College Sports Realignment Roundup for March 29, 2025

College football saw plenty of news over the past few days in the NCAA Divisions 1 and 2. While there are no realignment changes related to football, these are tangentially related to previous realignment moves, particularly at the D2 level. NCAA Division 3 has some realignment news for women’s golf and hockey. Let’s begin with the FBS spring game news.

No FBS Joint Spring Games for 2025

The college football season is five months away but there were plenty of (possible) happenings at the FBS, FCS, and NCAA Division 2 levels. In the FBS, the D1 FBS Oversight Committee denied the waiver for Syracuse and Colorado to hold a spring game, citing the timing of the request, competitive/recruiting advantage concerns, and “student-athletes missing class time”. The committee signaled an openness to allow such spring games in the future, an idea that will be tested at the D2 level on Thursday, April 17, when Southern Nazarene and Central Oklahoma square off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FBS had joint spring games in spring 2026, especially if schools think there is money to be made.

FCS Schedule Changes on the Way?

Over in the FCS ranks, the Oversight Committee has discussed a 12-game schedule. The current rules only allow FCS teams to play 11 games unless there are 14 Saturdays during the season as the 2024 and 2025 calendars present. To accommodate the extra game, “Week 0” would effectively become Week 1 for FCS schools. If passed, the change would go into effect with the 2026 season, meaning FCS teams could play games as early as August 27, 2026.

The Oversight Committee will gather feedback from the FCS conferences and leadership. The Ivy League will probably want clarification on whether this will impact their scheduling model, as the Ivy League typically starts three weeks later than the rest of the FCS. In 2025, week one will take place as early as Thursday, August 28 with Ivy League teams starting on Saturday, September 20. If the rule changes starting in 2026, FCS teams would play on as early as Thursday, August 27 while the first Ivy League games would take place on Saturday, September 26.

Currently, the Ivy League plays a 10-game regular season schedule and the 2025 season marks a shift in postseason policy as the conference champion will participate in the FCS Playoffs for the first time. The change will mean at least 11 games if the postseason is included, which is a stark contrast to the decades-long self-imposed 10-game maximum. How willing will the Ivy League be to add another regular-season game just a year after ending its postseason abstention policy? If the Ivy League was already concerned with the calendar expansion at the end of the season, it certainly won’t like this one that allows an even earlier start to a season.

NCAA D2 Football Bracket Expansion Recommended

In NCAA Division 2, the Championships Committee is recommending an expansion of the football bracket from 28 teams to 32, beginning with the upcoming 2025 season. An expansion would end the first-round bye for the top seed in each super region while not requiring any additional weekends to complete the championship. This recommendation comes weeks after a change in the bracket selection process that awards an automatic qualification bid to every conference champion starting in 2025.

There would also be a change in how teams are allocated throughout the bracket if this recommendation is implemented. There are four super regions, comprised of 8 teams, and each super region is given a final ranking when the bracket is announced. The top 4 teams in each super region would be seeded and the other 4 teams in the super regional would be considered unseeded. The unseeded teams can be placed in any super region if it will reduce travel.

AQ bid winners that were not ranked in the top 8 will automatically be paired with a 1 seed in their home super regional unless the NCAA can reduce the number of flights. If travel can be reduced, the AQ team will face the 1 seed in a different super region.

These are some positive changes for D2 football. The previous bracket selection process was rigid and provided little flexibility. In an ideal world, there would be no restrictions based on travel but the lower revenue and higher costs at lower divisions make such a policy prohibitive. The D2 recommendation is consistent with the FCS and D3 brackets that place a limit on travel for opening rounds to the extent possible.

Speaking of changes for D2 Football, I talked about the new AQ bid process and the possibility of a bracket expansion, but those “super regions” are also changing in 2025. With the Conference Carolinas sponsoring football beginning in 2025, here is how each Super Region will look:

NCAA Division 3 Sports News

There’s a new single-sport conference in NCAA Division 3 called the Colonial Women’s Golf Conference (CWGC). The conference will begin competing in the 2025-26 academic year with seven inaugural members: Babson College, Carlow University, Christopher Newport University, Kean University, Penn State Altoona, Salisbury University, and Stockton University. All seven previously competed without a conference affiliation.

The new conference was approved NCAA Division 3 Membership Committee at the February 2025 meeting. It was not disclosed at the meeting which schools would make up the newly formed conference but representatives from the Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference and Stockton University recused from the conversations, indicating a conflict of interest with the eventual members of the CWGC. NCAA rules require a two-year waiting period before a conference can begin receiving an automatic qualifier to the NCAA Championships. The CWGC will receive an AQ spot beginning with the 2027-28 academic year if it meets the NCAA requirements. The conference has applied for a waiver with the NCAA Division 3 Championships Committee.

Finally, we wrap up with some D3 hockey news. Salve Regina University (Newport, Rhode Island) has been unsuccessful in its attempts to join a new conference for the 2025-26 academic year. Its current home - the New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) - will see an exodus to other D3 leagues, leaving Salve Regina as the lone member without a new home. As it stands, Salve Regina would be an independent D3 hockey team for the 2025-26 academic year.