FB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Pat Coleman]

Hard to imagine a school transitioning from D1 to D3.

Fourth time in 20 years -- not super often, but I bet it will be more than four schools in the next 20.

https://d3sports.com/notables/2025/03/st-francis-coming-to-d3

[Mavchamp]

Right now these are the options the SCAC has left in the future. Remember that all options below involve no current or future asc schools leaving.

1. convince 2 football-playing schools outside the SCAC to switch all their athletics to the SCAC for 2026 to get the auto bid then.

2. have one school (core or affiliate) join in 2026, have no one else leave, so they can end their "6-team-2-year-waiting-period" in 2027.

3. convince any of its non-football playing members to add football so it can likely start varsity football and get an auto bid in 2027. (Colorado College, Concordia (TX), Dallas, Ozarks or St. Thomas (TX))

1.  As the ASC found out....there simply aren't any.  Not in this part of the country at least.  No one on the West Coast (SCIAC) or the East Coast (USA South) wants to come this far for conference games.  Belhaven is the only one that MAY consider it....but why leave a stable conference for two unstable conferences?  That leaves only Midwest schools....who really don't need trips to Arkansas and Texas when they are surrounded by D3 schools in their own backyards with minimal travel.

2.  Again...who?  There's no one in D3 to pick off.  The only answer is to lure an NAIA school from the Sooner Conference.  Wayland Baptist?  Texas Wesleyan?  Nelson?  Louisiana College? Seems unlikely any of them have any interest in moving to D3.  My guess the SCAC has no interest in Wayland for the same reason they left the Baptist Four in the ASC.  The success of Wesleyan and Nelson in the SAC makes a D3 move seem unappealing.  Louisiana College just transitioned to scholarships in the NAIA.....why go back?  As far as no other schools leaving the SCAC....this may be a tall order.  Hendrix would likely head back to the SAA without the AQ.  Centenary has to be thinking having ETBU so close as a travel partner is appealing.  Lyon is anyone's guess.  They could go North into a midwest conference.  That leaves TLU and AC dangling in the wind facing the possibility of returning to a conference they fled from.

3.  Asking a school to start up football is a huge enterprise.  Not only the start up costs with equipment and coaching staffs, but the facility costs, travel costs.  Housing?  Who has that kind of money?  Concordia?  They have one of the smallest endowments in D3.  Ozarks?  They have less than 700 students total.  St. Thomas and U of D are possibilities.  But you are talking about two markets already saturated with college football.

Somehow luring 2 teams out of the NAIA from the SAC may be their only options.  And that seems like longshots.

[Crubacker]

As Cuba Gooding Jr said in Jerry Maguire--------"Show me the money"