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Association | NCAA |
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Founded | Chartered: 2011 Began play: 2012 |
Commissioner | Stacey LaDew |
Sports fielded |
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Division | Division III |
No. of teams | 7 + 2 football-only affiliates (8 in 2025–26, 9 in 2026-27) |
Headquarters | Atlanta, Georgia |
Official website | www |
Locations | |
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The Southern Athletic Association (SAA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III that began play in the 2012–13 school year. It was formed in 2011 by seven former members of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and independent Berry College. [1]
Every member in the history of the SAA, whether current, former, full, or associate, has been a private school.
The SAA currently has seven full members.
Institution | Location | Founded | Affiliation | Enrollment | Nickname | Joined [lower-alpha 1] | Colors | Football? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Berry College | Mount Berry, Georgia | 1902 | Nondenominational | 2,367 [6] | Vikings | 2012 | Yes | |
Centre College | Danville, Kentucky | 1819 | Presbyterian | 1,400 [7] | Colonels | 2012 | Yes | |
Hendrix College | Conway, Arkansas | 1876 | United Methodist | 1,144 [8] | Warriors | 2012 | Yes | |
Millsaps College | Jackson, Mississippi | 1890 | United Methodist | 700 [9] | Majors | 2012 | Yes | |
Oglethorpe University | Atlanta, Georgia | 1835 | Nondenominational | 1,494 [10] | Stormy Petrels | 2012 | No | |
Rhodes College | Memphis, Tennessee | 1848 | Presbyterian | 2,070 [11] | Lynx | 2012 | Yes | |
Sewanee: The University of the South | Sewanee, Tennessee | 1857 | Episcopal | 1,735 [12] | Tigers | 2012 | Yes |
Institution | Location | Founded | Affiliation | Enrollment | Endowment | Nickname | Joining [lower-alpha 1] | Colors | Football | Current conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Maryville College | Maryville, Tennessee | 1819 | Presbyterian (PCUSA) | 1,103 | $93,100,000 | Scots | 2026 | Yes | CCS (primary) USA South (football) | |
Southwestern University | Georgetown, Texas | 1840 | United Methodist | 1,536 | $255,955,000 | Pirates | 2025 | Yes | Southern (SCAC) | |
Trinity University | San Antonio, Texas | 1869 | Nonsectarian [lower-alpha 2] | 2,759 [13] | $1,725,000,000 | Tigers | 2025 | Yes | Southern (SCAC) |
Institution | Location | Founded | Affiliation | Nickname | Joined [lower-alpha 1] | Left [lower-alpha 2] | Colors | Football? | Current conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Birmingham–Southern College | Birmingham, Alabama | 1856 | United Methodist | Panthers | 2012 | 2024 | Yes | N/A [lower-alpha 3] |
Two schools, the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), announced their intention to become affiliate members of the conference for football, effective in 2015. Both are members of the University Athletic Association (UAA), which at the time had a football scheduling alliance with the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC). However, after the 2012 season, the NCAC adopted a full round-robin football schedule, making it impossible for that conference to fill in all of its non-conference dates with the four UAA members that sponsor the sport.
Over the summer of 2015, Chicago and WashU announced that they would leave the SAA after two seasons of competition in order to join more geographically-convenient conferences. [14] WashU will maintain its football affiliation with the UAA for the 2017 season before joining the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin in 2018 as a football-only member. For nearly a year, Chicago did not announce a future league affiliation, but it announced in May 2016 that it would become a football-only member of the Midwest Conference in 2017. [15]
On November 18, 2015, Trinity University (Texas) and Austin College announced they would affiliate with the SAA for football, renewing a relationship that was lost when the SAA split from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. [16] As a result, the SCAC will no longer offer football as a sport from 2017. On August 13, 2020, Austin College announced it would move to the American Southwest Conference as a football-only affiliate beginning with the 2021 season, committing to at least four years as an affiliate. [17]
On August 19, 2021, the conference announced that Southwestern University, a current football-only affiliate member of the American Southwest Conference, would join the SAA as a football-only affiliate effective with the 2023 football season. [18] On March 9, 2023, the SAA announced that Southwestern University and Trinity University (Texas) will join the SAA as full members in 2025. [2]
The SAA currently has two affiliate members, both of which will become full members in 2025.
Institution | Location | Founded | Affiliation | Enrollment | Nickname | Joined [lower-alpha 1] | Colors | SAA sport | Primary conference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Southwestern University | Georgetown, Texas | 1840 | United Methodist | 1,507 | Pirates | 2023 | football | Southern (SCAC) | |
Trinity University | San Antonio, Texas | 1869 | Nonsectarian [lower-alpha 2] | 2,759 [13] | Tigers | 2017 | football | Southern (SCAC) |
Three schools have been SAA affiliate members but have since left the conference.
Institution | Location | Founded | Affiliation | Enrollment | Nickname | Joined [lower-alpha 1] | Left [lower-alpha 2] | Colors | SAA sport | Primary conference | Conference in former SAA sport |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Austin College | Sherman, Texas | 1849 | Presbyterian | 1,278 | 'Roos | 2017 | 2021 | football | Southern (SCAC) | American Southwest (ASC) | |
University of Chicago | Chicago, Illinois | 1890 | Non-denominational | 5,134 | Maroons | 2015 | 2017 | University (UAA) | Midwest (MWC) | ||
Washington University in St. Louis | St. Louis, Missouri | 1853 | Nonsectarian | 5,997 | Bears | Illinois–Wisconsin (CCIW) |
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