The Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC), formerly the Gateway Football Conference, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) as a football-only conference.
History
thumb|left|Gateway Conference logo
The Missouri Valley Football Conference has a complex history that involves three other conferences:
- Missouri Valley Conference (MVC): A long-established conference, in existence since 1907, that sponsored football until 1985. In its last years as a football conference, it was a hybrid league that included teams in NCAA Divisions I-A (today's FBS) and I-AA (now FCS).
- Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference (Gateway): A women's sports conference founded in 1982 by MVC member schools.
- Association of Mid-Continent Universities (AMCU): An all-sports conference, also founded in 1982, that sponsored football at the I-AA level through the 1984 season. The AMCU had absorbed the Mid-Continent Athletic Association, a football-only league founded in 1978. (After dropping football, the AMCU later became the Mid-Continent Conference, and is now The Summit League.)
In 1985, the MVC stopped sponsoring football. At that time, the two remaining I-AA members from the MVC (Illinois State and Southern Illinois) joined Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Southwest Missouri State, and Western Illinois from the AMCU and together became a football conference under Gateway's auspices. Indiana State, which had left MVC football after the 1981 season to become a Division I-AA independent while remaining a full MVC member, would join the next year.
In 1992, when the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference merged with the MVC, leaving the GFC with seven members for the 2007 season. Great West Football Conference members North Dakota State and South Dakota State were invited to join the conference beginning with the 2008 season. Subsequently, the Gateway Football Conference changed its name to the Missouri Valley Football Conference in June 2008. This change aligned the conference with the Missouri Valley Conference, a conference in which five of the nine Missouri Valley Football schools were (and still are) all-sports members. The conferences continue to share the "Missouri Valley" name, and space in the same building in St. Louis, but remained separate administratively until 2025, and are still separate legal entities.
The University of South Dakota joined as the 10th member in 2012. The University of North Dakota joined as the 11th member in 2020, bringing back the yearly rivalries among North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota and South Dakota State which had existed under the Division II North Central Conference that NDSU and SDSU left in 2004–05.
On April 4, 2022, Murray State University, who had previously been announced as a new MVC member effective in July 2022, joined the MVFC in 2023, bringing the league up to a record high of 12 active members. This was short-lived however, as on May 12, 2023, founding member Western Illinois announced that they would be leaving the MVFC and their full time conference, the Summit League, for the Ohio Valley Conference beginning in fall 2023 and 2024. They would leave the Summit beginning in fall 2023, and would leave the Valley after the conclusion of the 2023 football season. Almost exactly a year after that, on May 10, 2024, fellow founding member Missouri State announced that they accepted an invitation to join Conference USA in all sports, beginning with the 2025-26 academic year.
On May 5, 2025, the conference announced a new governance structure that took effect on July 1, 2025 following longtime commissioner Patty Viverito's retirement on June 30. The new structure placed current Missouri Valley Conference commissioner Jeff Jackson as the new MVFC commissioner and current Summit League commissioner Josh Fenton as an executive advisor to the conference. This move marked the conference's only leadership change in its 40-year history. With this move, the MVFC was then formally connected to both primary conferences for 9 of the 10 conference members (Youngstown State is a member of the Horizon League) at the time.
On February 9, 2026, North Dakota State University announced they were leaving the conference to join the Mountain West Conference effective July 1, 2026 after 18 years in the MVFC.
