The USA South Athletic Conference will be split down the middle after this spring, with half of the schools splitting off to create a new conference. This is hardly new in Division III, so why does it happen and will it keep happening? Photo by Dave Hilbert, d3photography.com; Piedmont athletics photo

By Pat Coleman
D3sports.com

We’ve tracked conference mergers, changes and realignments with some interest at D3sports.com since before the Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference and Lake Michigan Conference merged to form the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference. Back in 1999, I wrote a column for D3football.com noting that single-sport conferences might never get an automatic bid if Division III members didn’t reverse their policies.

Until recently, conference automatic bid standards have remained somewhat stable, although single-sport conferences were given a reprieve and have fulfilled needs in sports across the spectrum. Those needs have come in lacrosse, ice hockey, men’s volleyball, football and other places where sports are growing, regionalized or otherwise not sponsored by the full membership of Division III.

• A decade of conference moves in Conference Shuffle
• Pat Coleman interview with D3ticker
• 2016 Q&A with USA South commissioner
• 2017 D3hoops.com column: Complexity of the Conference Shuffle

A round of conference shuffling was touched off in the Mid-Atlantic area of Division III in 2005 when eight schools broke away from the Middle Atlantic Conference, the Capital Athletic Conference and the Skyline Conference to form what was eventually named the Landmark Conference. And it could be argued that that shuffle is continuing to this day. Since then, the Mid-Atlantic Shuffle has resulted in multiple alignment changes, with schools joining the Capital Athletic Conference to fill those gaps, schools entering the Colonial States Athletic Conference, others leaving to join the MAC, schools leaving multiple conferences to create a brand-new league in the Atlantic East Conference. And this only accounts for the Mid-Atlantic area, and doesn’t account for some smaller movement in New England, or teams transitioning in and out of the North Eastern Athletic Conference/United East Conference. Even the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, traditionally one of the most stable groups in terms of membership, involuntarily removed longtime member St. Thomas, leading the Tommies to transition to Division I.

Why do conferences align, and realign so frequently? There are multiple reasons, and any change could be attributed to any of these reasons.

First off, let’s talk about the desire for schools to affiliate themselves with what they consider to be similar institutions. This could be as obvious as the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, a collection of state schools in the state of Wisconsin, or the University Athletic Association, a group of research institutions across the country who are also members of the Association of American Universities. These conference affiliations can find commonality in admissions practice, perceived academic standing, or size of the institution. In addition, these are not decisions made by faceless bureaucrats at schools – they are made by human beings, with human emotions and human desires for connection. Sometimes, a conference membership decision may come simply down to a college or university president wanting to fit into another group.

Also, schools may choose to affiliate with a conference based on geographic proximity. Depending on the part of the country, it may be more prudent for a school to affiliate with schools within a shorter travel distance. This generally leads to less missed class time for student-athletes, lower costs in terms of hotel stays for teams and other benefits in terms of costs. A school may have to balance the geography with that desire to align with other like-minded institutions.

Schools may also choose their conference affiliation based on the ability to win conference championships and gain access to the NCAA Tournament. A team in a large conference may find it easier to make the NCAA postseason in a sport if it moves to a smaller league, or, one in which it thinks it may have better success compared to its conference peers. Moves based solely on getting into a so-called easier conference have a mixed track record in working out.

Let’s look at two more recent conference splits through this lens for a moment. The USA South, as first reported by D3sports.com in February, is splitting into two conferences starting this upcoming fall, with nine members splitting off from the USA South to create a new conference, the Collegiate Conference of the South. Those nine schools primarily were from the southern and western edges of the USA South’s geography.

Does this new group meet the first primary type of affiliation, one based on aligning with like-minded institutions? It does, for sure, but the USA South did as well. It absolutely aligns with the second type of affiliation mentioned above, the one based on geography. Even though the largest distance between conference opponents in the CCS is still 624 miles (between Berea and Belhaven), that still pales in comparison to the distance Belhaven would have to travel to compete against USA South teams such as Southern Virginia and North Carolina Wesleyan.

In addition, members of the new conference will have an easier path to an automatic bid to the NCAA postseason, once the conference finishes its two-year waiting period and is eligible for automatic bids in the fall of 2024. It doesn’t seem that either the USA South or the CCS has a leg up in terms of competitiveness, but a school in either league will be competing with eight or nine other programs for an automatic bid, rather than facing as many as 18 other teams in a sport.

Let’s back up another decade, to when the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference split in two after the 2011-12 season. Seven schools left the SCAC to create the Southern Athletic Association, schools from the eastern half of the conference. A conference that stretched from Atlanta in the east, to Colorado in the west, to San Antonio in the south and Kentucky in the north, became two more geographically compact groups.

This new group is similar to the USA South in that the SCAC was already composed of like-minded institutions. It also makes sense based on geography. This was also a group which made changes for competitive reasons.

Before the split, Trinity (Texas) had won the conference’s Presidents Cup 11 times in a 12-year span, followed by DePauw winning six in a row. (Trinity has won every Presidents Cup since the split, as well.) The SAA’s equivalent award has not been awarded annually over its brief history, but getting away from Trinity has only been a benefit for everyone in the SAA in terms of championship access. DePauw left the SCAC/SAA for the North Coast Athletic Conference around the same time as the split.

The recent Division III membership vote to allow conferences to gain automatic qualification to the NCAA postseason when six teams sponsor a sport, rather than seven, seems likely to touch off another round of shuffling. The Landmark Conference is involved in this set of shuffles as well, as the conference added Lycoming and Wilkes to reach 10 schools overall, but more importantly, six football programs, in news originally reported by D3sports.com. That move squarely falls under easier path to the playoffs for the six football-playing members of the Landmark. Recent years have seen the Capital Athletic Conference all but dissolve. Once a geography-based collection of schools that had a split of state schools and private schools, the conference has rebranded itself as the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference and has added schools that were primarily independents from across the country to join its remaining core members: Christopher Newport, Mary Washington and Salisbury, all of them state schools.

Other conferences which feature a mix of state and private schools include the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (five state schools, four private), the American Southwest Conference (two state schools, the rest private), the North Atlantic Conference (nine state schools, five private schools in 2023-24, after recently announced conference alignment changes take effect) and the United East (four state, four private in 2023-24).

But we have already seen the first round of quick conference reorganizations from the NCAA convention vote, with the USAC/CCS split and the Landmark’s addition of two teams. Other reorganizations might be more difficult. A possible split of the MAC into two fully independent conferences with two full automatic bids in everything is likely delayed, if not scuttled altogether, by losing Lycoming and Wilkes.

Any further splits and reorganizations might be more difficult to come by. And a number of conferences are quite stable and have not had membership changes in years. But there will always be schools looking for a better chance to get their student-athletes into NCAA championships, or presidents and administrators looking to associate with a different group of schools or presidents, or schools looking to change their priorities and keep their teams playing more local competition.

And so, the shuffle will continue.