1982 NCAA Division I-AA football season

The 1982 NCAA Division I-AA football season, part of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the Division I-AA level, began in August 1982 and concluded with the 1982 NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship Game on December 18, 1982, at Memorial Stadium in Wichita Falls, Texas. The Eastern Kentucky Colonels won their second I-AA championship, defeating the Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens in the Pioneer Bowl, 17−14.

Conference changes and new programs

Upon the expiration of the four-year limit for compliance with Division I-A football criteria (set in January 1978), 41 NCAA Division I-A teams were reclassified from Division I-A to Division I-AA:

Ivy League — all eight members. Yale met the requirements to stay in I-A, but voluntarily chose to downgrade to I-AA to remain with the rest of the Ivy League.
Southern Conference — all eight members
Southland Conference — five members. McNeese State and Southwestern Louisiana met the requirements to remain in I-A; McNeese State voluntarily chose to downgrade to I-AA to remain with the rest of the Southland, while Southwestern Louisiana remained in Division I-A as an Independent.
Missouri Valley Conference — five members, with New Mexico State, Tulsa, and Wichita State remaining in I-A but also remaining in the conference. This was the onset of a four-year period in which the MVC functioned as a hybrid I-A/I-AA conference.
Mid-American Conference — eight members, with only Central Michigan and Toledo maintaining I-A status. Several of the demoted schools appealed the demotion, with the result that all eight MAC members reclassified to I-AA for 1982 were returned to I-A as of 1983.
Independent Cincinnati was reclassified to I-AA along with the MAC schools but filed an injunction against the NCAA to postpone their demotion until after the 1982 season, and was successful in remaining in I-A.

The successful appeals of Cincinnati (effective 1982) and the MAC schools (effective 1983) meant that 40 Division I-A members joined I-AA in 1982, of which 32 remained in 1983.