Division III athletics promotes academic excellence and competitive athletics but how many schools do both really well?

EDIT (October 7, 2024, 1:45 pm ET) - I have edited this to correct an inadvertent error in which I omitted Vassar College from inclusion among the 43 schools. My sincere apologies for the oversight.

EDIT (October 11, 2024, 8:00 am ET) - I have edited this to correct an inadvertent error in which I omitted WPI from inclusion among the 43 schools. My sincere apologies for the oversight.

When Carnegie Mellon University announced its football team would no longer compete as an affiliate in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) after this season, it did not generate the headlines that came with Texas and Oklahoma switching conferences. Nor did it surprise that CMU chose to compete in the Centennial Conference. If Division III conferences were truly regional in their missions, CMU would be better served staying in the PAC with western Pennsylvania schools Grove City, Washington & Jefferson, Westminster, Thiel, Allegheny, etc.

But CMU has relatively little in common with those PAC institutions from an academic, endowment, and reputation standpoint. The Centennial Conference, however, provides that association. CMU’s news release notes “The Centennial Conference is renowned for its strong academic and athletic programs, making it a fitting home for CMU's football team.” The implication being the PAC wasn’t a fitting home.

The release also quotes Portia Hoeg, the Centennial Conference commissioner, “Not only do they align with the high academic status of our league, but their storied history in football complements our Centennial tradition of excellence. Our conference is a perennial leader in Division III, and Carnegie Mellon elevates our already strong football profile.”

In today’s era of cross-country Division I athletic conferences, Division III conferences remain largely regional. Some - such as the Ohio Athletic Conference - do not extend outside a state’s borders. But that emphasis on regionality might be changing. When we study the priorities of NCAA Division III on the association website, we find an emphasis on “rigorous academics” and “competitive athletics.”

The reality, however, is that very few Division III conferences are able to effectively blend both rigorous academics and competitive athletics. I wrote about this idea in January when John Carroll University announced it was leaving the Ohio Athletic Conference to join the North Coast Athletic Conference, and, at the time, I wondered whether conference realignment would become more prevalent in Division III.

From an institutional perspective, wanting to align with institutions similar in academic rigor and athletic competitiveness makes sense for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we all strive to surround ourselves with individuals who share our interests and values. Carnegie Mellon is already in a highly selective conference, the University Athletic Association (UAA), with seven other schools that share its interests and values. The problem, however, is that only five of those schools field football teams, not enough to warrant the UAA sponsoring the sport.

As a result, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western Reserve University both compete as affiliates in the PAC for football, the University of Chicago competes as an affiliate in the Midwest Conference, the University of Rochester competes as part of the Liberty League, while Washington University competes in the CCIW. Washington University, however, was notified last month that the CCIW is revoking its affiliate membership after the Fall 2025 season, so the Bears are also looking for a new football home.

Again, Carnegie Mellon moving to the Centennial is not surprising based on similar interests. The Centennial is arguably one of the top three conferences in Division III. Plus, it gets the Tartans into larger markets, such as Philadelphia and Baltimore, for student recruitment purposes.

Thinking about this prompted me to revisit methodology I employed in the January article to identify which Division III schools do the best job of achieving those stated priorities of “rigorous academics” and “competitive athletics.” To do this, I used the recently released U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) rankings of Top National Liberal Arts Schools and Top National Universities as a proxy for academic quality. A total of 97 Division III schools were ranked as either a Top 100 Liberal Arts School or a Top 100 University.

I understand the limitations and critiques of the USNWR system. Malcolm Gladwell, on his Revisionist History podcast, had a wonderful episode in July 2021 breaking down the algorithm process. Nonetheless, USNWR rankings persist as the gold standard for most universities, so I am comfortable using it.

For the competitive athletics measure, I used the final 2023-24 Learfield Directors Cup rankings as a proxy for competitive athletics, focusing on the Top 100 of the 323 schools to earn points in the rankings.

The result? Forty-three Division III schools, hailing from 14 conferences, represent that highest blend of quality academics and competitive athletics. A total of 436 schools competed in Division III last year, meaning just under 1 in 10 Division III schools can boast of having the highest quality academics (according to U.S. News World and Report) and highly competitive athletics.

More than half of the schools come from just four conferences: New England Small College Athletic Conference (9), University Athletic Association (7), Centennial (5), and Liberty (5). Six other conferences each placed at least two schools on the list with four more conferences represented by one school. A total of 43 conferences competed in Division III last year, meaning just over 1 in 3 Division III conferences have at least one school on both lists.

The chart below shows the conference breakdown. Note that next to each school is its ranking in the 2025 USNWR rankings followed by its 2023-24 Learfield Directors Cup finish. Schools with a ^ next to their rank were included with the Top 100 National Universities. All others were in the Top 100 National Liberal Arts Colleges.

Does this mean the other 400-or-so Division III schools are somehow inferior? No, of course not. It simply means that, by these two measures alone, those 43 schools are providing the best blend of rigorous academics and competitive athletics. It also means that by joining the Centennial Conference for football, Carnegie Mellon University is aligning its program with institutions similar to itself for all sports.

So where should Carnegie Mellon’s UAA colleague, Washington University, seek to align its football program for the 2026 season? That answer, of course, depends on a number of internal factors regarding what objectives the institution is seeking to achieve. If the university wants to follow Carnegie Mellon’s lead, one possibility is the North Coast Athletic Conference, a conference where all of its members are nearby in Indiana or Ohio. While only two NCAC schools, Denison University and Kenyon College, are in the above Venn diagram, four other institutions (DePauw University, Oberlin College, Wabash College, and College of Wooster) are among the Top National Liberal Arts Schools.

A second option would be the Southern Athletic Association which also had two schools, Centre College and the University of the South (Sewanee), among the 43 in the Venn diagram. A third, Trinity University, is already an affiliate of the SAA in football and will be a full member, along with Southwestern University, beginning in Fall 2025. When that occurs, the SAA will have five members, including Rhodes College, in this year’s Top 100 National Liberal Arts Schools. The SAA, however, is not quite as geographically convenient, stretching from Austin to Atlanta.

As schools such as CMU increasingly align their institution with others who share similar ideas about the purpose of academics and athletics, the potential for increased polarization among Division III exists. In much the same way that Division I has morphed from FBS to Power 5 to Power 4 (and everyone else), the idea that some Division III schools might wish to self-select into a “Division X” is at least 20 years old. 

In their 2003 book, “Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values,” William G. Bowen and Sarah A. Levin called Division III “all-encompassing: the 424 institutions that live under it (at this writing) are a highly diverse lot. Eighty percent of these schools, and 20 percent are public. Their individual characteristics vary widely” (p. 304).

That topic, a “Division X,” and what it would look like, will be the subject of my next article. In the interim, I would welcome a chance to hear your thoughts on it. Feel free to post a comment or message me directly.