Taking A Closer Look at Realignment in the NEC and Across The Northeast

October 24, 2026 8 Min Read

Updated on October 23, 2026

Over the last several months, there have been a few realignment moves and some notable news items that could shape future changes across and beyond the NCAA in the Northeast. The NEC is set to lose Le Moyne at the start of the 2027-28 academic year, but other factors at play in Divisions 1 and 2 could impact how realignment shakes out. Let’s take a closer look at the NEC’s history before diving into NCAA Division 2, Division 3, and the NAIA.

NEC: The Foothold into Division 1

The NEC has faced consistent realignment movement since 2020, and the resulting pressure will continue in the coming months and years. The question is how the NEC weathers the current movement and rumors. Le Moyne is headed to the Metro Conference at the start of the 2027-28 academic year, and Stonehill may be close behind. Those two would be the 8th and 9th schools to depart the NEC for a new conference since 2020, but not all have been for other D1 opportunities.

In 2020, Robert Morris left to join the Horizon League, with football playing as an affiliate of the Big South Conference from 2020-21 through 2023-24. RMU’s football team rejoined the NEC as an affiliate beginning with the 2024 season. In 2022, Bryant and Mount St. Mary’s left to join the America East and Metro (then-MAAC), respectively. Bryant’s football team spent one year in the Big South-OVC before joining the CAA in 2024.

At the end of the 2022-23 academic year, St. Francis (NY) dropped its athletics program due to increased expenses and revenue/enrollment challenges. In 2024, Merrimack and Sacred Heart both moved to the Metro, as the football programs opted to become FCS independents. Sacred Heart joined the CAA as a football affiliate in 2026, while Merrimack remains an independent. At the start of the 2026-27 academic year, Saint Francis (PA) decided to drop to D3 and join the Presidents Athletic Conference.

The NEC added 5 members in recent years, with all but one coming from Division 2. In 2022, Stonehill joined from the D2 Northeast-10 Conference, followed a year later by Le Moyne (also from the NE10). In 2024, Mercyhurst left D2 and the PSAC to join the NEC, joining alongside D1 independent Chicago State. Chicago State would add football in 2026 and will join the NEC’s football rotation in 2027. In 2025, New Haven joined the NEC from the NE10.

Academic Year	School	Change	Previous/New Conference
2020-21	Robert Morris	Left NEC	Horizon League
2022-23	Bryant	Left NEC	America East
2022-23	Mount St. Mary’s	Left NEC	Metro (Then-MAAC)
2022-23	Stonehill	Joined NEC	Northeast-10 (D2)
2023-24	Le Moyne	Joined NEC	Northeast-10 (D2)
2023-24	St. Francis (NY)	Left NEC	Dropped Athletics
2024-25	Chicago State	Joined NEC	Independent (D1)
2024-25	Merrimack	Left NEC	Metro (Then-MAAC)
2024-25	Mercyhurst	Joined NEC	PSAC (D2)
2024-25	Sacred Heart	Left NEC	Metro (Then-MAAC)
2025-26	New Haven	Joined NEC	Northeast-10 (D2)
2026-27	Le Moyne	Leaving NEC	Metro

With that history, the NEC is clearly seen as a stepping stone for schools entering D2. The NEC is particularly fond of the NE10, which isn’t a surprise given the two conferences share the same geographic footprint. Bryant, Le Moyne, Merrimack, New Haven, Quinnipiac, and Stonehill all competed in the NE10 immediately before joining the NEC. Interestingly, the Metro Conference has also become an extension of the NEC. The last 8 full member additions for the Metro have all been from the NEC. Will that spark additional departures from the Metro due to dissatisfaction with the current state of the conference?

Not only does the NEC have to deal with the Metro constantly picking off its members, but the America East Conference, Atlantic 10, Coastal Athletic Association (CAA), and Patriot League may be looking to bolster their full member ranks. The indirect movements from those conferences could cascade down to the NEC. Those conferences could also be looking to take members from each other, which may also impact the NEC. The CAA continues to expand to fend off any future realignment changes, with 14 members lined up for the 2027-28 academic year. Some Metro members may decide the influx of former NEC members is a sign to move, similar to how many CAA football members have left in recent years. It’s not difficult to think the Patriot League would likely consider football-only members if there was a fit, especially considering they already have 5 football affiliates.

The biggest issue facing the NEC is finding new members. Right now, it’s at 8 with Le Moyne leaving. A Stonehill departure puts the conference at 7. Who would the NEC call up? The usual path is the NE10, but there’s no indication any of those schools would want to move up. It’s hard to imagine any current D1 schools moving to the NEC, given the state of the conference, but also factoring in Chicago State’s presence stretching the geographical footprint. The NEC can look outside the NE10 to the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference, East Coast Conference, Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference for additional possibilities.

