NAIA’s annual football tourney joins other NAIA fall championships in moving to spring
The NAIA announced Friday that it’s moving its football championships from fall 2020 to spring 2021.
The 16-team event is played over five weeks and was scheduled for Nov. 21, 28, Dec. 5 and 19, with the championship game slated to be held in Grambling, Louisiana.
New spring dates for the tournament haven’t been set yet.
“Moving the football championship to the spring was the right thing to do for the well-being of our student-athletes,” NAIA president and CEO Jim Carr said. “The decision also provides additional flexibility for our conferences and institutions to account for regional differences and plan their regular season accordingly.”
All NAIA fall sports championships are now scheduled for spring 2021. Earlier this week, the NAIA announced that 51 of its member schools had shifted their fall competition to spring.
The Heart of America Athletic Conference, an NAIA league with schools in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska — including the likes of Baker, Benedictine, MidAmerica Nazarene and Park — plans to maintain its fall schedules for all sports, football included.
“The Heart desires to be a leader in the NAIA and for us to do anything less than absolutely everything we can to get back on the playing field would cause an adverse effect to those we serve on our campuses,” HCAC commissioner Lori Thomas said in a July 19 statement.
That means there will be a gap between the end of their fall sports seasons and the NAIA’s postseason competitions.
“The NAIA made a decision that’s best for the entire membership, and we understand why it was made,” Thomas said Friday. “What it does is gives us a longer runway to finish our seasons.
“This way, if we get started and have to stop, this gives us an opportunity to shift and move things around.”
Earlier this month, the National Junior College Athletic Association announced it was moving all fall sports competition to spring.
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 1:01 PM.