Southland Conference

It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it participates in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The Southland sponsors 18 sports, 10 for women and eight for men, and is governed by a presidential Board of Directors and an Advisory Council of athletic and academic administrators. Chris Grant became the Southland's seventh commissioner on April 5, 2022. From 1996 to 2002, for football only, the Southland Conference was known as the Southland Football League.

Southland Conference

Formerly	Southland Football League (1996–2002, football-only)
Association	NCAA
Founded	1963
Commissioner	Chris Grant (since 2022)
Sports fielded	18 men's: 8 women's: 10
Division	Division I
Subdivision	FCS
No. of teams	10 (11 in 2024)
Headquarters	Frisco, Texas
Region	West South Central
Official website	southland.org
Locations

The conference's offices are located in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, Texas. According to a press release from April 11, 2022, the conference was to undergo a rebrand in 2022 that included a new name and logo. The rebranding was unveiled in March 2023, with a new logo but no change to the conference name.

Chronological timeline

Southland Conference

 

 

 

 

150km
100miles

 

Houston Christian

 

UTRGV

 

Southeastern Louisiana

 

Texas A&M–Corpus Christi

 

Northwestern State

 

Nicholls

 

New Orleans

 

Texas A&M–Commerce

 

Lamar

 

McNeese

 

Incarnate Word

Location of Southland members:   full,   future

Founded in 1963, its members were Abilene Christian College (now Abilene Christian University; departed in 1973 for NCAA Division II, but moved to Division I and rejoined the Southland in 2013), Arkansas State College (now Arkansas State University; departed in 1987, now a member of the Sun Belt Conference), Arlington State College (now The University of Texas at Arlington, departed in 2012 and now in the Western Athletic Conference), Lamar State College of Technology (now Lamar University; departed in 1987, rejoined in 1999, left again in 2021, returned in 2022), and Trinity University (departed in 1972, now participating in NCAA Division III).

Since its founding, the Southland Conference has been the home for 18 college and university all-sports programs (see membership timeline below). In addition, the conference has also been home to some schools for one sport only. In the case of football, Troy University fielded a team from 1996 to 2000 and Jacksonville State University did so from 1997 to 2002. This has also been the case for some Olympic sports like men's tennis, in which the University of Texas–Pan American (UTPA) and the University of New Orleans (UNO) fielded teams as affiliate members before 2013, when UTPA joined the WAC and UNO became a full Southland member.

The Southland underwent major turmoil in 2021, losing five members. On January 14, the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) announced that four Southland members—Abilene Christian, Lamar, Sam Houston, and Stephen F. Austin—would join that conference in July 2022. Within a week, the Southland expelled those four schools, leading the WAC to move their entry up to July 2021. A fifth member, Central Arkansas, announced on January 29 that it would join the ASUN Conference effective that July. At the time, the ASUN was a non-football conference, but soon entered into a football partnership with the WAC that gave Central Arkansas and two other incoming ASUN members a football home until an ASUN football league was established.

The Southland began the process of rebuilding its core membership in September 2021, announcing that Texas A&M University–Commerce would start a transition from NCAA Division II and join the conference in July 2022. The SLC also announced a football scheduling alliance with the Ohio Valley Conference, another FCS league that had experienced major membership losses during the early-2020s realignment cycle, for the 2022 and 2023 seasons. However, shortly after A&M–Commerce was announced as a future member, the SLC was set to experience further attrition when the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) announced that it would leave for the WAC after the 2021–22 school year. Ultimately, however, this did not come to pass, as UIW announced it would be staying in the SLC only 7 months after announcing its departure. McNeese was also courted by the WAC, and also flirted with a move to Conference USA, but eventually stayed in the SLC. According to the American Press, the daily newspaper of McNeese's home of Lake Charles, Louisiana, McNeese became "the de facto lead school in the league". It was set to host the SLC's football media day through at least the 2026 season, as well as the conference tournaments in men's and women's basketball, baseball, and softball through 2026.

More recently, Lamar announced it would return to the SLC effective in 2023–24. In addition, on April 11, 2022 the conference announced in a press release that it had partnered with Troika Media Group to institute a rebrand to be implemented before the end of the calendar year. The release stated that the rebrand would include, among other things, a new name for the conference. On July 11, 2022, Lamar and the Southland Conference announced Lamar's accelerated return to the SLC effective immediately. The following day saw the SLC lose two of its women's golf associates when the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and Northeast Conference (NEC) announced a partnership for baseball and men's and women's golf that saw all MEAC schools that sponsored those sports become NEC associates. Accordingly, Delaware State and Maryland Eastern Shore, which had joined SLC women's golf just a year earlier, moved that sport to the NEC.

On March 25, 2024, the Southland expanded again with the announcement that the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley would join the conference effective in July 2024, joining Lamar from the WAC.

Current full members

Future members

Notes