College Realignment Report for March 15, 2026

This is part of an ongoing series covering various college realignment news for all three NCAA Divisions as well as the NAIA. The roundup below will cover news and reports since February 28, 2026, and provide updates on previously discussed topics. As a reminder, all official moves starting with the 2025-26 academic year can be found here and those starting in 2026-27 are here. We’ll break out the reports for each Division in the following order: Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, and NAIA. Clicking the links will bring you to the corresponding section.

NCAA Division 1 News

Iowa State to “Reimagine” Women’s Sports Lineup

Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa) announced the discontinuation of women’s gymnastics after the 2025-26 academic year. The school canceled the 2026 spring season in February, claiming low athlete availability. ISU did not feel the conflicts within the program could be resolved and that the decision was due to costs. Iowa State will add a different women’s sport as a replacement, but didn’t disclose which one it would be. The likely candidates are acrobatics and tumbling, flag football, and wrestling.

OVC Hires Matt Wilson as Next Commissioner

The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) named Matt Wilson as commissioner, starting on Monday, May 18. Wilson was previously commissioner of the NCAA D2 Gulf South Conference since 2014. While leading the GSC, Wilson oversaw the additions of Mississippi College in 2014, Auburn at Montgomery in 2017, Montevallo in 2027, and Trevecca Nazarene in 2024. Departing the conference were North Alabama in 2018 for D1, Shorter for the D2 Conference Carolinas, and West Georgia in 2024 for D1.

Wilson will take over for Beth DaBuache, who resigned on October 23, 2025. The OVC has been at the forefront of the current realignment cycle Eastern Kentucky (2021), Jacksonville State (2021), Austin Peay (2022), Belmont (2022), and Murray State (2022) departed from the OVC, while Lindenwood (2022), Little Rock (2022), Southern Indiana (2022), and Western Illinois (2023) joined the conference. Little Rock (UAC) and Tennessee Tech (SoCon) will leave after the 2025-26 academic year, putting the OVC at 9 full members for the moment. It hasn’t been all bad news, as Southeast Missouri State and UT Martin have remained part of the OVC after speculation that both would depart.

One aspect that Wilson will need to navigate is the football front. With the GSC, only four football-playing members remain, following discontinued programs at Florida Tech and Mississippi College. In addition, the Conference Carolinas began sponsoring football with the 2025-26 academic year, leading to Chowan, Erskine, and North Greenville to depart. The football situation is not as dire for the OVC, which has a football partnership with the Big South Conference. 8 schools remain in the OVC-Big South for the 2026-27 academic year, with six of those hailing from the OVC. However, Tennessee Tech is leaving for the SoCon, further shrinking the buffer.

SoCon and ESPN Extend Media Rights

The Southern Conference and ESPN have extended their media rights deal for six years, with the new agreement set to last through the 2031-32 academic year. Men’s basketball will continue to see the championship game broadcast on ESPN, while the semifinals will be on one of ESPN’s other linear networks. Men’s basketball will also have regular season games shown on ESPN or ESPN2 for the first time. The women’s basketball championship game will be broadcast on ESPNU annually.

NCAA Division 2 News

Changes to D2 Championships

The NCAA Division 2 Championships Committee is making some changes. The D2 long-range budget will increase at a 2% annual rate, instead of the current 5% rate. The 3% difference will be spent on other championship programs and initiatives. This change will take effect immediately.

The D2 men’s and women’s tennis championships will undergo a few changes beginning with the 2027-28 academic year. The men’s bracket will be reduced from 34 teams to 32 teams. The finals site will be reduced to eight teams apiece for men and women. Four super regions will be implemented, with two hosting sites per super regional per gender:

• Atlantic/East
• Central/Midwest
• South/Southeast
• South Central/West

In cross country, the “A-Team” definition will be changed from 5 individuals to at least 4 of the 7 student-athletes from the school’s NCAA Regional Cross Country Championship, which will also clarify that all individuals who start a race are counted in the number. The D2 Championships Committee will also replace the regional point gap ratio with a regional time gap as part of its selection process. The Committee believes the time gap is a more accurate representation of performance than the point-based system. All changes will take effect with the 2026-27 academic year.

NCAA Division 3 News

Proposed Changes to D3 Championships

Unlike the D2 championships, the D3 level did not have many changes. The D3 Championships Committee will determine in June whether to maintain the pilot bracketing policy, which allows for increased flights to separate top seeds. The Committee will also discuss whether to include guaranteeing the site/host for top seeds as a pilot policy. The Committee set the 2026 field hockey automatic qualification bids to 18 conferences, and is considering a change to the NCAA Power Index (NPI) dial for Quality Win Base Value from 52.5 to 53 beginning with the 2027 season. For women’s basketball, the Championships Committee denied a request to allow for bracketing flexibility outside the existing geographic parameters.

For men’s and women’s cross country, the pilot policy allowing the qualification window to start 9 weeks before the D3 Cross Country Championships was extended for the 2026 championships. The proposal to allow men’s and women’s golf regional qualifiers to advance to the finals was not advanced. The Committee supports raising the male participant cap and increasing the budget to reflect the higher number of athletes, but will decide in June. The Committee will continue to debate whether to expand the team portion of the Championships and eliminate the individual portion for men’s and women’s tennis.

NAIA News

Florida Poly Launching Athletics Program

Florida Polytechnic University (Lakeland, Florida) is launching an athletics program in the 2026-27 academic year. The school will be nicknamed the Phoenix and start with 8 programs: men’s and women’s basketball, cross country, and soccer, along with men’s baseball and women’s softball. Florida Poly plans to join the NAIA’s Sun Conference beginning with the 2027-28 academic year, which will have 11 full members.

What’s Next for the St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy Athletic Programs?

Last month, St. Ambrose University (Davenport, Iowa) announced it will join the Heart of America Athletic Conference (HAAC) beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. One of my readers notified me of an error on the map (h/t Dave), but also mentioned an aspect I forgot: St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy University (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) announced a merger in 2024. Under the new partnership, St. Ambrose is the parent organization of MMU, and it is expected that the two universities will be combined in summer 2026 after approval from the U.S. Department of Education.

Now that both schools are in the HAAC, it’s fair to wonder what happens to the athletic programs at both institutions. Given that St. Ambrose is the parent school, will Mount Mercy’s athletic program survive? The reason these typically happen is to combine schools/programs and cut costs. The schools are 90 minutes apart and running two athletic programs doesn’t make much sense. I can’t say for certain that MMU’s athletics are going away, but it’s hard to ignore both schools being in the same conference. On top of that, mergers between schools often see one of the athletic departments going away, as we’ve witnessed in recent years.

Cal Maritime (merged with Cal Poly), Multnomah (acquired by Jessup), New Jersey City (merged with Kean), Rosemont (merged with Villanova), and USHP (merging with Washington University in St. Louis) have all seen their athletic departments discontinued or drastically reduced following mergers. Interestingly, two months after the merger between SAU and MMU was announced, Mount Mercy added football. The team is scheduled to start in fall 2026 and has a full schedule. Perhaps some of the programs will be combined, as we saw with Kean and NJCU. Another aspect to keep an eye on in the future.

Photo Courtesy of Florida Polytechnic