There’s also a recommendation from the NCAA Division 1 Membership Committee to raise the D1 application fee. The new fee will be “six times the amount of the estimated annual average value of direct benefits through distribution and champions made available to Division I members.” The most recent application had a fee of $1.96 million, placing the 6x proposal just short of $12 million at $11.76 million. The fee will be determined by the NCAA and change annually, meaning the cost of moving to D1 will substantially rise starting in 2027-28, and likely continue to increase the longer a team waits.

The NEC is in a precarious position right now, even with the moratorium on new D1 schools set to end in February 2027, because there may be few D2 schools that can afford to move up and want to. There are also additional expenses tied to moving up on top of the $12 million application fee, including offering additional scholarships, hiring more administrative and athletic staff to compensate for the higher level, and paying any conference entrance or exit fees. Some of these may be offset by increased fundraising or donations, but the $12 million fee to apply for D1 will likely discourage many schools from considering the move, especially in the face of the enrollment cliff.

D2 and D3 Northeast Conferences

The realignment musical chairs in the Northeast is likely to hit D2, whether it’s from the NEC looking for new members or from the current D2 conferences looking to expand. The Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) commissioner stated he wants to expand from 12 to 16 members, while maintaining the 4-hour max travel time between the furthest members. This information limits the geographic footprint to the Eastern Seaboard, with the CACC currently extending from Wilmington University in Delaware to Post University in Waterbury, Connecticut. That is about a 3.5-hour drive, so there won’t be much room for additional expansion north or south to stay within the 4-hour limit.

So which fellow D2 schools fall in that zone? From the Northeast-10 Conference, there are three possibilities: Adelphi (Garden City, New York), Pace (Pleasantville, New York), and Southern Connecticut State (New Haven, Connecticut). From the East Coast Conference (ECC), there are five: Mercy (Dobbs Ferry, New York), Molloy (Rockville Centre, New York), Queens (Queens, New York), Staten Island (Staten Island, New York), and St. Thomas Aquinas (Sparkill, New York). The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) also has six possibilities: Bloomsburg, East Stroudsburg, Kutztown, Lackawanna, Millersville, and West Chester in Western Pennsylvania. Lackawanna is reclassifying from NJCAA to D2, making it unlikely to move, while the other five are members of the Pennsylvania Western University or Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania systems. The map at the bottom of the page shows all four conferences together.

The other options include adding current D1 or D3 programs. I wouldn’t consider the D1 to D2 movement impossible in modern athletics, but I think we’d be more likely to see D1 to D3 moves, a la Saint Francis (PA). D3 is flush with colleges in the footprint of the CACC, but it would require convincing them to add scholarships, something most schools in the division can’t afford to do, let alone convince the few who would want to pursue that option and have the money to do so. It’s the same story as the NEC convincing D2 schools to move to D1, but on a smaller scale.

Currently, the NE10 has 10 schools, but will shrink to 9 when Saint Anselm departs for the D3 NEWMAC at the start of the 2027-28 academic year. The ECC has 9 full members lined up for the 2027-28 academic year. It’s not difficult to see a scenario where the NE10 and ECC both start losing members, leading to some worry about whether there will be enough members for the conferences to survive. The ECC is the most geographically stretched, with members from Washington, D.C., to the New York City area to Buffalo in Western New York. The NE10 is a bit more compact, from Staten Island to northern Vermont and eastward to Boston.

It all depends on what the NEC does and whether it can reach back into the D2 pipeline. The most optimistic scenario is the NEC and CACC plucking only a few teams from different conferences, but each one still having 6-7 or more. A nightmare scenario would be a combination of the NEC tapping into the D2 pipeline, the CACC making overtures at the same time, and either the ECC or NE10 falling below 6 full members. That might lead to survival mode for schools and seeing the end of one of those conferences via a merger. Then again, maybe the NEC’s overtures to D2 schools fall flat, the CACC doesn’t reach 16 in the end, and the ECC and NE10 still keep 7+ members. It’s worth keeping an eye on.

The realignment shuffle won’t end at D2, even if there are no teams that move up from D3. We’ve already seen the Atlantic East Conference announce it will dissolve, with the four remaining members joining the United East Conference. The biggest cause of D3 realignment may be schools closing or athletics departments being dropped over the next decade. Of all the regions in D3, the Northeast is also the one with the most resilience to realignment because there are a vast number of members located in the region. It is also one of the areas most likely to be impacted by the enrollment cliff and closures.

There’s one additional aspect to note that could impact the NCAA Divisions 2 and 3. The NAIA is exploring whether to create a conference in the Northeast, as stated by both the NAIA President and one of its VPs. As of right now, Fisher College (Boston, Massachusetts) is the only NAIA school in the region. The next closest is Washington Adventist in Takoma Park, Maryland. Both schools play in the Continental Athletic Conference, which is made up of schools without a conference affiliation. Creating a conference in the Northeast implies there is some interest from non-NAIA schools about joining in the future. D2 and NAIA are often equated with one another, but an influx of D2, D3, and NJCAA schools could also lead to a new Northeast-based conference in the NAIA. It’s not clear how many schools are interested or what the timeline for a new conference would be. It is yet another thing to watch out for.