Member schools
Current members
Members departing for the Mountain West Conference in 2026.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: center;"
|-
|-
| Illinois State University
| Normal, Illinois
| 1857
| 1985
| rowspan="4"|Public
| 20,989
| $204 million
| Redbirds
|
| rowspan="3"|Missouri Valley
|-
| Indiana State University
| Terre Haute, Indiana
| 1865
| 1986
| 12,144
| $103.1 million
| Sycamores
|
|-
| Murray State University
| Murray, Kentucky
| 1922
| 2023
| 9,427
| $90.8 million
| Racers
|
|-
|
| Grand Forks, North Dakota
| 1883
| 2020
| 15,844
| $510.7 million
| Fighting Hawks
|
| Summit
|-bgcolor=#ffa0a0
| North Dakota State University<!-- DO NOT REMOVE until July 1, 2026 when the move officially happens -->
| Fargo, North Dakota
| 1890
| 2008
| Public
| 11,952
| $457 million
| Bison
|
| Summit
|-
|
| Cedar Falls, Iowa
| 1876
| 1985
| rowspan="5"|Public
| 10,497
| $163 million
| Panthers
|
| Missouri Valley
|-
|
| Vermillion, South Dakota
| 1862
| 2012
| 10,619
| $328.5 million
| Coyotes
|
| rowspan="2" |Summit
|-
| South Dakota State University
| Brookings, South Dakota
| 1881
| 2008
| 11,331
| $213 million
| Jackrabbits
|
|-
| Southern Illinois University
| Carbondale, Illinois
| 1869
| 1985
| 11,366
| $190.1 million
| Salukis
|
| Missouri Valley
|-
| Youngstown State University
| Youngstown, Ohio
| 1908
| 1997
| 12,155
| $321.5 million
| Penguins
|
| Horizon
|}
Former members
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align: center;"
|-
!Institution
!Location
!Founded
!Joined
!Left
!Type
!Nickname
!class="unsortable"|Colors
!Primary<br />conference<br />during<br />tenure<br />in the MVFC
!Current<br />primary<br />conference
|-
| Eastern Illinois University
| Charleston, Illinois
| 1895
| 1985
| 1995
| rowspan="5"|Public
| Panthers
|
| Mid-Continent
| Ohio Valley
|-
| Missouri State University
| Springfield, Missouri
| 1905
| 1985
| 2025
| Bears
|
| Missouri Valley
| CUSA
<!-- Uncomment on July 1, 2026|-
| North Dakota State University
| Fargo, North Dakota
| 1890
| 2008
| 2026
| Bison
|
| colspan="2"| Summit -->
|-
| Western Illinois University
| Macomb, Illinois
| 1899
| 1985
| 2024
| Leathernecks
|
| Summit
| Ohio Valley
|-
| Western Kentucky University
| Bowling Green, Kentucky
| 1906
| 2001
| 2007
| Hilltoppers
|
| Sun Belt
| CUSA
|}
Membership timeline
<timeline>
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1985 till:2030
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<#
Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7)
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white
id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a current member
id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a former member
id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member of two conferences for the same sport (consider identifying in legend or a footnote)
id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference
id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two
PlotData=
width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s
bar:1 color:AssocF from:1985 till:1996 text:Eastern Illinois (1985–1995)
bar:1 color:OtherC1 from:1996 till:2023 text:Ohio Valley
bar:1 color:OtherC2 from:2023 till:end text:OVC-Big South
bar:2 color:AssocOS from:1985 till:1986 text:Illinois State (1985, MVC; 1986–present)
bar:2 color:Full from:1986 till:end
bar:3 color:Full from:1985 till:end text:Northern Iowa (1985–present)
bar:4 color:AssocOS from:1985 till:1986 text:Southern Illinois (1985, MVC; 1986–present)
bar:4 color:Full from:1986 till:end
bar:5 color:AssocF from:1985 till:2005 text:Southwest Missouri State (1985–2025)
bar:5 color:AssocF from:2005 till:2025 text:Missouri State
bar:5 color:OtherC1 from:2025 till:end text:CUSA
bar:6 color:AssocF from:1985 till:2024 text:Western Illinois (1985–2024)
bar:6 color:OtherC1 from:2024 till:end text:OVC-Big South
bar:7 color:Full from:1986 till:end text:Indiana State (1986–present)
bar:8 color:Full from:1997 till:end text:Youngstown State (1997–present)
bar:9 color:AssocF shift:(-15) from:2001 till:2007 text:Western Kentucky (2001–2007)
bar:9 color:OtherC1 from:2007 till:2008 text:FCS Ind.
bar:9 color:OtherC2 shift:25 from:2008 till:2009 text:FBS Ind.
