Fear The FCS is happy to present a searchable historical database for every FCS versus FBS game going back to 1978. The data is referenced just about everywhere on this website when it comes to FCS versus FBS games but now anyone can look at previous games. The link to the database can be found here.
Even though this is the official announcement, the database has been accessible since July 2022. The 2022 season was spent tinkering with the format and seeing how it functions. The database will automatically show games from the last calendar year loaded but all games back to 1978 can be viewed if you enter a school or conference name. All feedback is welcome for changes, updates, concerns, etc. Along with the official launch of the database, we made some changes to make it more consistent with our other information such as FBS Team Records, FCS Team Records, and individual Conference Records.
What’s Changing in 2023?
In what is becoming a yearly tradition apparently, there have been some changes to the historical FCS-FBS matchup database. These are minor compared to the changes made in 2022. Any time we make changes to the database, we want to have a historical record of the change and provide transparency. 99% of readers probably don’t care one bit about these changes and that’s okay.
With the United Athletic Conference being formed in April 2023, that conference will appear in the database beginning this season as “United Athletic.” We also made two changes to conference names in the database. The first was to shorten the “Colonial Athletic” simply to “CAA” This was also done to remove confusion with the Patriot League entries when it used to be called the “Colonial League” as that caused some issues.
The second change we made was to change “Southwest” to “Southwest Conference.” The reasoning for this change was to avoid confusion with the Southwestern Athletic Conference, which we already have listed as “SWAC.” Some additional changes to conference names were “Gateway / MVFC” to “MVFC (Gateway)“, “Pacific Coast (Big West)” to “Big West (Pacific Coast),” and “Colonial / Patriot League” to “Patriot League (Colonial).” These three changes were done to reflect the current conference names and to hopefully avoid confusion between the CAA and the Patriot League’s former name the Colonial League (see the section “Conference Records Changed” below for more insight).
One final note for 2023 is that Kennesaw State will be in its first season of a two-year transition process and its one game against FBS competition will be counted in the FCS-FBS database (at Sam Houston State on November 4). This is the same principle we applied in 2022 when Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State were in year one of the FCS-to-FBS transition.
Team Name Changes
After looking through the database, we decided to update how some team names appear. When we completed the original research of every FCS-FBS game going back to 1978, we used multiple resources to help determine which schools were FCS. Part of that meant different team names depending on the resource. For example, UAB is known as Alabama-Birmingham although the UAB moniker is far more widely used. Below is a complete list of name changes made to conferences and teams.
We removed the * from Colgate in the FCS Team Records page, which denoted that a school no longer has a football team in the FCS. Colgate still plays in the Patriot League. Finally, UT Rio Grande Valley was added as “UTRGV” to the database even though they don’t begin FCS play until 2025. Hopefully, we didn’t jinx the Vaqueros competing in the FCS.
| Old Name | New Name |
|---|---|
| Pacific Coast (Big West) | Big West (Pacific Coast) |
| Bowling Green State | Bowling Green |
| Brigham Young | BYU |
| Colonial Athletic | CAA |
| Louisiana State | LSU |
| Middle Tennessee State | Middle Tennessee |
| Gateway / MVFC | MVFC (Gateway) |
| Colonial / Patriot League | Patriot League (Colonial) |
| Pennsylvania | Penn |
| Saint Francis | Saint Francis (PA) |
| Southern Methodist | SMU |
| Southwest | Southwest Conference |
| Texas Christian | TCU |
| Alabama-Birmingham | UAB |
| California-Davis | UC Davis |
| N/A | United Athletic |
| Nevada-Las Vegas | UNLV |
| Tennessee-Martin | UT Martin |
| Texas-El Paso | UTEP |
| Texas-San Antonio | UTSA |
| Virginia Military Institute | VMI |
Conference Records Changed
After we updated some of the conference names, we did a few spot-checks and found an obvious glaring issue: Holy Cross was listed in the CAA for the 2021 win against UConn. That clearly was wrong as they were a member of the Patriot League but we believe the issue arose from the similarity in names (Colonial / Patriot League and Colonial Athletic). At that point, it was determined to re-check every team from both the FBS and FCS in the database for accuracy. There were 10 games we found that were assigned to the incorrect conference and all 10 of those games are listed below. We also provided a table below showing the before and after conference records following the changes.
