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 15, 2025, and provide updates on previously discussed topics. As a reminder, all official moves starting with the 2024-25 academic year or later can be found here and all changes – full membership or individual sport changes – starting in 2025-26 can be found here. Please note that individual sports changes occurring in 2025-26 or later will be listed in the standalone article only.
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 that specific section. If a division is not highlighted, there has been no news in the preceding two weeks. We’ve also summarized the news items in a table below if you are more interested in a summary or specific news item rather than having to scroll to find it.
| School(s)/Conference | News Item | Realignment Change / Effective Year | Current Conference | New Conference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluffton | Merger with Findlay Off | No | N/A | N/A |
| D1 Soccer | Proposed New Model | TBD | N/A | N/A |
| D3 Penn State Campuses | Won’t Close | No | N/A | N/A |
| East Coast Conference | TV Rights Deal with FloSports | No – 2025-26 | N/A | N/A |
| East Texas A&M | Intends to Pursue Expedited Reclassification Process | Yes – 2025-26 | N/A | N/A |
| Findlay | Merger with Bluffton Off | No | N/A | N/A |
| NCAA D3 | Live Streaming via Hudl for Winter and Spring Championships | No | N/A | N/A |
| Northern Illinois | Joining Horizon League | Yes – 2026-27 | MAC (D1) | Horizon (D1) |
| Northland College | School Closing | Yes – 2025-26 | UMAC (D3) | N/A |
| Pac-12 | Realignment Insights | TBD | N/A | N/A |
| Skidmore College | Equestrian Team to Become Coed | Yes – 2025-26 | N/A | N/A |
| Texas A&M-Texarkana | Looking to Move to D2 | Yes – TBD | RRAC (NAIA) | TBD (D2) |
| William Woods | Women’s Flag Football to KCAC | Yes – 2024-25 | N/A | KCAC (NAIA) |
Pac-12 Realignment Insight
San Diego State Athletic Director JD Wicker provided insight into the Pac-12 realignment efforts during a football ticket holder appreciation day. According to Wicker, the Pac-12 will have a TV rights memorandum of understanding (MOU) completed by the end of March and will add a full football-playing member after that. Wicker did not provide a concrete timeline for the 8th full membership but made it clear the TV rights were the priority. Wicker also mentioned that the Pac-12 may add as many as 3 more schools as either full or affiliate members.
Northern Illinois Joining Horizon League
Northern Illinois is moving a majority of its sports teams to the Horizon League beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. NIU previously announced its football team would join the Mountain West in 2026-27 but the future of the other sports teams wasn’t clear. The move will put the Horizon League at 12 members in 2026-27 unless the conference opts to make additional moves. NIU’s men’s wrestling and women’s gymnastics teams may stay in the MAC, pending an affiliate membership application decision.
NCAA Division 1 Sports News
NCAA Division 1 soccer may see a complete overhaul in the next few years, according to Sportico. The U.S. Soccer Federation has been discussing a new model with 32 schools from the ACC and Big Ten that would shift the calendar from the fall to the entire academic year. It would align the D1 schools with much of the world that uses a fall-spring schedule. Currently, the ACC (15 teams), Big Ten (11), Kentucky, Oregon State, San Diego State, South Carolina, UCF, and West Virginia would be in the pilot program. The timeline for when this would be implemented is not clear and there’s a chance it could end up like the previous attempts: off target.
East Texas A&M (Commerce, Texas) intends to pursue the NCAA’s expedited Division 1 reclassification process. Under the new rules, the reclassification process is shortened by one year, which would allow ETAMU to become a full Division 1 member beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. If ETAMU should fail to meet the NCAA’s requirements, the first full year of D1 membership would be 2026-27.
NCAA Division 2 Sports News
The proposed merger between the NCAA Division 2 University of Findlay (Findlay, Ohio) and the Division 3 Bluffton University (Bluffton, Ohio) will not proceed. The two schools originally announced the merger in March 2024 with the hope of completing the merger by the fall of 2025. A delay was announced at the beginning of January 2025 that postponed the merger until 2027-28. One of the reasons cited for the termination of the merger was the athletic differences with Findlay in NCAA Division 2 (G-MAC) and Bluffton in Division 3 (HCAC).
The East Coast Conference is the latest collegiate conference to agree to a TV rights deal with FloSports. The ECC sports will be shown on FloSports beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. There are now 13 NCAA conferences that have a media rights deal with FloSports in some capacity: Big East (D1), CAA (D1), California Collegiate Athletic Association (D2), East Coast Conference (D2) Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (D2), Gulf South Conference (D2), Lone Star Conference (D2), Northeast 10 Conference (D2), South Atlantic Conference (D2), Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (D2), Landmark Conference (D3), New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (D3), and Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (D3).
NCAA Division 3 Sports News
The NCAA has partnered with Hudl to provide free live streaming for the 2025 Division 3 winter and spring tournaments. The winter championships will include men’s basketball, men’s hockey, women’s basketball, and women’s hockey. The semifinal and championship games for men’s and women’s basketball will be broadcast on one of ESPN’s networks. Baseball, men’s lacrosse, men’s volleyball, softball, and women’s lacrosse will be streamed for the spring championships.
Northland College (Ashland, Wisconsin) will close after the 2024-25 academic year due to financial issues. Northland is a member of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC), which will have 7 full members in the 2025-26 academic year. Northland announced in the spring of 2024 that it would remain open for the 2024-25 academic year but the news itself was a warning that closing was a potential option. The school plans to complete the 2025 baseball season but the softball season wasn’t spared as Northland announced the cancellation on February 25.
Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, New York) will make its equestrian team coed beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. The program is currently a women’s team that competes as an independent. Skidmore College has the apt nickname of “thoroughbreds” and Saratoga Springs is home to horse racing’s National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
The Pennsylvania State University Commonwealth system will be closing some campuses after the 2026-27 academic year. None of those campuses will be the NCAA Division 3 schools Abington (United East), Altoona (AMCC), Berks (UEC), Behrend (AMCC), Brandywine, or Harrisburg (UEC). There are 20 campuses in the system including Penn State (Big Ten) and another 13 that compete in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA). Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi said “declining enrollments, demographic shifts, and financial pressures” will lead to the forthcoming closures.
NAIA Sports News
Texas A&M-Texarkana (Texarkana, Texas) is looking to reclassify from the NAIA’s Red River Athletic Conference (RRAC) to an unspecified NCAA Division 2 conference. TAMUT’s President Ross Alexander said its future conference affiliation announcement will be “very, very soon.” The most likely conference for the Eagles to join is the Great American Conference (GAC) but there are other possibilities. The RRAC would have 13 members after TAMUT departs. A timeline for when the school would begin the reclassification process was not provided but the recent groundbreaking for the new athletic center is estimated to be complete in 18 months – or right around the start of the 2026-27 athletic season.
William Woods University (Fulton, Missouri) will compete as a member of the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC) in women’s flag football for the 2025 spring season, according to the school’s athletic website. This is the first year of women’s flag football at William Woods, which previously did not announce a conference affiliation for the sport.
Photo by Tom Hauck / Getty Images