Tarleton State Texans

The Tarleton State Texans (formerly the Tarleton State Texans and TexAnns), also known as the Tarleton Texans, are the athletic teams that represent Tarleton State University of Stephenville, Texas in NCAA Division I intercollegiate sports. Before Tarleton became a four-year institution in 1961, they were known as the "Plowboys". The Texans compete as members of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) for 12 of their 14 varsity sports. During the school's four-year transition to full D-I membership, set to end in July 2024, Tarleton has planned to add several sports, with women's soccer the first to be confirmed, eventually launching in 2022. Tarleton next added beach volleyball, a women-only sport at the NCAA level, in the 2024 season (2023–24 school year), competing as a single-sport member of Conference USA. Wrestling is another varsity sport addition as announced by the school in partnership with the NCWA and The Texas Collegiate Wrestling Foundation with aspirations of being the first NCAA Division I program in Texas.

Before joining the WAC in July 2020, Tarleton had been a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference (LSC). It had two separate stints in the LSC, first from 1968–69 to 1975–76, when the Texans competed in the NAIA, and then from 1994–95 to 2019–20. Tarleton was also a founding member of the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association (TIAA) in the 1976–77 school year and remained in that league until the 1990–91 school year. From 1991–92 to 1993–94, Tarleton played as an independent. The Texans began their transition to Division I upon joining the WAC. Tarleton's football program competes at the second level of D-I football, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS); it played its first D-I season as an independent before the WAC reinstated football in fall 2021.

Shortly after the 2022 season, the WAC and the ASUN Conference, which had operated a football-only partnership in the 2021 and 2022 seasons, fully merged their football leagues, with Tarleton as one of the new league's nine initial members. The new league's permanent name of United Athletic Conference was officially announced in April 2023.