College Sports Realignment Roundup for April 11, 2025

This week finished with a flurry of realignment news as NCAA Division 2, NCAA Division 3, and NAIA schools announced some new sports. We’ll start with a few NCAA D1 updates, including Utah Valley’s situation and an interesting USC Upstate addition.

Utah Valley Realignment Update

Matt Brown of Extra Points provided an update regarding Utah Valley’s pending move out of the WAC and into the Big West (maybe still the Big West?). According to Brown, Utah Valley isn’t in a hurry to make the move because the school’s president is on a leave of absence and the school wants to see how the realignment landscape unfolds. On top of that, other conferences (the Summit League in particular) have entered the picture for UVU, which could impact realignment decisions for other schools.

TLDR: UVU may have options other than the Big West and the realignment dominoes are stacking up again. Brown also speculated on why Cal Baptist ended up in the Big West instead of the West Coast Conference in his mailbag newsletter from Thursday.

USC Upstate Adding Developmental Soccer Team

The University of South Carolina Upstate announced the addition of a developmental women’s soccer team beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. This isn’t a new concept, as the press release noted that other NCAA Division 1 and 2 schools have a developmental program. However, the release also said this:

My first thought was this sounds a lot like a junior varsity or club team, which isn’t a big deal because plenty of schools sponsor those. Specifically for soccer, developmental teams are also commonplace in professional soccer and are usually referred to as a reserve squad. My next thought was that this reads like a potential way around the roster limits that will be imposed under the House settlement. Imagine if Power 4 schools started implementing this idea for football, basketball, and possibly other sports and use NIL to entice them to remain on this development-type team.

The proposed roster limits are a contentious issue that needs to be resolved. Athletes and coaches alike are not fond of the roster limits with mass confusion for athletes and coaches having to cut players before the limits are even in place. The hearing on April 7, which was the start of final proceedings in the settlement, raised the issue of roster limits and might lead to a grandfather clause for current athletes. Who qualifies as a “current athlete,” you say? That’s still being defined.

NIL isn’t going away under House, it’s just moving to a clearinghouse (Deloitte) that determines whether NIL deals over $600 are worth “fair market value”. As noted in this NPR article (a good House settlement primer), legal concerns remain over the legality of the clearinghouse. Sure, the clearinghouse is there to prevent illegal deals but how the value is determined seems like a legal landmine, to say nothing of the actual enforcement and consistent penalty enforcement in 2025-26 and beyond.

I will concede that a development team is unlikely to impact top players. They’re going to end up at a place where they can play or get top dollar in NIL and it doesn’t matter if it’s Power 4 or just outside the Power 4. The real worry is that coaches could use a developmental-type squad to stockpile athletes or use it in unintended ways. Have a dozen injured players? Off to the development team you go so it doesn’t count against the roster limit.

Coaches will use every advantage they can, and the advantages not explicitly outlawed are where the real issues arise. We’ll see whether this becomes an actual issue or a rare occurrence when House is finalized.

Azusa Pacific Talks Drop Down

Azusa Pacific announced in March that it would move from NCAA Division 2 to Division 3 effective with the 2026-27 academic year. In a recent interview with Jim Abbott of BOSCA, APU athletic director Gary Pine discussed some of the background that led to the decision. Some pertinent thoughts from the interview between Abbott and Pine include:

• The school had financial and enrollment issues arise in a three-week span during 2018, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The school is not facing any major financial concerns at this time.

• The average cost of a football road game was $43,000 and the high cost of football made it a sacrificial lamb.

• The school spent about $1 million on athletics-related travel each year.

• Pine expressed concerns that the NCAA D2 and D3 structures will change by the time the next March Madness contract is up in 2032.

• APU will request a waiver to shorten the reclassification process from 2 years to 3 years to become a full D3 member in 2028-29.

• Pine discusses the collapse of D2 football in the Western US.

• Some coaches are worried about the loss of scholarships as a recruiting tool.

• Where the NCAA and college athletics could end up in a decade.

Jessup Adding Dance

Jessup University (Rocklin, California) will add a women’s varsity dance team beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. Jessup is a member of the NCAA Division 2 Pacific West Conference. The school’s press release said it will supplement the current Sideline Cheer team at games and events across the university. Including Jessup, four schools will be adding competitive dance in 2025-26: Briar Cliff (NAIA), Glenville State (NCAA D2), and Tabor College (NAIA).

PennWest Edinboro Adding Two Women’s Sports

PennWest Edinboro (Edinboro, Pennsylvania) is adding women’s golf and women’s wrestling beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. Women’s golf will compete in the NCAA Division 2 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) as the 12th program. For wrestling, the school did not say the team would compete in a conference. Edinboro is the fourth PSAC school to sponsor the sport following East Stroudsburg, Gannon, and Lock Haven, who all compete as independents.

Saint Leo, SUNY Old Westbury Adding Flag Football

Saint Leo University (St. Leo, Florida) is adding women’s flag football beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. Saint Leo did not say which conference it will be playing in but that may change by the start of the next flag football season. The Lions are a member of the NCAA Division 2 Sunshine State Conference.

SUNY Old Westbury (Old Westbury, New York) is also adding women’s flag football in 2025-26. Flag football will begin as a club team in Fall 2025 and become a varsity program in the spring of 2026 as the season gets underway. Old Westbury is a member of the NCAA Division 3 Skyline Conference.

The school states that six Skyline teams sponsor the sport, but to my knowledge, only 4 schools currently do: Mount Saint Mary, St. Joseph’s Brooklyn, St. Joseph’s Long Island, and Old Westbury. Two men’s lacrosse affiliate members of the Skyline offer flag football at Kean and Montclair State. Or maybe two more Skyline schools will be adding flag football in the future? Or maybe Kean and Montclair State will join as affiliates in flag football? We’ll see.

While flag football isn’t a sponsored NCAA sport (yet), it is THE most popular addition for NCAA and NAIA schools in 2025-26 and 2026-27. No other sport comes close to flag football with women’s wrestling a distant second. Here’s a table showing the most popular sports being added in the NCAA and NAIA as of April 11, 2025.

Spartanburg Methodist Adds Volleyball

Spartanburg Methodist College (Saxon, South Carolina) will add men’s volleyball beginning with the 2026-27 academic year and compete in the NAIA’s Appalachian Athletic Conference. The move will push the AAC up to 11 men’s volleyball teams. Spartanburg is making a full membership move from the NAIA’s Continental Athletic Conference to the Appalachian Athletic Conference in 2025-26.