UT-Dallas Officially Joining DII

As reported last week, UT-Dallas has officially announced their intention to join DII. You can find my article where I reported on the rumor here.

The UTD article indicates that UT-Dallas has accepted an invitation to the Lone Star Conference starting in the fall of 2025. The school will formally apply to join DII in February of next year. This means they will be a full DIII program this season and, most likely, request a waiver to stay in DIII during the 2024 season (as a full member). We have seen the same pattern play out with Sul Ross State who’s timetable is one year sooner.

A number of weeks ago, I had people close to the school telling me that something was coming up with respect to the ASC. After doing some digging, it appeared the only option for the school would be a move to DII. Last week, I finally got someone to mention the move to DII as a strong possibility so I wrote the article.

The fallout to the ASC could be critical. Starting in 2025 they will have 5 programs that sponsor volleyball and, I believe, four in football. I really don’t care about football but that is what drives a lot of the conference decisions. At that point, the clock starts ticking on retaining the automatic qualifier (speaking of volleyball now). A conference needs 6-schools so I expect more activity as the conference tries to find replacement members that play football (and one that plays volleyball). I’m not fluent on football, but I assume they have to go look at NAIA or DII schools that want to make the move. I don’t know how many of those programs exist out there in the surrounding states. I don’t see them pulling from the SCAC. More news will come with regards to the ASC and their membership.

The fallout to the region is also a problem. Region X will be losing one of their top teams and will further reduce the number of schools. The DIII programs in Texas and the states to the east will have one less quality program to schedule against. I think this becomes a real problem for any school with NCAA Tournament aspirations (not counting Southwestern and Trinity) that don’t increase their travel budget. You have to schedule tough and the options to do that while driving have been reduced.

I would love to see the alternate universe where Southwestern and Trinity don’t make the move to the SAA. I don’t think Concordia moves to the SCAC and the ASC is a little more stable. Still, Concordia doesn’t have football so volleyball would have been fine in the ASC but they still have their football issue to address. People will tell you that you only have an issue in a conference if you have a football issue.

Could we see the SCAC take one or two more ASC teams into the fold? Could we see the Baptist schools in the ASC leave DIII as a group? I guess everything is on the table but I’m struggling to see the SCAC expanding more than it currently has.

As for UT-Dallas, there have been talks about moving to DII for a number of years. They really don’t fit the profile as a DIII school with 31,000 students and being part of a UT system that wants their schools playing at a higher level. When UT-Tyler made the jump about 5-years ago, we should have known the writing was on the wall. I’m not sure how much the ASC situation pushed them off the wall but I think the move was going to happen eventually.

Alright, there you have it. Sad day for me but I hope nothing but the best for UT-Dallas moving forward.