In many situations, universities' overall win-loss records differ from various sources, and users sometimes ask why certain seasons are not included on College Football Reference. Currently, the site only covers Division 1 teams and their historical equivalents, so in order to maintain consistency across eras, we rely on James Howell's definition of a "major football program." 

The process he uses is as follows:

"In general, if a school was part of an FBS-equivalent conference, or if a school played a majority of their games against other rated schools, then I included them. If the number of games was 50%, then I made a judgment call (usually based on the year before and after). Sometimes, a school played fewer games against other rated schools, but I included them to avoid 'holes' in the data. At times there were just plain subjective decisions. In the very early years it was a little more esoteric. In deciding who to include it was as much art as science."

For more information, please see our dedicated page to this topic: Major Schools, Major Bowls, and Major Selectors