Middle Georgia State ascends to D-II, will face off with other Georgia schools in new conference

Middle Georgia State University’s athletics will officially make the jump to the Division II level this year, the school announced this week. The Knights will compete in the Peach Belt as a full conference member and as a provisional Division II school. 

The provisional status lasts three seasons, according to a plan released by the school, during which they will be able to play in regular season and Peach Belt playoff games but are not allowed into the NCAA Division II postseason. Middle Georgia is then slated to then become a full member with NCAA playoff eligibility in the 2028-29 athletic year.

The university — which has campuses in Macon, Cochran, Dublin, Warner Robins and Eastman — got approved by its board to move up to Division II back in February after the school began exploring the possibility of moving up from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) as early as 2022, the announcement said. The NCAA approval that came in this month was the last piece of the puzzle.

“This is a historic and transformational time for Middle Georgia State University,” MGA president Christopher Blake said in a press release.  “Joining NCAA Division II will align our athletics program with our broader mission as a state university committed to academic excellence, student success and regional engagement. This move strengthens our institutional identity, enriches student experiences and builds pride in the success of Knights athletics.”

MGA will play in the Peach Belt with 10 other schools including six others in Georgia, three in South Carolina and one in Florida. Many Middle Georgians will recognize conference member Georgia College and State University over in Milledgeville.

The other schools in the conference include Augusta, Columbus State, Clayton State, Georgia Southwestern State and North Georgia in Georgia, along with USC Aiken, USC Beaufort and Lander in South Carolina. Flagler is the lone school from Florida and the only non-public university in the Peach Belt.

Middle Georgia State previously competed in the NAIA’s Southern States Athletic Conference, where the Knights fielded respected programs in recent seasons across a variety of sports. 

MGA finished ranked inside the top 20 in softball, men’s tennis and women’s tennis last season. The women’s tennis team earned a top 10 finish when coaches across the country voted the Knights as the No. 8 NAIA program in the nation in the final poll of the season in April. They won a match in the NAIA tournament before running into a powerhouse program in Georgia-Gwinnett during the second round.

The softball team snagged the SSAC championship and got a walk-off win in the NAIA national tournament. The MGA men’s basketball team also made the NAIA tournament after coming one win shy of the SSAC conference title.

Other teams in the 12-team SSAC included Brewton-Parker College, Life University and Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.

What to know about the Peach Belt

The conference was established in 1990 and has hosted a variety of schools. Three schools — GCSU, Columbus State and Lander University — have remained in the conference as founding
members. 

USC Beaufort is the most recent school to join the Peach Belt, as the Sand Sharks arrived in 2022 and just finished its three years of provisional status at the Division II level. Some notable former member schools include Kennesaw State, USC Upstate and North Florida, all three of which have since ascended to Division I.

The conference started out with championships in just two sports, men’s and women’s basketball, but now features 18 different conference championships. 

The Peach Belt boasts a competitive group of programs. North Georgia is a particularly well-rounded program, as the Nighthawks made the NCAA Division II tournament in a whopping six different sports: baseball, softball, men’s golf, women’s golf, men’s tennis and women’s tennis. 

Four of those teams made it out of region play to appear at their respective NCAA championship sites. North Georgia’s men’s golf team appeared in the national semifinals for the second consecutive year. Flagler also appeared in a national semifinal, its key year coming in 2024 in men’s tennis.

Four different teams across four different sports in the Peach Belt have earned No. 1 national rankings at some point, according to the conference’s website. Championship winners include Armstrong State, which won 10 women’s tennis national titles, and Lander’s record-setting eight straight championships in men’s tennis, among others.

As far as conference history, basketball is very competitive. Several teams have multiple conference titles, though Augusta — formerly Augusta State — leads the pack with seven men’s basketball championships. Georgia College, UNG, Columbus State and Lander all have five women’s conference titles.

One Peach Belt player, Augusta’s Garret Siler, eventually made the NBA and played 21 games for the Phoenix Suns in 2010. Siler at one point held the record for best field goal percentage in NCAA history across all divisions, as he finished his career with a .735 mark.

Aside from history, a key change for the Knights as they join the Peach Belt will come in the form of travel time.

“One of the most exciting results of this move will be our ability to build strong rivalries with nearby schools,” MGA athletic director Michael Brown said. “Half a dozen members of the Peach Belt Conference are University System of Georgia institutions, and others are relatively short distances away in South Carolina and Florida. I’m grateful to the NCAA and the conference for their confidence and I look forward to the opportunities this bring us, not just for athletics but for our entire University community and the region.”

In the SSAC, Middle Georgia played a few Georgia teams but often had to travel significant distances for road matchups. Three of the longer road trips included Xavier in New Orleans along with Blue Mountain Christian University and William Carey University in Mississippi. The trio of schools still are each more than six hours away from MGA’s Macon campus by bus. 

The longest trip for the Knights in the Peach Belt should be Flagler, which will only require a four-and-a-half hour trek from MGA’s Macon campus.