United Athletic Conference

The United Athletic Conference (UAC), also known as The United, is an NCAA Division I conference founded in 1962. Prior to July 1, 2026, the conference operated as the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) from its inception.

For the first 41 years of its existence, the WAC competed at the highest level of college athletics across all sports. The conference expanded from its original six members to a peak of 16 in 1996, before eight of its institutions (including the four remaining charter members) seceded in 1998 to form the Mountain West Conference. Thereafter the WAC struggled to maintain a top-level football conference and ultimately discontinued the sport after the 2012–13 season, leaving the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-A) to become a Division I non-football conference. After a major expansion in 2021, the WAC reinstated football, competing in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Further membership losses soon foiled plans to someday return to the FBS level, and in 2023 the WAC again became a non-football conference, with its football-playing members joining the football schools of the Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) to form the football-only United Athletic Conference (UAC).

The WAC officially rebranded as the United Athletic Conference on July 1, 2026, and membership under this new identity includes the three continuing members of the WAC (Abilene Christian University, Tarleton State University, and non-football University of Texas at Arlington), the five members of the pre-2026 ASUN that played football in the single-sport UAC (Austin Peay State University, University of Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky University, University of North Alabama, and University of West Georgia), and the non-football University of Arkansas at Little Rock (athletically known as Little Rock) from the Ohio Valley Conference.

History

1960s: Formation

The WAC formed out of a series of talks between Brigham Young University athletic director Eddie Kimball and other university administrators from 1958 to 1961 to form a new athletic conference that would better fit the needs and situations of certain universities which were at the time members of the Border, Skyline, and Pacific Coast Conferences. Potential member universities who were represented at the meetings included BYU, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Arizona State, and Wyoming.