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The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Championship Subdivision (I FCS) includes 128 teams. Each team has one head coach. [1] As of the upcoming 2026 season, Division I FCS is composed of 13 conferences: the Big Sky Conference, CAA Football, Ivy League, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC), Northeast Conference (officially named NEC), OVC–Big South Football Association, Patriot League, Pioneer Football League, Southern Conference (Southern, or SoCon), Southland Conference, Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), and United Athletic Conference (UAC).
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The two newest conferences—both of which were officially considered by the NCAA to be alliances between all-sports conferences instead of conferences in their own right through the 2025 season—are the OVC–Big South and UAC, each of which started play in 2023. The former combines most of the football membership of the Big South Conference and Ohio Valley Conference. The latter was a merger of the preexisting football leagues of the Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) and Western Athletic Conference (WAC), replacing a football alliance between the two conferences. Due to an NCAA moratorium on the establishment of new single-sport conferences, that organization denied a request by the UAC to be considered as an official conference. However, the UAC will become an official multi-sport conference in July 2026 via a rebranding of the WAC. The initial all-sports UAC membership will include two football-sponsoring legacy WAC members; all five legacy ASUN members that play scholarship FCS football; [a] and two non-football schools (one a legacy WAC member).
In the 2025 season, all schools except Merrimack and Sacred Heart were members of one of these conferences. Both Merrimack and Sacred Heart moved from the football-sponsoring Northeast Conference to the non-football-sponsoring Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in 2024, leaving their football programs to compete as independents. Sacred Heart will join CAA Football for the 2026 season. Two other programs will be independent in the 2026 season. Sacramento State left the football-sponsoring Big Sky for the non-football Big West Conference. Chicago State, a full NEC member, will launch its FCS program in 2026, playing that season as an independent before joining NEC football in 2027.
As of the upcoming 2026 season, the longest-tenured coach in Division I FCS is expected to be Jerry Schmitt of Duquesne, who has been head coach at Duquesne since being hired in 2005. In all, 23 FCS programs will have new head coaches in 2026.
Conference affiliations are current for the upcoming 2026 season.