{"id":2894,"date":"2026-01-23T21:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T02:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/?p=2894"},"modified":"2026-04-06T06:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:27:18","slug":"2894-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/2894-2\/","title":{"rendered":"SPRING 2026 ATHLETICS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Athletics consistently achieves championship success, postseason play, and student success. In 2025, our athletics department also made major strides in the Build Blue Campaign, as well as continued momentum in facility enhancements. Here are some highlights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTSU, Cincinnati, Maryland, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, and Temple earned the American Football Coaches Association\u2019s 2025 Academic Achievement Award. All seven schools shared the highest graduation rate for members of their 2018 freshman football student-athlete classes (based on a six-year graduation window for student-athletes.) Blue Raiders head coach Derek Mason was honored along with head coaches of all the winning schools during the 2026 AFCA Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Jan. 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Football wasn\u2019t the only sport that excelled in the classroom. During the Fall 2025 semester, 12 of 15 MTSU teams had a semester team grade point average of 3.0 or higher; 155 student-athletes made the Dean\u2019s List (3.5+ GPA); and 54 posted a perfect 4.0. Overall, 246 of 359 student-athletes had a 3.0 or higher (69%). The 69% is the highest fall semester since MTSU joined Conference USA in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTSU\u2019s NCAA Graduation Success Rate for 2024\u201325 was at an impressive 94 percent, as announced last November. It\u2019s the seventh straight year MT has scored 92% or better. The Graduation Success Rate (GSR) is a six-year measure of freshmen and athletic transfers who entered the University as freshmen in 2018\u201319. This marks the 13th straight year that MTSU has scored above 80%. The last 13 GSR scores have been 94, 94, 95, 94, 93, 93, 92, 89, 88, 87, 87, 87, and 82. The Blue Raiders also joined Liberty with the highest score in Conference USA, while Delaware was next with a 93. MTSU had seven programs score a perfect 100: men\u2019s basketball, women\u2019s golf, softball, soccer, men\u2019s tennis, women\u2019s tennis, and volleyball. Baseball, women\u2019s cross country and track, and football were next in line with impressive scores of 93, 93, and 92, respectively. The Blue Raiders\u2019 92 in football was second only to Liberty\u2019s 93 in Conference USA. Among all Football Bowl Subdivision schools in the state of Tennessee, the Blue Raiders ranked first ahead of Vanderbilt (90), Memphis (88), and Tennessee (79).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, MTSU officially opened the new Stephen and Denise Smith Student Athlete Performance Center. The three-story, 85,000-square-foot facility serves as the new home for Blue Raider football while also providing premier training, nutrition, and sports medicine amenities for all MTSU student-athletes. It is the centerpiece of Phase I of the Build Blue Campaign, a $25 million private fundraising initiative to transform the athletic facilities at MTSU. This facility represents an investment not only in our student-athletes\u2019 performance but also in their health, well-being, and future success both on and off the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men\u2019s cross country claimed the Conference USA Championship in November, fulfilling their preseason projection as conference favorites. Reigning All American sophomore Allan Kiplagat led the Blue Raiders with his second consecutive CUSA individual title, finishing six seconds ahead of the field in 23:34.82 to secure back-to-back championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kiplagat was later named Conference USA Men\u2019s Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year. Meanwhile, MTSU\u2019s Keith Vroman was awarded his fifth CUSA Men\u2019s Coach of the Year honor, bringing his career total to 10 CUSA coach of the year awards, including five on the women\u2019s side. Lastly, Moses Lekokei was named the top newcomer in the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s golf graduate student Abbie Lee was named a Top 30 honoree for the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year award. The 30 honorees consist of 10 student-athletes from each NCAA division. Each finalist was selected for her outstanding achievements in academics, athletics, community service, and leadership. Lee, who received the President\u2019s Award at the 2025 Raiders Choice Award, graduated summa cum laude in Spring 2025 with her degree in Mechatronics Engineering and a minor in Mathematics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athletics consistently achieves championship success, postseason play, and student success. In 2025, our athletics department also made major strides in the Build Blue Campaign, as well as continued momentum in facility enhancements. Here are some highlights: MTSU, Cincinnati, Maryland, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, and Temple earned the American Football Coaches Association\u2019s 2025 Academic Achievement Award. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":2896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2899,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions\/2899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}