Who Belongs to Who? Texas Schools and Their University Systems

News came out last week that Stephen F. Austin State University will join the University of Texas system. What does this mean? Well, plenty of things, but we don’t care about most. We just want to know if they’re going to call it Stephen F. Austin or UT-Stephen F. Austin or UT-Nacogdoches, and whether they’ll share Craig Way’s big-game vigor when they say “Nacogdoches” if it’s the lattest.

This, of course, made me wonder what university system every other school in Texas is a part of, which in turn made me try to name every Division I school in Texas. In four minutes, I remembered 15, meaning I forgot nine. I also remembered Dallas Baptist, though, which is D-I in baseball, and I remembered UT-Dallas and UT-Permian Basin, which are D-III and D-II (I knew they weren’t D-I, so extra credit), and I remembered something called Lone Star State which does not appear to exist. Probably in a movie or TV show. A lot of the other name iterations are covered.

Anyway, 24 D-I schools in Texas. We can cover all the rest another time, but 24 that have Division I sports in all the sports (Dallas Baptist is private anyway).

Of the 24, seven are private:

• Baylor
• TCU
• SMU
• Rice
• Abilene Christian
• Incarnate Word
• Houston Christian

Of the remaining 17, three are part of the Texas State University System:

• Sam Houston State
• Texas State
• Lamar

There’s been some turnover with these. Three more, further down our list, used to be part of TSUS! But I’m not telling which.

Of the remaining 14, one is part of the University of North Texas System, and yes, it’s the one you’d guess:

• North Texas

Thirteen left.

Five of the remainers are part of the Texas A&M system, and they’re mostly who you’d expect, especially if your friend recently mentioned that her 19-year-old nephew goes to Tarleton and has quite the mullet:

• Texas A&M
• Prairie View A&M
• Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
• Texas A&M-Commerce
• Tarleton State

Wonder how often HBCU’s are in the same system as HWCU’s.

Eight more now, and we think we have just two systems left—the UT system and presumably a Texas Tech system. But wait…no, we won’t tell you that yet. Let’s check on Texas Tech.

The Texas Tech University System, much like the University of North Texas system, has just one D-I school:

• Texas Tech

Wow! So are the remaining seven all UT schools???? I can tell you’re anxious to find out. Let’s get on with it.

There’s a University of Houston System!

• Houston

Wow. Surely, now we’re done, right?

*laughter*

You forgot about Texas Southern! It’s its own school. Independent. No system. Just free wheeling it over there.

• Texas Southern

Alright and yeah the last six are UT schools:

• UT-Austin
• UTSA
• UTEP
• UT-Arlington
• UTRGV
• Stephen F. Austin now, I guess