NCAA D3 vs. NAIA

I don't know how useful this but...:

www.birminghamunited.com/the-difference/

Travel might be another consideration.  If being in one association would limit travel significantly, that might be a reason.  Louisiana College recently moved from NCAA DIII to NAIA and the stated reasons were the ability to offer athletic scholarships as well as cultivating more natural rivalries. 

Remember that these are completely separate associations with different rules and bylaws that apply to athletics and the way they are ran and administered across all sports. This is more about money and administration than the actual athletics

It is significantly cheaper to participate in NAIA competition: according to NAIA materials it costs colleges 40% less to compete compared to an NCAA school and it is much cheaper to be competitive in NAIA than in D3.

Many NAIA schools are small, private schools with very modest endowments who run their football programs as money-making tools to recruit large numbers of kids to enroll and pay tuition, rather than trying to make their money off merchandise, tickets, and TV like NCAA schools.

The athletic ability and level of coaching in D3 and NAIA, from what I’ve seen, are fairly comparable. A big part of the choice is also likely geography: if you’re a small college who’s close to a bunch of small D3 schools and has some rivalries, it makes more sense to compete in the NCAA, but if those schools are NAIA schools near you that would be the obvious choice.

www.naia.org/why-naia/naia-vs-ncaa/index

www.naia.org/why-naia/naia-vs-ncaa/closer-look-diii

I cannot say this is definite all the way across the board, but my experience had been that D3 seems to often have higher academic standards for recruits to be considered. Most D3 schools that send emails looking for kids want a 3.3 or higher GPA and a 25 or higher on the ACT. The NAIA schools overall have not had as high of an academic standard requirement.

Depends on where you are. If you're on the west coast, then D3s are just a bunch of nerds running around. If you're upper Midwest, D3s are as good small college ball as you'll find. I don't know about the east coast.

NAIA teams are as good as the school wants them to be. There is a central office/governing body in NAIA but I'm pretty sure it's just some old lady with a rubber stamp. Everything is self-governed by the institutions and the rulebook is a few suggestions written on a napkin. You get some really wild swings because of it. I've seen some of the worst footabll at hte NAIA level, and teams full of trained killers. YMMV.

D2 is similar to NAIA in terms of top-end talent and it's pretty balanced at the middle levels of competition. The rules are stricter, the programs are largely better funded and more well-run, but the talent isn't far off from what you get at NAIA. The big difference is academics, which are much more important in the NCAA than NAIA.

If I can piggie back a bit on the thread and ask something that may be less than well received here on this site...why would a student choose to go to an NAIA or NCAA D3 school TO PLAY FOOTBALL?

Note, my question is asked in a specific manner.   In our perverted recruiting environment where it seems the goal is to be able to post a twitter message saying "blessed to receive"  I have noticed an increasing number of kids posting that they were blessed to receive "offers" to schools in which attendance doesn't make a great deal of sense.  For example a kid from the south bayous of Louisiana being "blessed to receive" an offer MidAmerica Nazarene University in Kansas, or multiple examples of kids "receiving offers" from a private D3 school a little more local (about 4/5 hours away) with a nice $30,000 a semester price tag.   

I think it is a travesty for those kids to go to schools like that to play football.  Now, if that kid was already planning on going to those schools, and football is an option--that is different.  I don't know how often that is the case. 

It may be useful to remember that the main difference between NAIA and D3 is scholarships. I agree that driving past dozens of D3 schools to get to another in a different region makes no sense. Doing so for a scholarship does. 

Billings has a D2 school that doesn't football but they play basketball, volleyball, track, soccer, etc..

Yep, the NAIA Frontier conference plays some great football.

Do you recall what the final cost would have been at those schools with and without schollie? 

tuition or total cost? 

Yes, much less expensive even relative to inflation.  Also, I am betting there was a difference in mindset.  You wanted to play football as opposed to you wanting to be able to tell everyone else you were going to play football.  That seems to be my biggest issue with what I see today.  The "look at me I am the center of the universe" twitter mindset is fueling  the (some) D3 and NAIA schools whose football programs also act as a revenue generator for the school.   

It is also apparently creating a NEW (at least to me) development.  "Community Programs"...essentially groups who form a football team and take part time community college classes (mostly online) so as to not start their recruiting clock (as opposed to a JC or CC) in hopes to get more time to be recruited.    My issue with these set ups is that the VAST VAST majority of kids would be so much better off in life if they just hung up the cleats and started their next phase. 

My brother used to coach women's college basketball at the JUCO level. To his credit, one of the many reasons he doesn't anymore is that he felt slimy recruiting girls that he knew would never play in his program, he was just under orders from his administration to have a roster of at least 18 girls. I think that was the number anyway...

Former D3 AD told me that each of his coaches had recruiting quotas. D3 expects to make money off of the programs based on the athletes paying tuition. That is why so many are adding sports as D1 cuts them. Look at lacrosse and men's volley ball as an example.