College Football - Gateway Conference
History - Important facts - Teams - Winners
The Gateway Football Conference began sponsoring football on August 21, 1985, but it wasn’t until July of 1992 it became a NCAA Division I-AA football conference.
Its original members were: Eastern Illinois, Illinois St., Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, S.W. Missouri St. and Western Illinois. In June 1986, Indiana State became the seventh conference member. That same year, the NCAA I-AA play-off selection committee granted the Gateway Conference an automatic bid to the play-offs.
In 1995, Eastern Illinois left the Gateway to become a member of the Ohio Valley Conference and in 1997 the conference added independent Youngstown State University. Then, in 2000, the GFC extended an invitation to Western Kentucky which brought the league to eight members.
There have been 29 head coaches in the history of the Gateway, including: Terry Allen, Randy Ball, Bob Spoo, Jim Tressel and Earl Bruce. Randy Ball has been the only GFC coach to have held the pinnacle position for two different clubs {WIU & SMS}.
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