NCAA Division I independent schools
In American college sports, NCAA Division I independent schools are four-year institutions that do not belong to a conference for a particular sport.
Beach volleyball
Beach volleyball, currently a women-only sport at the NCAA level, holds a single national championship open to members of all three NCAA divisions. As of the 2020 season (2019–20 school year), abbreviated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the following programs compete as independents. A total of 13 schools that were independents in the 2019 season exited that status after that season. Of these, 11 are full members of conferences that began sponsoring beach volleyball in 2019–20, with five being members of the Ohio Valley Conference[1] and six being members of the Southland Conference.[2] The other two schools that left the independent ranks, Louisiana–Monroe and Missouri State, joined the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association, a league that sponsors only beach volleyball plus men's and women's swimming & diving.[3]
Bowling
Bowling, like beach volleyball, is currently a women-only sport at the NCAA level that holds a single national championship open to all NCAA members. As of the 2019–20 season, at least eight bowling programs compete as independents. This list is likely incomplete, as Division III independents have not yet been analyzed.
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Belmont Abbey College | Crusaders | Belmont, North Carolina | 1876 | Private | 1,320 | Conference Carolinas (Division II) |
Chestnut Hill College | Griffins | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | 1924 | Private | 2,301 | Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (Division II) |
Kentucky Wesleyan College | Panthers | Owensboro, Kentucky | 1858 | Private | 785 | Great Midwest Athletic Conference (Division II) |
University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska) | Cornhuskers | Lincoln, Nebraska | 1869 | Public | 25,260 | Big Ten Conference (Division I) |
Post University | Eagles | Waterbury, Connecticut | 1890 | Private | 7,317 | Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (Division II) |
Ursuline College | Arrows | Pepper Pike, Ohio | 1871 | Private | 1,136 | Great Midwest Athletic Conference (Division II) |
Walsh University | Cavaliers | North Canton, Ohio | 1960 | Private | 2,766 | Great Midwest Athletic Conference (Division II) |
Wilmington University | Eagles | New Castle, Delaware | 1968 | Private | 20,522 | Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (Division II) |
Field hockey
The only Division I independent in field hockey in the upcoming 2020 season (subject to COVID-19 disruptions) is Bellarmine, which started a transition from Division II in July 2020 and is thus highlighted in yellow.
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bellarmine University | Knights | Louisville, Kentucky | 1950 | Private | 3,759 | ASUN Conference |
Football
Football Bowl Subdivision
As of the upcoming 2020 college football season, there will be seven NCAA Division I FBS independent schools.
Institution | Founded | Nickname | First season | Location | Type | Enrollment | Primary conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
United States Military Academy (Army) |
1802 | Black Knights | 1890 | West Point, New York | Federal | 4,294 | Patriot League |
Brigham Young University (BYU) | 1875 | Cougars | 1922 | Provo, Utah | Private | 29,672 | West Coast Conference |
Liberty University | 1971 | Flames | 1973 | Lynchburg, Virginia | Private | 15,000[lower-alpha 1] | ASUN Conference |
New Mexico State University | 1888 | Aggies | 1893 | Las Cruces, New Mexico | Public | 18,497 | Western Athletic Conference |
University of Notre Dame | 1842 | Fighting Irish | 1887 | Notre Dame, Indiana | Private | 12,179 | Atlantic Coast Conference [lower-alpha 2] |
University of Connecticut (UConn) | 1881 | Huskies | 1896 | Storrs, Connecticut | Public | 32,257 | Big East Conference |
University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) | 1863 | Minutemen | 1879 | Amherst, Massachusetts | Public | 29,269 | Atlantic 10 |
- Notes
- Does not include roughly 100,000 students enrolled in online programs.
- Notre Dame remains officially an independent football team, and is not a member of the ACC in any capacity for football. However, as part of the agreement to join the ACC in other sports, Notre Dame agreed to schedule 5 games per year against ACC opponents.[4]
Football Championship Subdivision
In the 2020 season, four schools will play as FCS independents—Dixie State, Presbyterian, Robert Morris, and Tarleton State. Dixie State announced in January 2019 that it would begin a transition from Division II to the non-football Western Athletic Conference in July 2020, with the football program becoming an FCS independent at that time.[5] Presbyterian announced in 2017 that it had started a transition to non-scholarship FCS football. The Blue Hose played their final season of Big South Conference football in 2019, and will play the 2020 season as an independent before joining the Pioneer Football League, a football-only conference made up entirely of non-scholarship FCS programs, in 2021. Presbyterian will remain a full non-football Big South member.[6] Robert Morris left the football-sponsoring Northeast Conference for the non-football Horizon League in July 2020; it will play the 2020 season as an independent and then join Big South football.[7] Tarleton State announced in 2019 that it would join the WAC alongside Dixie State and also play football as an FCS independent.[8]
The only school that had played as an FCS independent in 2019, North Dakota, joins the Missouri Valley Football Conference in 2020. North Dakota left the Big Sky Conference in 2018 to join the non-football Summit League, but agreed to honor existing contracts to play Big Sky members in football, and thus played a full Big Sky football schedule as an FCS independent in 2018 and 2019. While North Dakota was not listed in conference standings, their games against Big Sky football members counted fully in conference standings.[9]
Institution | Founded | Nickname | First season | Location | Type | Enrollment | Primary conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dixie State University | 1883 | Trailblazers | 2006 | St. George, Utah | Public | 11,193 | Western Athletic Conference |
Presbyterian College | 1880 | Blue Hose | 1913 | Clinton, South Carolina | Private | 1,280 | Big South Conference |
Robert Morris University | 1921 | Colonials | 1994 | Moon Township, Pennsylvania | Private | 4,895 | Horizon League |
Tarleton State University | 1883 | Texans | 1904 | Stephenville, Texas | Public | 13,226 | Western Athletic Conference |
Golf
Men
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Francis Marion University | Patriots | Florence, South Carolina | 1970 | Public | 4,200 | Peach Belt Conference (Division II)[10] |
Women
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Augusta University | Jaguars | Augusta, Georgia | 1828 | Public | 9,000 | Peach Belt Conference (Division II)[11] |
Ice hockey
Men
There is currently one NCAA Division I independent in men's ice hockey. The Sun Devils moved up from club hockey in the ACHA to full varsity status. Arizona State began playing a full Division I schedule in 2016–17, and expected to be in a hockey conference for 2017–18, but no conference move has yet materialized.
