is that guy still playing college football?

In this day and age, there’s another question that is constantly raised — who, exactly, is in what conference?

What was once a relatively stable conference model has become a perpetual game of musical chairs this century that’s made the sport unrecognizable from what it was 25 years ago. The Big East is no longer a football conference. The Pac-12 was whittled down to two teams only to be born again. The Big Ten has 16 teams, including four on the West Coast. The Big 12 has 16 teams and spans three time zones. The ACC has two schools, Stanford and Cal, that are 3,000 miles from the league’s eponymous Atlantic Coast. Conference USA, with members stretching from Delaware to New Mexico, may be the only conference left that’s true to its namesake.

The past offseason was particularly dizzying, with nine schools switching conferences and two others making the FCS-to-FBS jump.

Where do things stand heading into the 2026 season? Here’s a refresher on the various moves of conference realignment:

College football realignment refresher

Leagues are listed in alphabetical order. New additions to a conference are in bold.

ACC

Members: Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, NC State, North Carolina, Pitt, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest

What changed? Nothing

American

Members: Army, Charlotte, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Memphis, Navy, North Texas, Rice, South Florida, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, UTSA

What changed? Nothing

Big 12

Members: Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, Utah, West Virginia

What changed? Nothing

Big Ten

Members: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Washington, Wisconsin

What changed? Nothing

Conference USA

Members: Delaware, Florida International, Jacksonville State, Kennesaw State, Liberty, Middle Tennessee, Missouri State, New Mexico State, Sam Houston, Western Kentucky

What changed? Louisiana Tech (Sun Belt) and UTEP (Mountain West) left the league. No other schools were added to make up for the losses.

Independents

Schools: Notre Dame, UConn

What changed? Nothing

MAC

Members: Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Miami (Ohio), Ohio, Sacramento State, Toledo, UMass, Western Michigan

What changed? After being in the conference for nearly 40 years across two different stays, Northern Illinois left the MAC for the Mountain West, where a school in a state whose highest natural peak is 1,235 feet will join a league with “Mountain” in its name. In an even more geographically dubious move, a conference that previously didn’t have a full-time member west of the Mississippi River is adding Sacramento State as a football-only member for a five-year term.

Mountain West

Members: Air Force, Hawai’i, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota State, Northern Illinois, San José State, UNLV, UTEP, Wyoming

What changed? Quite a bit. The conference lost many of its most successful football programs and most recognized brands when Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State, Colorado State and Utah State left for the newly reformed Pac-12. A handful of the league’s more notable schools stuck around, like UNLV and New Mexico, and will be joined by three newcomers. FCS juggernaut North Dakota State made the long-awaited FBS transition and will be a football-only member. Northern Illinois is aboard as a football-only inclusion, as well. UTEP made the move over from Conference USA as a full member.

Pac-12

Members: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Oregon State, San Diego State, Texas State, Utah State, Washington State

What changed? After two years of being a two-team entity, the famed Two-Pac, we’ve got a full, honest-to-god conference. Washington State and Oregon State, the last two remnants of the old Pac-12, will be joined by six new members — Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State from the Mountain West, and Texas State from the Sun Belt. Interestingly, one of the few conferences that would actually change its name to reflect its current membership count isn’t doing so this time, despite having been the Pacific-8 from 1968-78 before adding Arizona and Arizona State.

SEC

Members: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma,, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt

What changed? Nothing

Sun Belt

Members: Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison, Louisiana, Louisiana Monroe, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Old Dominion, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Troy

What changed? After losing Texas State to the Pac-12, the Sun Belt doubled down on its hyper-regional identity and brought in Louisiana Tech from Conference USA. The move reunites the Bulldogs with in-state rivals Louisiana and Louisiana Monroe, the latter of which is only about 35 miles from the school’s Ruston campus.