Northern California Athletic Conference

Northern California Athletic Conference

Formerly	Far Western Conference (1925–1982)
Conference	NCAA
Founded	1925; 99 years ago (1925)
Ceased	1998; 26 years ago (1998)[1]
Division	Division II
No. of teams	16 (total)
Region	West Coast

The Northern California Athletic Conference (NCAC) was an NCAA Division II college athletic association that sponsored American football that was founded in 1925. It disbanded in 1998 after the majority of its member schools were forced to drop football.

The NCAC was founded as the Far Western Conference (FWC) in 1925 by its charter member schools: Fresno State, Saint Mary's, UC Davis, Nevada, San Jose State and College of the Pacific.^[2]

Nevada's departure from the conference in 1940 left the conference with only four members: Chico State, Fresno State, College of the Pacific and UC Davis.^[3] The conference looked to four nominees in Humboldt State (joined in 1940), San Francisco State, Santa Barbara State College (later UC Santa Barbara) and California Poly of San Luis Obispo.^[4]

Shortly after World War II, the remaining members, with the exception of UC Davis, Chico State and Humboldt State, would leave for other conferences, to be replaced over the years by San Francisco State (joined in 1946), Southern Oregon (1947), Sacramento State (1953), Hayward State (1961) and Sonoma State (1966). During the 1990s, each of the universities associated with the California State system chose to disband their football teams in order to comply with Title IX, with the exception of Humboldt State, which added two women's sports to achieve compliance, Sacramento State,^[1] and Cal Poly.

Full members Full members (non-football) Football-only members

^[2]

• 1983: San Francisco State
• 1990: Sonoma State
• 1991: Sonoma State
• 1992: Sonoma State
• 1998: Sonoma State

• 1995: Sonoma State
• 1997: Sonoma State

• 1974: Cal-State Hayward
• 1975: Cal-State Hayward
• 1976: Cal-State Hayward
• 1977:
• 1978:
• 1979:
• 1980:
• 1981:
• 1982: Cal-State Hayward
• 1983: Cal-State Hayward
• 1984: Cal-State Hayward
• 1985: Chico State
• 1986: Chico State
• 1987: Chico State
• 1988: Cal-State Hayward
• 1989: Cal-State Hayward
• 1990: Sonoma State
• 1991: Sonoma State
• 1993: Sonoma State
• 1995: Sonoma State
• 1996: Sonoma State
• 1997: Sonoma State

• 1982:
• 1983: Cal-State Hayward
• 1984: Cal-State Hayward
• 1985: Cal-State Hayward
• 1986: Cal-State Hayward
• 1987: Cal-State Hayward
• 1988: Cal-State Hayward (National champions)

• 1998: Sonoma State

• 1978: Fresno State
• 1982: Fresno State
• 1983: Fresno State
• 1985: Fresno State
• 1986: Fresno State

• List of defunct college football conferences
• California Coast Conference (1922–1928)