After a decade-long status quo, the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) is experiencing a volatile period with massive changes to the composition of the conference.
The departure of Allegheny College, one of the conference’s founding members, in the spring of 2022 propelled the NCAC into a period rife with movement. Shortly after the loss of Allegheny, the NCAC announced that John Carroll University would join to fill the empty spot, beginning in the fall of 2025. Now, Hiram, after years of athletic decline, will also leave the conference at the conclusion of the 2024-2025 academic calendar.
On October 18, the NCAC announced that Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) will join as an affiliate member for football. They formally began play as a part of the conference in 2026. Although they may schedule games against NCAC teams before then, they will not count towards the conference records and the team will not be eligible for the conference title until the 2026 season.
“An affiliate member is designed to bring conference associations in just a particular sport,” said Director of Athletics and Recreation Matt Tanney ’05. “In the case of football, the reason why it’s so valuable is stability and scheduling. Unlike a lot of other sports, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, you’ve got lots of opportunities to compete. In football, that’s a very small number. And trying to find nonconference opponents can be very difficult.”
Together with the addition of John Carroll, WashU not only gives NCAC teams consistency in scheduling but also brings high level competition to the conference. Strength of schedule for NCAC teams has been an ongoing issue within the conference that makes receiving an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III football tournament difficult for conference teams.
There are two ways for a team to punch their tickets to the Division III playoffs. The first is an automatic bid, which is awarded to the winners of 28 Division III conferences. The second way to reach the playoffs is to receive an at-large bid. Automatic bids are given out by a selection committee who review several factors, including overall record and depth of schedule, to determine which teams deserve to make the playoffs. Of the 40 teams who make the playoffs, only 12 get there through automatic bids, making the selection process extremely competitive. Teams in the NCAC like Wabash, Denison and DePauw who do not receive automatic bids, are disadvantaged in the race for an at-large bid due to the presence of weaker programs like Hiram and Oberlin in the conference.
With John Carrol and WashU – who have recorded 41 and 37 wins, respectively in the last five full seasons – joining the conference and Hiram leaving, the NCAC will be in a better position to send two teams to the playoffs each year via one automatic bid and one at-large bid.
“Our conference champion will get into the playoffs every year automatically and our second place team will hope for the at-large,” said Associate Head Football Coach Jake Gilbert ’98, who will become the program’s head coach in 2025. “The strength of our conference will get much better with John Carol and WashU joining. I hope that means we [the NCAC] will get an at-large team almost every year.”
Elevating the level of the conference will not just bring benefits on the field. It will also be vital in protecting the NCAC from a growing trend of Division III programs and schools shutting down in the post-COVID landscape. Football and other sports can be an important driver of recruitment to help schools recover from the economic strain brought on by the pandemic.
Since 2021, 12 Division III colleges have shut their doors for good or done away with athletics entirely. Countless others have made cuts to individual athletic programs.
The NCAC currently is not in clear on the issues plaguing Division III and the NCAA more broadly. The conference will suffer two, close-to-home shots on athletics in 2025. The first will be the closing of Fontbonne University. Though not technically affiliated with the NCAC, Fontbonne is a member of the Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League (MCVL) alongside the Wabash and Wittenberg men’s volleyball programs.
“Fontbonne from the MCVL, our [Wabash’s] volleyball league, announced they were closing,” said Tanney. “They’re not sponsoring volleyball this year. So it’s happened to us in one of our other leagues.”
The second and more impactful change will be the loss of Wittenberg tennis. Neither the men’s nor the women’s programs will not return after the 2024-2025 school year. Wittenberg will also be cutting a number of academic programs. Without addressing the current state of the NCAC this could become a trend within the conference of closures rather than growth. Wittenberg stands as one of the most historic athletic universities in Division III, boasting nine national championships in four-different sports, the most recent being in men’s golf in 2019. An institution like Wittenberg falling on hard times should stand as a warning sign to every single NCAA Division III school.
However, continuing to bring in top-level athletic programs – alongside the conference’s excellent academic record – could serve as bulwark against the tides of change sweeping over small-school higher education.
“I think the NCAC is really fortunate because we’re in an incredible position of strength,” said Tanney. “Top-to-bottom now, with Hiram’s exit this year, John Carroll coming in next year – look at the slate of institutions that we have, it’s an incredibly robust group of pro-athletic programs and institutions.”
The issues faced by Division III schools will not disappear overnight, as many unfortunate colleges have. But rigorously pushing the level of competition in NCAC will be a way for the conference to stay one step ahead of the wave of post-Covid closures. Using athletics to boost recruitment and national recognition is one the pieces to the puzzle that NCAC schools will have to solve to keep their doors open.