The 11 College Football Teams That Have Won The Most Conference Championships

Every college football team heads into the season hoping to win a national title, but securing a conference championship is a sign you’ve done something right even if you fall short of the ultimate prize. Most programs have at least one of those to their name, but there are some that have racked up a ton of them over the years.

These are the college football teams that have claimed the most conference championships

The FBS is currently comprised of nine different conferences that are the result of well over a century of restructuring and realignment. Most schools have been a member of multiple conferences over the course of their program’s history, and I decided to take a look at the teams that have managed to compile the highest number of overall conference championships since their inception.

Before we dive in, I should note that every conference currently has a championship game that’s used to crown a sole victor, but I’ll be considering titles that were shared before those de facto tiebreakers were adopted.

Clemson: 27

We’re kicking things off with our lone representative from the ACC: Clemson, which has won 21 of its 27 titles as a member of the conference it joined in 1953 (the team got its first one three years later).

Prior to that point, the Tigers had won a couple in the Southern Conference in the 1940s, which were added to a trophy case that already contained the four they’d secured in the 25 years they spent as members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association beginning in 1896.

Utah: 28

There are three schools on this list that don’t have a national title despite racking up more than two dozen conference championships, and Utah is the first member of that particular club.

The Utes do have plenty of consolation prizes with a conference championship collection built on the foundation of the ten they won in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference between 1912 and 1933. They went on to win five more in 10 seasons in the Big Seven starting in 1938 before accruing the same number in a slightly longer span in the Skyline.

Utah got two titles in the WAC (although they were separated by more than 30 years), an additional four in the Mountain West, and its most recent two after defecting to the Pac-12.

Fresno State: 29

The bulk of the teams on this list hail from one of the conferences that comprise what is currently known as the “Power 4,” but we do have a couple of smaller schools crashing the party.

The first is Fresno State, which has won a title as a member of five different conferences since getting its first in the California Coast all the way back in 1922.

The Bulldogs had four more in the Far Western, ten while affiliated with the California Collegiate Athletic Association, six in the Big West,  three during their time in the WAC, and have managed to earn another four since linking up with the Mountain West in 2012.

As was the case with the previous entry, Fresno State has not won a national championship, and it’s hard to imagine a timeline where that ends up changing.

Texas: 31

Texas linked up with the Southwest Conference in 1883, and no school won more than the 27 conference titles the Longhorns accumulated before it dissolved in 1996. Texas added four more after making the move to the Big 12, but they’re still looking for their first since heading to the SEC.

Alabama: 34

Alabama had four championships as a member of the Southern Conference between 1924 and 1930, and they were the first team to win one when the SEC was formed in 1933. The Crimson Tide currently have a laughable lead in that particular conference, as the 30 titles they have are twice as many as the 15 that put Georgia in second place.

Tulsa: 35

Tulsa is the second (and final) G5 team making an appearance here and also the last one without a national championship.

The Golden Hurricane are currently in the midst of a title drought stretching back to their second Conference USA championship in 2012, and the lion’s share comes from their time as a Missouri Valley juggernaut that won 25 between 1935 and 1985.

Prior to that point, Tulsa had three in the Big Four and five during its time as a member of the Oklahoma Intercollegiate Conference.

USC: 37

The next three schools on this list have won all of their championships as a member of a single conference, although the one USC formerly belonged to went through a few different iterations.

What eventually became the Pac-12 (and was formerly the Pac-10) was simply known as the Pacific Coast Conference when the Trojans shared the title with Stanford and Idaho in 1927, and they ended up splitting 11 of the 37 titles they earned before getting their last one in 2017.

Ohio State: 39 (Big Ten)

The Big Ten is the oldest conference at the Division I level, and two teams have firmly stood ahead of the rest of the pack since it was founded in 1896.

Minnesota currently sits in third place with 18 conference championships, and Ohio State earns the silver medal with a significantly higher spot on the podium thanks to the 39 titles it has to its name (24 of which the Buckeyes won outright).

Michigan: 45

I regret to inform Ohio State fans that this is a category where Michigan currently holds the edge, as the Wolverines lead the Buckeyes by six. With that said, the guys in Columbus have a firmer claim when it comes to uncontested titles, as the squad up in Ann Arbor has only won the Big Ten outright 19 times.

Nebraska: 46

Nebraska won its first conference championship with the Western Interstate University Football Association in 1894 and had three under its belt by the time it departed for the Missouri Valley.

The Cornhuskers added another dozen to the collection with that conference before departing for what is now the Big 12 (which was the Big Six when they joined). Nebraska has won 31 as a member of its various iterations, although it is firmly nursing the longest drought on this list when you consider its most recent championship came in 1999.

Oklahoma: 50

Last, and certainly not least, we have Oklahoma, which was a two-time Southwest Conference champion and one-time Missouri Valley winner before joining the same gradually evolving Big Number conference where Nebraska won the bulk of its titles.

The Sooners have won 47 conference championships since getting their first with the Big Six in 1938, and only nine of those have been shared with another team.