The ODAC is adding another football program from Western Virginia.
The NCAA Division III conference announced Monday that it will add Southern Virginia University as a football-only member beginning in the 2019 season.
“We’re really excited,” SVU coach Joe DuPaix said. “From a location standpoint and travel and expenses and having kids not miss the school and being able to play some night games that are close and having some natural rivalries that are close, … the move makes sense.”
The Buena Vista university is currently in its fourth season as football-only member of the New Jersey Athletic Conference. The Knights will remain in the NJAC next fall.
The Latter-day Saints school will remain a member of the Capital Athletic Conference for basketball and other sports.
This is the second time this year that the ODAC has decided to add a school from Western Virginia. The ODAC, which already includes Washington and Lee, announced in June that Ferrum would become an all-sports member beginning in the 2018-19 school year.
SVU athletic director Jason Lamb had said in June that his school had applied for all-sports membership to the ODAC, had been offered football-only membership and was in negotiations with the league.
Once Ferrum and SVU come aboard, the ODAC will have nine football members. Schools will play eight conference games and will have to find only two nonleague foes for their schedules each year.
“The football issue for us, from a [nonleague] scheduling perspective, is pretty challenging,” ODAC commissioner Brad Bankston said. “So when the opportunity presented itself to have Southern Virginia join as a football-only member, we obviously seized upon the opportunity.
“Nonconference games … have increasingly been more difficult to find over the last two or three years.”
The ODAC is down to seven football members this season because football-only member Catholic left the league after last season. W&L filled out its schedule this year with nonleague foes from California, Missouri, Maryland and Tennessee.
The addition of Ferrum will give the ODAC 13 basketball schools next year; Bankston said the ODAC was satisfied with that number and thus was not looking to add an additional all-sports member. As a football-only member of the NJAC, SVU had the flexibility to become a football-only member of the ODAC.
Southern Virginia is one of two football-only NJAC members from the commonwealth, along with Christopher Newport University. But CNU is a public college and thus not an ideal ODAC expansion candidate; the ODAC’s charter calls for only private schools to be members.
The ODAC is a much better geographic fit for SVU than the New Jersey Athletic Conference.
