All Things 2025 College Football D2 and D3 Thread

[Some guy]

I understand why it was founded. But that's not really the case today.

I don’t know the story behind everyone but for a school like st Thomas

They’re in the league because while transitioning they either were going to play non scholarship D1 or drop football.
They simply can’t afford it at this moment.

It st Thomas could’ve done d1 in everything but left football in the MIAC, I think they would’ve. But that’s not legal

 

[Word]

Do you have any proof of this, even anecdotal?

I don't know what GG is exactly talking about but private schools for sure have more discretion to hand out scholarships of any type, including "academic" scholarships to athletes. Either via coaching or just families I know, I know of multiple examples of this. It's not even just the good programs. Some pretty bad programs handing out money just to fill out a roster.

That said, total cost of attendance could still end up being higher at the private school.

 

[McGopherFan]

“Sorry I can’t remember what I was going to say.”

 

[GopherGrit]

I understand why it was founded. But that's not really the case today.

But my post and point was about the precedent set of DIII kicking teams out. So indeed, the reason the PFL was founded is what matters to that point.

I agree that the St Thomas example was a bad one. There is some thought that that whole deal was cooked up and fabricated by the MIAC in order to give the NCAA ammo to grant UST an exemption from the arduous reclassification period.

 

[GopherGrit]

Do you have any proof of this, even anecdotal?

I know many, many DIII athletes who received academic scholarships from their schools.

I'd be shocked if there is a single contending DIII school that doesn't award academic scholarships to its athletes.

 

[GopherGrit]

In any case, on paper I liked the suggestion by one poster to split DIII into public and private divisions.

But ... how many public schools are there actually in DIII? Outside of the small UW schools, are there really that many? To me, in my (perhaps twisted) world, it makes more practical sense to force those schools up to DII. Note that DII has no scholarship minimums, so just being in DII doesn't force them to start offering athletic scholarships.

 

[Panthadad2]

In any case, on paper I liked the suggestion by one poster to split DIII into public and private divisions.

But ... how many public schools are there actually in DIII? Outside of the small UW schools, are there really that many? To me, in my (perhaps twisted) world, it makes more practical sense to force those schools up to DII. Note that DII has no scholarship minimums, so just being in DII doesn't force them to start offering athletic scholarships.

The UW system is definitely a bit of an outlier. I think there are about a dozen east coast public D3 schools and a small handful of others nationally including UM Morris and most of those are small. The WIAC schools are still an outlier based size. I think River Falls is the smallest at about 5,000 students while Whitewater, La Crosse, Oshkosh and Eau Claire are roughly 10,000 or more. That's large even for typical D2 territory.

Texas just had their last 3 public D3 schools move up to D2.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Well, your opinion has nothing to do with how colleges choose to classify their athletic programs.If the outstate MN public schools all decided to drop down to D3, they could. UM-Morris actually did. (and Crookston probably should.)

Crookston dropped football back in 2019.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Why is that even something to discuss? There's literally no requirement for schools to be D2 or D3 in terms of size, public v. private etc. It's simply how they choose to classify and how much they choose to invest in athletics.

I'm not sure if anyone knows the answer to this for sure, but I wonder by not having to worry about scholarships, many D3 programs can spend more on other things like facilities, equipment, etc than many D2 programs?

So hypothetically, the program will invest about the same whether they're D2 or D3 but by being D3 they don't have to worry about scholarships so they have more for other things.

 

[GopherGrit]

I'm not sure if anyone knows the answer to this for sure, but I wonder by not having to worry about scholarships, many D3 programs can spend more on other things like facilities, equipment, etc than many D2 programs?

So hypothetically, the program will invest about the same whether they're D2 or D3 but by being D3 they don't have to worry about scholarships so they have more for other things.

If a DIII school is spending more money on athletics than most DII schools, then why is it DIII at all?

What's the point of having two separate divisions in the first place? There should be objective criteria, in my book.