11 Schools•Division I•Est. 1991
The Pioneer Football League formed in 1991 and played its first season in 1993. It exists because of an NCAA rule passed that January requiring Division I schools to sponsor every sport at the Division I level. Butler, Dayton, Drake, Evansville and Valparaiso answered by building something new, and San Diego joined the following year. They took the name Pioneer because they intended to be the first league in a non scholarship Division I classification.
That principle still defines the place. The PFL is the only non scholarship, football only conference in the Football Championship Subdivision. Its members choose not to award athletic aid in football and treat the sport as an integral part of the student athlete experience rather than a separate enterprise.
The map is the widest in the subdivision. Members sit from New York, North Carolina and Florida in the east to California in the west, with the heartland in between, and the office is in St. Louis. The league expanded in every direction to get there, adding Davidson and Morehead State in 2001, Marist in 2009, Stetson in 2013, and Presbyterian and St. Thomas in 2021.
Dayton won the first regular season title in 1993, and Dayton and San Diego have each collected a dozen. The league gained an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs when the field grew to 24 teams in 2013, and San Diego made it count by winning first round road games in 2016 and 2017.
Butler and Valparaiso supply the rivalry. The Indiana schools first met in 1927, have played every year since 1951, and now compete for the Hoosier Helmet Trophy.
Official Website
The Pioneer Football League formed in 1991 and played its first season in 1993. It exists because of an NCAA rule passed that January requiring Division I schools to sponsor every sport at the Division I level. Butler, Dayton, Drake, Evansville and Valparaiso answered by building something new, and San Diego joined the following year. They took the name Pioneer because they intended to be the first league in a non scholarship Division I classification.
That principle still defines the place. The PFL is the only non scholarship, football only conference in the Football Championship Subdivision. Its members choose not to award athletic aid in football and treat the sport as an integral part of the student athlete experience rather than a separate enterprise.
The map is the widest in the subdivision. Members sit from New York, North Carolina and Florida in the east to California in the west, with the heartland in between, and the office is in St. Louis. The league expanded in every direction to get there, adding Davidson and Morehead State in 2001, Marist in 2009, Stetson in 2013, and Presbyterian and St. Thomas in 2021.
Dayton won the first regular season title in 1993, and Dayton and San Diego have each collected a dozen. The league gained an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs when the field grew to 24 teams in 2013, and San Diego made it count by winning first round road games in 2016 and 2017.
Butler and Valparaiso supply the rivalry. The Indiana schools first met in 1927, have played every year since 1951, and now compete for the Hoosier Helmet Trophy.
Official Website