This article is about the American college athletic conference. Big Eight also refers to the eight large Usenet hierarchies comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc and talk.

The Big Eight Conference, a former NCAA-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored American football, was created in 1958 when Oklahoma State joined the seven existing members of the Big Seven Conference (Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma).

The Big Eight Conference was dissolved in 1996, when the eight members combined with four former members of the now-defunct Southwest Conference (Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech) to form the Big Twelve Conference.