By Isaac Oldcorn and Stuart Andrew
It has been heavily rumoured in the offseason that BUCS would look to shake up University American Football for the 2024-25 BUCS season, and from what we understand, it looks like that will happen. As expected by many, the new BUCS league structure involves creating a whole new Premier division, some teams avoiding relegation, others earning “auto” promotion and some teams moving around a bit.
We’ll work through each Tier and Division and attempt to sum up the “whys” around the structure.
Premier Tier
Premier National
Durham, Leeds Beckett, Loughborough, Nottingham Gold, UWE
Due to UWE’s continued dominance, BUCS obviously want to add more competition at the top table. Therefore, they have created a “Premier National” division and moved a few teams around to populate it. Four teams from the previous Premiership North will be joined by the Bullets to make up the new division and it is believed they’ll play each other home and away once.
Premier North
Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham Trent, Warwick
This is the “newest” division in the Premier Tier as BUCS looks to backfill the four teams they moved into the Premier National divisions. The last team in the old Premiership North, Newcastle avoided relegation to Tier 1 and are instead joined by the Division 1 finalists, Nottingham Trent, Warwick and Leeds who played postseason football last year and Liverpool who just missed out, going 3-5 in the regular season.
Premier South
Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter, Portsmouth, SGS
The Premier South remains largely unchanged from the 2023/2024 structure. The Division 1 National Champions, Exeter Demons come up to replace the departing UWE and then the other 4 teams remain unchanged. SGS can count themselves a little unlucky not to earn a seat at the top table. Their 6-2 record proves they can beat anyone on their day whereas Birmingham, Cardiff and Portsmouth all took wins over each other last year. We’ll see who has “fun days out” next year!
Tier 1
Scottish 1A
Aberdeen, Edinburgh Napier, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, Stirling, UWS
The Scottish teams across BUCS football have once again been placed in their own division within Tier 1. The UWS Pyros return and join a division which was split into three last year, Glasgow and Edinburgh out in front, Stirling and Edinburgh Napier splitting their records and then Aberdeen and Heriot-Watt with only 2 wins between them all year.
Northern 1A
LJMU, Manchester Met, Manchester, Northumbria, UCLan
The North 1A sees a couple of changes after two teams go up and Hull slides across. LJMU, Manchester Met and Manchester are joined by Northumbria who gained promotion after winning the Division 2 national title and UCLan who impressed throughout the season but lost out in the Conference Cup Semi-Final.
Midland & Yorkshire 1A
Coventry, Hull, Leicester, Nottingham Green, Sheffield Hallam
With NTU and Warwick being offered promotion, two teams from the white rose county will face trips down the Midlands. Sheffield might consider themselves unlucky to not be moving up but will relish new opponents in 2024/2025. Nottingham (Green) earned promotion after reaching the Conference Cup Semi-Final last season. Hull are moved across and complete the division with Leicester and Coventry, who avoid relegation again after a winless season.
South Western 1A
Bath, Bournemouth, Bristol, Southampton, Swansea
We see very little change in this division. With Exeter having gained promotion, they are replaced by Swansea who themselves gained promotion from Tier 2 off the back of their appearance in the Southern Conference Cup Final last season. Bournemouth were the only team with a winning record in this division last year so everyone will be hoping for better fortunes come the new season.
Southern 1A
Brighton, Brunel, Hertfordshire, Oxford, Reading
The Southern 1A also sees little change. Brighton gained promotion into the division by winning the Southern Conference Cup Final whereas Royal Holloway is relegated to Tier 2, otherwise, the other four look to fight it out again in what was a very hotly contested division in 2023/2024.
South Eastern 1A
East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Kings, UCL
Another division with very little change. UCL gained promotion by virtue of their performance in the Southern Conference Cup and replaced Queen Mary who drop down to Tier 2. The other four teams had a competitive season and all took wins off each other. This could be the division to watch in Tier 1 as the season progresses.
Tier 2
North Western 2A
Edge Hill, Keele, Lancaster, Staffordshire
The smallest division across the structure, the newly named North Western is what remains of the Northern 2A division. UCLan move out by way of promotion, and we see our first team removed from the league in the shape of Bangor, who didn’t score a point last season. The remaining four could see each team face each other 3 times over the year, or cross-conference games could be played like in the BAFA league, but we are speculating here!
North Eastern 2A
Bradford, Sheffield, Sunderland, York, York St John
This division also sees very little change from the 2023/2024 structure. Northumbria gained promotion having run the regular season unbeaten, but the rest of the teams remain unchanged. Sheffield will look to dominate again whereas Sunderland will be looking for a more prosperous season.
Midlands 2A
Anglia Ruskin, Cambridge, Derby, De Montford, Lincoln
Much like the NE2A, the Midlands 2A also only loses one team to promotion, Nottingham Green. Derby might feel a little hard done by here as they had a very impressive season in 2023/2024 but I guess you must draw the line somewhere. The other four teams are likely to spread the wins between them, hopefully, DMU can compete a little better with some good recruitment going into 2024/2025.
South Western 2A
Bath Spa, Gloucestershire, Plymouth, Aberystwyth, UWE 2, Worcester
The pattern continues in the South with top teams gaining promotion and the rest are left to compete against each other again. Swansea gained promotion from this division, but the remaining teams could make this a division to watch! 3 of the 6 teams finished with winning records and scored 293 points between them too.
Southern 2A
Chichester, Oxford Brookes, Royal Holloway, Solent, Surrey, Sussex
As well as a team getting promoted from Tier 2, we see a team relegated down. Royal Holloway finds themselves falling into a competitive Southern 2A alongside teams who split most of their matchups last season.
South Eastern 2A
Canterbury, City St George, Greenwich, Imperial, Kingston, QMBL
This division also sees a switch as UCL gain promotion and QMBL falls in the other direction. Again the 5 teams from last year all split victories with each other so we could see another tight division.
We must stress that these alignments are provisional, haven't been 100% confirmed by BUCS, and are subject to change. We will keep you updated as/when we hear more ahead of the new University year.