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Years | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arizona State University | Sun Devils[12] | Tempe, Arizona | 1885 | Public | 50,246 | 2015–present | Pac-12 Conference |
Women
No women's ice hockey teams played as independents at the National Collegiate level, the de facto equivalent to Division I in that sport, in the 2019–20 season.
Five schools—Franklin Pierce, Post, Sacred Heart, Saint Anselm, and Saint Michael's—competed as independents in the 2018–19 season, all participating in the nascent New England Women's Hockey Alliance (NEWHA), which had originally been established in 2017 as a scheduling alliance among all of the then-current National Collegiate independents. The NEWHA initially included six schools, but Holy Cross left after the inaugural 2017–18 NEWHA season to join Hockey East. The NEWHA officially organized as a conference in advance of the 2018–19 season,[13] but was not officially recognized by the NCAA as a Division I league until the 2019–20 season, by which time the newly launched LIU program had joined to return the conference membership to six.[14]
Soccer
Men
There is one men's soccer independent in the 2020 season, Chicago State University, whose team is joining the Western Athletic Conference in 2021.[15]
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chicago State University | Cougars | Chicago, Illinois | 1867 | Public | 2,950 | Western Athletic Conference |
Women
Two schools were independents in the most recently completed 2019 women's soccer season. The most recent departure from the independent ranks was Hampton University, which joined the Big South Conference, which sponsors women's soccer, in 2018.[16]
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Delaware State University | Hornets | Dover, Delaware | 1891 | Public | 3,400 | Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference |
South Carolina State University | Lady Bulldogs | Orangeburg, South Carolina | 1896 | Public | 3,000 | Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference |
Men's volleyball
Men's volleyball has a truncated divisional structure in which members of both Division I and Division II compete under identical scholarship limits for a single national championship. In the 2021 season, 11 men's volleyball programs, all but one of which are Division II members, will compete as independents.
D'Youville, currently reclassifying from Division III to Division II, is highlighted in yellow.
- While no member of the University of Puerto Rico system is part of a recognized NCAA conference, all are members of Liga Atlética Interuniversitaria de Puerto Rico, which governs college sports competitions in both Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
- St. Francis Brooklyn will join the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association in July 2021.[17]
Wrestling
The only Division I wrestling independent in the upcoming 2020–21 season (subject to COVID-19 disruptions) is Bellarmine, which started a transition from Division II in July 2020 and is thus highlighted in yellow.
Institution | Team | Location | Founded | Type | Enrollment | Primary Conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bellarmine University | Knights | Louisville, Kentucky | 1950 | Private | 3,759 | ASUN Conference |
References
- "OVC Adds Beach Volleyball as Championship Sport" (Press release). Ohio Valley Conference. July 30, 2019. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
- "Southland Conference Adds Beach Volleyball to Championship Sports Offerings" (Press release). Southland Conference. August 14, 2019. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
- "CCSA Announces Addition of Louisiana Monroe and Missouri State to Beach Volleyball" (Press release). Coastal Collegiate Sports Association. December 13, 2019. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
- "Notre Dame Goes To ACC: Bowl Security, Football Scheduling Flexibility Key To Move". Sports Business Daily. Street and Smith’s Sports Group. September 13, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2013.
- "Blazing a New Trail: Dixie State Accepts Invitation to Join Western Athletic Conference" (Press release). Dixie State Trailblazers. January 11, 2019. Retrieved January 25, 2019.
- "Presbyterian College to join Pioneer Football League in 2021" (Press release). Pioneer Football League. November 20, 2017. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
- "Big South Conference Adds Robert Morris University as Football Member" (Press release). Big South Conference. June 15, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
- "Tarleton State University to Join Western Athletic Conference in 2020-21" (Press release). Western Athletic Conference. November 12, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2019.
- "UND athletics accepts invites to The Summit League, Missouri Valley Football Conference" (Press release). North Dakota Fighting Hawks. January 26, 2017. Retrieved May 18, 2018.
- "NCAA Membership Directory: Francis Marion University". NCAA. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
- "NCAA Membership Directory: Augusta University". NCAA. Retrieved January 15, 2020.
- "Sun Devil Athletics Announces Addition of Men's Ice Hockey as NCAA Sport" (Press release). Arizona State Athletics. November 18, 2014. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
- "NEWHA announces intent to be recognized as NCAA national collegiate women's hockey conference". USCHO.com. September 26, 2018. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
- "New England Women's Hockey Alliance approved for NCAA Division I status, effective with '19-20 season". USCHO.com. September 4, 2019. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
- "Chicago State Announces Sport Sponsorship Adjustment". Western Athletic Conference. June 23, 2020. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
- "Big South Adds Hampton University as Full Member" (Press release). Big South Conference. November 16, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- "St. Francis College Brooklyn Men's Volleyball Accepted into EIVA" (Press release). St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers. May 6, 2020. Retrieved May 8, 2020.