Whatever Happened to This Conference?? - The Border Conference

Conference realignment is seemingly never going away in college football and it has become a topic of constant conversation. We currently have conferences seemingly on the brink of either ceasing operations completely or becoming realigned in a way that doesn’t make geographical sense (or some already have). We’re talking about a Major Power Five conference potentially being broadcast on random networks or potentially being put behind a streaming service paywall. Due to this uncertainty, we started to wonder what happened to conferences in college football’s past and how they fell out of the picture. We will take a brief tour of some defunct conferences, explore their members, give a brief summary on how the conference fell apart and where everyone wound up after the conference disbanded.  

The Border Conference

The Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association (aka the Border Conference) was a Division 1 athletic conference located along the southwestern border of the United States. The conference featured the University of Arizona, Arizona State Teachers' - Flagstaff (now known as Northern Arizona University) Northern Arizona, Arizona State Teachers' - Tempe (now known as Arizona State), University of New Mexico, New Mexico A&M (now known as New Mexico State), Texas Technological College (aka Texas Tech), Texas Mines (UT-El Paso), Hardin-Simmons University, and West Texas Teachers' (now known West Texas A&M).

Did we bevel a illustration from a 1942 newspaper about the Border Conference? Yes, we did.

Border Conference Timeline

The Border Conference was founded in 1931 by Arizona, Northern Arizona, Arizona State, New Mexico, and New Mexico State. Apparently, you only needed 5 teams to found a college football conference in 1931. A year later in 1932, Texas Tech was added to the conference bringing membership to 6 teams. In 1935, the College of Mines and Metallurgy of the University of Texas (aka UTEP/Texas Mines) joined the conference bringing membership to 7 teams. 

In 1941, the conference reached its maximum occupancy with 9 total teams when Hardin-Simmons and West Texas Teachers' (West Texas A&M) joined the conference. 

A beveled West Texas A&M Buffalo.

One benefit of the Border Conference membership was that the conference champion would typically be invited to the Sun Bowl in El Paso.

Total Border Conference Championships

• Texas Tech - 9

• Arizona State - 7

• Arizona - 3

• Hardin-Simmons - 3 (beveled logo below)

• New Mexico State - 2

• New Mexico - 1

• UTEP - 1

• West Texas A&M - 1

• Northern Arizona - 0

The Border Conference Breaks Up

In 1952, the first school to leave was New Mexico. The Lobos left the Border Conference to join the Skyline Conference along with Montana in the same year. They joined BYU, Colorado A&M (now Colorado State), Denver, Utah, Utah State, and Wyoming.

In 1953, Northern Arizona left to join the Frontier Conference (aka the New Mexico Conference) seemingly dropping down to a lower level of football. They joined Adams State College, Eastern New Mexico University, New Mexico Highlands University, New Mexico Military Institute, Western New Mexico University.

In 1957, Texas Tech departed the Border Conference for the Southwest Conference which was eventually filled out with Arkansas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Texas, TCU, Rice, SMU and Houston.

Here was a preview of the Border Conference in a 1957 Sports Illustrated after Texas Tech left the conference.

About six years later in the 1962-63 Academic year, Arizona and Arizona State decided to leave the Border Conference to start a new conference called the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) with BYU, Wyoming, Utah and former Border Conference member New Mexico.

The remaining four schools Hardin–Simmons, New Mexico State, UTEP and West Texas A&M began to compete as Independents in football and the Border Conference ceased operations. 

The last full season with six members in 1960-1961 saw New Mexico State go 4-0 in conference and 11-0 overall with a Sun Bowl victory over Utah State finishing ranked 17th in the country. 

In 1961, Arizona went Independent for the Football Season but played many of the Border Conference members. 

One thing the Sickos Committee loves about the Border Conference is that it has quite a unique distinction. All of the former members are completely spread out and are now competing at every single NCAA Football level. 

FBS - Power 5: Arizona, Arizona State, & Texas Tech

FBS - Group of 5: New Mexico, New Mexico State, & UTEP

FCS: Northern Arizona

Division II: West Texas A&M

Division III: Hardin-Simmons

Sound off in the comments below if you’d like us to review what occurred in another defunct conference.