NCAA Division I Independent Schools (softball)

NCAA Division I independent schools are four-year institutions that compete in college athletics at the NCAA Division I level, but do not belong to an established athletic conference for a particular sport. These schools may however still compete as members of an athletic conference in other sports. A school may also be fully independent, and not belong to any athletic conference for any sport at all. The reason for independent status varies among institutions, but it is frequently because the school's primary athletic conference does not sponsor a particular sport.

Full independents

One school is competing as a full independent for the 2023–24 season. Chicago State left the Western Athletic Conference at the conclusion of the 2021–22 school year without announcing a new conference affiliation for the next season. It will join the Northeast Conference (NEC) beginning in the 2024–25 season.

Five Chicago State teams have conference homes in the 2023–24 school year: men's soccer, and men's and women's golf in the Ohio Valley Conference, and men's and women's tennis in the Horizon League. Chicago State's future home of the NEC sponsors all of these sports.

Current members

;Notes:

Men's sponsored sports by school

Women's sponsored sports by school

Former members

;Notes:

Bowling

Bowling, like beach volleyball, is currently a women-only sport at the NCAA level that holds a single national championship open to all NCAA members. In the 2022–23 season, five bowling programs competed as independents.

Field hockey

As of the most recent 2023 season, three schools were Division I independents in field hockey, with one being a full D-I member and the other two transitional D-I members. The full D-I member, James Madison, had competed in the Colonial Athletic Association (now the Coastal Athletic Association) in all sports, including field hockey, but moved to the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) in July 2022. However, since the SBC does not sponsor field hockey, the Dukes competed as an independent in that sport only. In April 2023, it was announced that James Madison would become a field hockey affiliate of the Mid-American Conference in 2024, joining fellow Sun Belt member Appalachian State there.

The transitional D-I independents are Lindenwood and Queens (in North Carolina; not to be confused with Queens College in New York City, which remains in D-II), both of which started their transitions from NCAA Division II in July 2022. Unlike Stonehill, the other field hockey school that started a transition from D-II at the same time, Lindenwood and Queens joined conferences that do not sponsor the sport, respectively the Ohio Valley Conference and ASUN Conference. (Stonehill joined the field hockey-sponsoring Northeast Conference.) Neither Lindenwood nor Queens has announced a future field hockey affiliation. On December 1, 2023, Lindenwood announced that it would discontinue 10 athletic programs, including its field hockey program, at the end of the 2023-24 school year.

Football

Football Bowl Subdivision

As of the current 2023 college football season, four NCAA Division I FBS schools are football independents. The ranks of FBS independents will drop by one following the conclusion of the current season, when Army will depart to join the American Athletic Conference as an affiliate for football.

;Notes

Football Championship Subdivision

As of the 2023 season, one school, Kennesaw State, plays as an FCS independent. This will be its only season as such, as it will join Conference USA in 2024 as part of its transition to FBS.

Ice hockey

Men

There are currently six NCAA Division I independents in men's ice hockey—the University of Alaska Fairbanks (branded athletically as simply "Alaska"), the University of Alaska Anchorage, Arizona State University, Lindenwood University, Long Island University (LIU), and Stonehill College.

Alaska became a men's independent after the 2020–21 season due to the demise of its former league, the men's side of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (the WCHA remains in operation as a women-only league). The seven Midwestern members of the men's WCHA left to reestablish the Central Collegiate Hockey Association without the WCHA's three geographic outliers—the two Alaska schools, along with Alabama–Huntsville. Of these three schools, Alaska was the only one that did not initially drop hockey.

Alaska-Anchorage's hockey program was suspended in 2020 by the University of Alaska System due to a reduction in state funding, along with the skiing and gymnastics programs. The 2020–21 season was set to be its last, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they did not end up playing that season either. The Alaska Board of Regents told the hockey program they would be reinstated if they were able to collect 3 million dollars in donations and fundraising, so the team was on hiatus for both the 2020–21 and 2021–22 season while its future was uncertain. Ultimately, the money was raised, and the Seawolves were reinstated for the 2022–23 season, but due to the WCHAs aforementioned disbanding, they resumed play as an independent alongside the Nanooks.

Arizona State moved up from club hockey in the ACHA to full varsity status. The Sun Devils began playing a full Division I schedule in 2016–17, and expected to be in a hockey conference for 2017–18, but no conference move materialized for several years. With the 2020–21 season dramatically impacted by COVID-19, ASU entered into a scheduling agreement with the Big Ten Conference for that season, with the Sun Devils playing a road-only schedule of four games against each of the seven Big Ten hockey members. On July 5, 2023, it was announced that the Sun Devils would join the National Collegiate Hockey Conference for the 2024–25 season and beyond.

