BFA Acting D1 Athletics 2026

[Ace3]

OMG! That’s horrendous. Thank you for sharing, you are absolutely right.

Rugby is amoung the many sports he has played here in Aus, so he has a decent tackling foundation. Even in our little West Aussie Gridiron league, we are very strict about proper tackling technique, and the “Heads Up” initiative has been around for a while.

One of the reasons he chose his current college was because of the quality of the coaching staff. The head coach previously coached at the D1 and NFL levels, there are 3 former professional players on staff and the S & C coach was the S & C coach at the University of Texas a few years ago. It’s a great place for him to be; they run many aspects of the program like a D1 program; he has learnt so much.

He was invited to quite a few different JUCO’s based on the film he posted on Twitter. We flew out last March specifically to tour each campus, meet the coaches and watch practice sessions. His college really stood out; it was miles ahead of the others that we looked at. Other colleges had way better facilities, but fortunately, our S was not seduced by the more glamorous locker rooms and stadiums. The practice was very structured, disciplined and well-organised and hubby, being a former rugby guy, specifically noticed how good they were at teaching tackling technique.

We’ve watched a heap of practices now, we flew out a further 2 times last year, and we were there for Spring Ball earlier this year. We are very impressed with the program.

[DramaMama2021]

Opened at OP’s request.

[Ace3]

Hi Everyone,
I wanted to come back and update you on my S’s situation. Thank you Admins for reopening this thread

First of all, I’d like to thank you all for your advice and support. My knowledge was fairly limited when I first came here and you all gave me some great advice and insights which saved us making some huge selection mistakes.

He auditioned for the 6 BFA programs below and was accepted at all of them. I should note that he chose schools that offered D1 football at the lower end of the D1 rank and below. The main reason for this was that he figured the top end programs would be beyond his reach but also they would be far more demanding and less likely to be flexible around his BFA comitments. All of his auditions were remote or video submission which he submitted during January and February 2026.

BFA
Missouri State
Western Carolina
Ohio
West Virginia
Michigan State (Offered after he withrew his application)
Sam Houston
Stella Adler and PCPA Pacific Conservatory saw his audition videos on Acceptd and asked him to contact them.

BA
Illinois State
S E Missouri State
Eastern Michigan
Toledo
UNLV
Miami Ohio

Withdrew Before Audition
Chapman
Shenandoah

Missed the Deadline
Cincinatti (Football Reach school)
Coastal Carolina

He has made his selection and the biggest shock is that he has decided to give up football and focus soley on acting!

We all discussed this on here and we knew that doing both would be impposible. Interestingly, all of the BFA programs said that they had never had a footballer on their program before but that they wanted him and were willing to work with that; suggesting that he could do his major production in the Spring rather than the fall and fulfil some of his performance credits with film rather than theatre (which is his preference)

The big decider was him being cast in a main role in his currently college production. He realised that it would be impossible to do both at the next level. He was excused from football practice with no issues but that simply would not happen at the next level. Even, with the BFA staff being flexible he relised it would be too much for him and conculded that he would not be giving 100% to either descipline. He has done very well with his football and there were oprtunities for him to continue but he absolutely fell in love with acting and decided that he wanted to give that 100% of his his time and effort.

He is graduating with honors with an AA in Arts and Humanities (Concentration Dramatic Art) this month.

We flew out from Australia last week and had the pleasue of watching him in his first ever stage performance and we were absolutely blown away. The reaction from his peers, professors, friends and radom strangers was phenominal!

As much as I love and have loved football for the last 10 years, I am 100% convinced that he has made the right decision

[Momofthree24]

Thanks for coming back to update! Congrats to your son and it sounds like his process was well thought out. All the best to him!

[AustenNut]

Thanks so much for circling back to share how your son ended up deciding between D1 football and acting. If you’re willing to share, I’m curious why your son withdrew his application from some of the schools. I know that when someone applies Early Decision (ED) to a school that they’re required to withdraw all other open applications upon receiving an acceptance, but am not aware of any protocol like that for other fields.

Regardless, though, I hope he has a wonderful time in his chosen acting program!

[Ace3]

Thanks so much for your kind words, very much appreciated.

He withdrew becuse he had already been offered his no 1 choice before the upcoming round of Chapman and Shenandoah auditions were due to take place. He liked Chapman for the screen focus but wanted somewhere with a strong theatre base as well as a heavy focus on film.

[Ace3]

Absolutely! Thank you very much for your support. I agree, he thought long and hard and ultimately made a mature decision.