It appears the discussion of dissolving the American Southwest Conference was premature. Sources have confirmed to Dave Campbell’s Texas Football that McMurry and Schreiner are departing the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference to join the ASC. An announcement on the move is expected Tuesday morning.

Sources indicate the move will happen for the 2026-2027 academic year and ensures the ASC retains an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs, which it would have lost if it had not found at least two more schools to join the conference for football before the start of the 2026-2027 academic year. 

The War Hawks finished 7-3 last season and 7-1 in the SCAC, earning McMurry a share of the conference title with Texas Lutheran. Schreiner is starting a football program and plans to play a junior varsity schedule in 2025 before playing a complete NCAA DIII schedule in 2026. McMurry accepted an invitation to join the SCAC in November 2022, while Schreiner has been a member since 2012.

The move now leaves SCAC Commissioner Dwayne Hanberry in a position of needing to find at least one more school that sponsors football to join the conference to begin the clock toward earning an automatic bid to the DIII playoffs. The NCAA has a two-year waiting period for a conference to earn an automatic bid. The SCAC was scheduled to start that clock in 2026. Those plans have now changed, with only five schools that sponsor football remaining. However, TLU did earn a spot in the expanded playoff field this year as an at-large bid.

While details of the move are limited, sources indicated in previous weeks that the remaining ASC teams were willing to offer a lucrative sum of money for teams to join the conference. ASC Commissioner David Flores has spent his entire tenure with the ASC searching for schools to add to the conference. Flores faced headwinds from the beginning, with many DIII schools not interested in joining a conference with Mary Hardin-Baylor and Hardin-Simmons. However, Flores found a way to stabilize the ASC for the near future.