Conference National (currently named the Blue Square Bet Premier for sponsorship reasons) is the top division of the Football Conference in England. It is the highest level of the National League System and fifth highest of the overall English football league system. While all of the clubs in the top four tiers of English football are full-time professional, the Conference National has a mixture of full-time and semi-professional clubs. The Conference National is the lowest nationwide division in the English football pyramid.

The league was formed as the Alliance Premier League in 1979, coming into force for the 1979–80 season. It was the first attempt to create a fully national league underneath the Football League, drawing its clubs from the Northern Premier League and the Southern League. It greatly improved the quality of football at this lower level, as well as improving the financial status of the top clubs. This was reflected in 1986–87, when the Football League began accepting direct promotion and relegation between the Conference (which the league had been renamed by then) and the bottom division of the Football League which at that time was known as the Football League Fourth Division and is now Football League Two. The first team to be promoted by this method was Scarborough and the first team relegated was Lincoln City, who regained their Football League status a year later as Conference champions.

John James "Jimbo" Fisher (born October 9, 1965) is an American college football coach and former player. He is currently head coach at Florida State University.

As a senior student at Samford University Fisher was the 1987 NCAA Division III National Player of the Year. From 2000 until 2006 he served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at LSU. From 2007 to 2009 he was offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and, beginning in 2007, head coach-in-waiting for the Florida State Seminoles. Bobby Bowden, Florida State's head coach of 34 years, retired after the team's appearance in its 28th consecutive bowl game on 1 January 2010. Fisher took over as head coach soon after. Florida State is Fisher's first head coaching position and he led them to a 10-4 record during his first season. His inaugural year marked FSU's first 10-win season since 2003 and first appearance in the ACC Championship Game since 2005.

Born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, Fisher attended North View Junior High School and Liberty High School before going to Salem College (now Salem International University) in Salem, West Virginia where he played quarterback under head coach Terry Bowden from 1985-1986. When Bowden left for Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, Fisher transferred with him to play his final season for the Bulldogs where he was named Division III National Player of the Year. Fisher still holds multiple school records at Samford.

Norman Chow (Chinese: 周友賢; pinyin: Zhōu Yǒuxián, born May 5, 1946) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the head football coach at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, a position he assumed in December 2011. Chow previously held the offensive coordinator position for the Utah Utes, UCLA Bruins, the NFL's Tennessee Titans, USC Trojans, NC State Wolfpack, and BYU Cougars.

Chow won the 2002 Broyles Award as the nation's top collegiate assistant coach. He also was named the 2002 NCAA Division I-A Offensive Coordinator of the Year by American Football Monthly and was named the National Assistant Coach of the Year in 1999 by the American Football Foundation. He is well known for developing quarterbacks such as Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Ty Detmer, Philip Rivers, Carson Palmer, and Matt Leinart.

Chow, a native of Honolulu, and an alumnus of Punahou School, played college football for the University of Utah. Chow was a 2-year starter and a three-year letterman offensive guard for the Utes. In his senior season, Chow was named to the All-WAC first team and gained All-America honorable mention honors. He then played briefly in the Canadian Football League, for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, before an injury ended his professional athletic career. He was selected to Utah's All-Century Team.^{[citation needed]}

Nicholas Lou "Nick" Saban (born October 31, 1951) is an American college football coach and the current head coach of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide football team. Saban had previously served as head coach of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins and three other NCAA universities: LSU, Michigan State and Toledo. His eight-year contract for a total of US$32 million made him one of the highest paid football coaches, professional or college, in the United States at the time. He appeared on the September 1, 2008 cover of Forbes magazine as "The Most Powerful Coach in Sports". Saban's career record as a collegiate head coach is 146–54–1.

Saban led LSU to the 2003 BCS National Championship and Alabama to the 2009 and 2011 BCS and AP National Championships, making him the first coach in college football history to win a national championship with two different Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools. Saban and Paul "Bear" Bryant are the only coaches to win an SEC championship at two different schools. Saban is the first coach to win three BCS Championships and is the only active coach with three national titles.

Derek Mason is an American football coach and former player who is the associate head coach, co-defensive coordinator, and defensive backs coach for the Stanford Cardinal football team.

Mason attended Camelback High School in Phoenix, Arizona. After graduating from high school, he attended Northern Arizona University from 1989 to 1992, where he was a four-year letterman and two-year starter at cornerback.

After his playing career ended, Mason coached college football at Mesa Community College, Weber State, Bucknell, Utah, St. Mary's, New Mexico State, and Ohio. From 2007 to 2009, he coached defensive backs for the NFL's Minnesota Vikings under Brad Childress, who had been one of his coaches at Northern Arizona. In 2010, Mason was hired as a defensive back coach on Jim Harbaugh's staff at Stanford. In 2011, Mason was promoted to associate head coach and co-defensive coordinator at Stanford under new head coach David Shaw.

Mason and his wife Leighanne have two daughters.