LIU announced in late April 2020 that it would launch varsity men's hockey for the 2020–21 season. The Sharks have yet to announce a conference home, but played their first season as a scheduling partner of Atlantic Hockey.

In 2021–22, Lindenwood fielded two separate men's club teams, each playing at a different level of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), which governs the sport at club level. On March 23, 2022, Lindenwood announced that it would launch a Division I men's varsity program starting in the 2022–23 season, while maintaining its ACHA program. This announcement came shortly after the school announced it was starting a transition from Division II to Division I in July 2022, joining the non-hockey Ohio Valley Conference.

On April 5, 2022, Stonehill, then a member of the D-II Northeast-10 Conference (NE-10), announced it was joining the Northeast Conference (which also does not sponsor ice hockey) that July, starting its own transition to D-I. Before this announcement, Stonehill had been one of seven NE-10 members that played men's ice hockey under Division II regulations, despite the NCAA not sponsoring a championship event at that level. (All other D-II schools with varsity men's ice hockey play under D-I regulations.)

Neither Lindenwood nor Stonehill has announced a conference home for its men's hockey program.

Soccer

Women

The most recent departure from the independent ranks was Delaware State, who joined the Northeast Conference as an affiliate in women's soccer in 2023.

Lacrosse

Men

One school is competing as an independent in the 2024 season. Le Moyne College started a transition from Division II in July 2023 as a new member of the Northeast Conference (NEC), which sponsors all of Le Moyne's current sports except men's lacrosse. However, the NEC will resume sponsorship of the sport for the 2025 season, and Le Moyne will begin competition there after the conclusion of the 2024 season.

Volleyball

Men's (indoor)

Men's volleyball has a truncated divisional structure in which members of both Division I and Division II compete under identical scholarship limits for a single national championship. Nine men's volleyball programs play as independents; all are D-II members.

Two schools left the independent ranks after the 2023 season. American International became a single-sport member of the East Coast Conference, which added men's volleyball for the 2024 season, and Queens joined the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.

Women's (beach)

Beach volleyball, currently a women-only sport at the NCAA level, holds a single national championship open to members of all three NCAA divisions. The following programs are competing as independents in the 2024 season (2023–24 school year).

Sports with no independents other than full independents

Full independent Chicago State is the only school that is independent in the following sports: men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, men's and women's golf, and women's (indoor) volleyball.

Women's ice hockey

No women's ice hockey teams have played as independents at the National Collegiate level, the de facto equivalent to Division I in that sport, since the 2018–19 season. In that season, five schools—Franklin Pierce, Post, Sacred Heart, Saint Anselm, and Saint Michael's—competed as independents, all participating in the nascent New England Women's Hockey Alliance (NEWHA), which had originally been established in 2017 as a scheduling alliance among all of the then-current National Collegiate independents. The NEWHA initially included six schools, but Holy Cross left after the inaugural 2017–18 NEWHA season to join Hockey East. The NEWHA officially organized as a conference in advance of the 2018–19 season, but was not officially recognized by the NCAA as a Division I league until the 2019–20 season, by which time the newly launched LIU program had joined to return the conference membership to six.

The three most recent schools to add women's ice hockey had confirmed conference homes before starting or resuming play. Stonehill started varsity play in the 2022–23 season as the newest playing member of the NEWHA. Assumption joined the NEWHA for administrative purposes alongside Stonehill, but did not start NEWHA play until launching its new team in 2023–24. Robert Morris, which had dropped the sport after the 2020–21 season due to COVID-19 impacts, resumed play in 2023–24, returning to its previous conference of College Hockey America.

Women's lacrosse

In the 2023 season (2022–23 school year), four schools competed as independents—full independent Hartford, plus San Diego State, UC Davis, and Xavier.

San Diego State and UC Davis became independents after the 2021 season when their former women's lacrosse home of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation shut down its league due to a lack of sponsoring members. Both joined the Pac-12 Conference for women's lacrosse after the 2023 season. Xavier started varsity play in 2023, and will begin full conference play in its full-time home of the Big East Conference in 2024.

Two women's lacrosse schools left lacrosse-sponsoring conferences after the 2023 season to join non-sponsoring conferences— Cincinnati from the American Athletic Conference to the Big 12 Conference, and Liberty from the ASUN Conference to Conference USA. Both remained in their former conferences as associate members.

Men's soccer

No school was independent in the most recently completed 2023 men's soccer season.

Men's swimming & diving

No men's swimming & diving programs are independents in the 2023–24 season. The only full independent, Chicago State University, does not sponsor swimming & diving for either sex.

Women's swimming & diving

As in the case of men's swimming & diving, no women's programs in that sport are competing as independents in 2023–24. .

See also

* NCAA Division II independent schools
* NCAA Division III independent schools

References

{{Reflist

*
Independent