bar:9 color:OtherC1 shift:50 from:2009 till:2014 text:Sun Belt
bar:9 color:OtherC2 from:2014 till:end text:CUSA
bar:10 color:Full from:2008 till:2026 text:North Dakota State (2008–2026)
bar:10 color:OtherC1 from:2026 till:end text:Mountain West
bar:11 color:Full from:2008 till:end text:South Dakota State (2008–present)
bar:12 color:Full from:2012 till:end text:South Dakota (2012–present)
bar:13 color:Full from:2020 till:end text:North Dakota (2020–present)
bar:14 color:Full from:2023 till:end text:Murray State (2023–present)
bar:N color:powderblue from:1985 till:1992 text:GCAC
bar:N color:yellow from:1992 till:2008 text:Gateway Football Conference
bar:N color:pink from:2008 till:end text:Missouri Valley Football Conference
ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1986
TextData =
fontsize:L
textcolor:black
pos:(0,30) tabs:(400-center)
text:^"MVFC membership history"
- > If the chart uses more than one bar color, add a legend by selecting the appropriate fields from the following six options (use only the colors that are used in the graphic.) Leave a blank line after the end of the timeline, then add a line with the selected values from the list, separated by a space. <# </timeline>
Conference champions
12 different teams have won MVFC championships. The most recent champion is North Dakota State, their 12th. The school with the most championships is Northern Iowa, with 16 (10 of them outright).
NCAA Football Championship Subdivision national championships
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:50%;"
|-
! Team !! Titles !! Title Years !! Finals !! Runner-up
|-
| North Dakota State || align=center|10 || 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2024 || align=center |11 || 2022
|-
| Youngstown State || align=center|4 || 1991, 1993, 1994, 1997 || align=center|7 || 1992, 1999, 2016
|-
| South Dakota State || align=center|2 || 2022, 2023 || align=center|3 || 2020
|-
| Southern Illinois || align=center|1 || 1983 || align=center|1||
|-
| Western Kentucky<sup>♯</sup> || align=center|1 || 2002 || align=center|1 ||
|-
| Illinois State || align=center|0 || || align=center|2 || 2014, 2025
|-
| Northern Iowa || align=center|0 || || align=center|1 || 2005
|}
♯ Now a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
Records
Overall winning streaks
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
!#
!Team
!Streak
!Spoiler
!Season(s)
|-
|1.|| North Dakota State || 39 † || Southern Illinois || 2017–2020
|-
|2.|| North Dakota State || 33 || Northern Iowa || 2012–2014
|-
|3.|| South Dakota State || 29 || Oklahoma State || 2022–2024
|-
| 4. || North Dakota State || 16 || Illinois State || 2024–2025
|-
| 5. || North Dakota State || 14 || South Dakota State || 2015–2016
|-
| rowspan=2 | 6.|| Western Kentucky || 13 || Auburn || 2002–2003
|-
| Northern Iowa || 13 || Delaware || 2006–2007
|}
† FCS Record
<br>
Former member
Consecutive conference wins
- North Dakota State, 19 (2017–2020)
- South Dakota State, 19 (2022–2024)
- North Dakota State, 18 (2012–2014)
Facilities
Members departing for the Mountain West Conference in 2026.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
|-
| style="text-align:center; "| Illinois State Redbirds football|
|Hancock Stadium
|13,391
|-
| style="text-align:center; "|
|Memorial Stadium
|12,764
|-
| style="text-align:center; "|
|Roy Stewart Stadium
|16,800
|-
| style="text-align:center; "| North Dakota Fighting Hawks football|
|Alerus Center
|12,283
|-bgcolor=#ffa0a0
| style="text-align:center; "|
|Fargodome
|18,700
|-
| style="text-align:center; "|
|UNI-Dome
|16,324
|-
| style="text-align:center; "| South Dakota Coyotes football|
|DakotaDome
|9,100
|-
| style="text-align:center; "|
|Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium
|19,300
|-
| style="text-align:center; "| Southern Illinois Salukis football|
|Saluki Stadium
|15,000
|-
| style="text-align:center; "| Youngstown State Penguins football|
|Stambaugh Stadium
|20,630
|}