1985: Drake at Iowa – Drake was incorrectly listed as a member of the MVFC instead of the similarly named Missouri Valley Conference.
1985: Texas State at East Carolina – Texas State was incorrectly listed as a member of the Southland Conference instead of the Gulf Star Conference.
1986: Florida A&M at Temple – Florida A&M was incorrectly listed as an I-AA independent when they actually returned to the MEAC that season.
1990: Austin Peay at Temple – Austin Peay was incorrectly listed as a member of the Southland Conference instead of the Ohio Valley Conference.
1994: Eastern Illinois at Northern Illinois – Eastern Illinois was incorrectly listed as a member of the Southern Conference instead of the MVFC.
1994: Missouri State at Tulsa – Missouri State was incorrectly listed as a member of the Ohio Valley instead of the MVFC.
2002: Western Kentucky at Kansas State – Kansas State was incorrectly listed as a member of the MAC instead of the Big 8/12.
2003: Florida International at Louisiana – Louisiana was incorrectly listed as a member of C-USA instead of the Sun Belt.
2006: Missouri State at Oklahoma State – Missouri State was once again incorrectly listed as a member of the OVC instead of the MVFC.
2021: Holy Cross at UConn – Holy Cross was incorrectly listed as a member of the Colonial Athletic Conference instead of the Patriot League (Colonial).
| Conference | Old Record | New Record |
|---|---|---|
| Big 8/12 | 211-20-0 | 212-20-0 |
| C-USA | 177-16-0 | 176-16-0 |
| CAA | 23-150-0 | 22-150-0 |
| FCS Independents | 95-262-6 | 95-261-6 |
| Gulf Star | 3-2-0 | 3-3-0 |
| MAC | 272-75-1 | 271-75-1 |
| MEAC | 8-159-0 | 8-160-0 |
| Missouri Valley (MVC) | 15-44-0 | 15-45-0 |
| MVFC (Gateway) | 50-278-0 | 50-280-0 |
| Ohio Valley | 42-284-3 | 42-283-3 |
| Patriot League (Colonial) | 10-73-0 | 11-73 |
| Southern Conference | 35-348-2 | 35-347-2 |
| Southland Conference | 62-333-3 | 62-331-3 |
| Sun Belt | 130-34-0 | 131-34-0 |
Future Games Included?
One of the things we’d like to provide in the database is a list of future games alongside the previous games but there are some limitations to include them. The obvious is that game dates can change, which means staying up to date with any changes. Another issue is that placeholder dates for games that are TBD in a season will undoubtedly bring some confusion even if we provide a disclaimer that future dates are not confirmed. This isn’t super high on the list to rush out before the 2023 season but it is something that will hopefully be included at a later date.
Other Sitewide Changes
We went through some of the reference pages sprinkled around the site and either updated or cleaned up some of the links. Some were broken due to athletic departments changing the website or just having an outdated version of a media guide. Once the NCAA updates its FCS Handbook from 2022 to 2023, we’ll update the links for that as well. If there are any suggestions for other FCS resources, please let us know and we’ll update that section on our About Page.
Last but not least, we have a new section called Recaps. In the past, we typically posted a chart on Twitter showing the averages of each FCS versus FBS game up to that point of the season. The plan is to take that chart and provide all the stats each week there are FCS versus FBS games resulting in an improved presentation. A preview of how it will look can be found in our 2022 Recap (for mobile users, it’s best to view it using portrait orientation). Don’t worry, we’ll still be on Twitter to let people know they should #FearTheFCS.
That concludes the annual FCS Versus FBS database update, which we’ll call version 1.2. Once again, please feel free to provide feedback that we will consider for a future update.
