List of college athletic programs in Kentucky
This is a list of college athletic programs in Kentucky. The main article is College sports.
- Notes
- This list is in a tabular format, with columns arranged in the following order, from left to right:
- Athletic team description (short school name and nickname), with a link to the school's athletic program article if it exists. When only one nickname is listed, it is used for teams of both sexes. (Note that in recent years, many schools have chosen to use the same nickname for men's and women's teams even when the nickname is distinctly masculine.) When two nicknames are given, the first is used for men's teams and the other is used for women's teams. Different nicknames for a specific sport within a school are noted separately below the table.
- Full name of school.
- Location of school.
- Conference of the school (if conference column is left blank, the school is either independent or the conference is unknown).
- Apart from the ongoing conversions, the following notes apply:
- Following the normal standard of U.S. sports media, the terms "University" and "College" are ignored in alphabetization, unless necessary to distinguish schools (such as Boston College and Boston University) or are actually used by the media in normally describing the school (formerly the case for the College of Charleston, but media now use "Charleston" for that school's athletic program).
- Schools are also alphabetized by the names they are most commonly referred to by sports media, with non-intuitive examples included in parentheses next to the school name. This means, for example, that campuses bearing the name "University of North Carolina" may variously be found at "C" (Charlotte), "N" (North Carolina, referring to the Chapel Hill campus), and "U" (the Asheville, Greensboro, Pembroke, and Wilmington campuses, all normally referred to as UNC-{campus name}).
- The prefix "St.", as in "Saint", is alphabetized as if it were spelled out.
| Team | School | City | Conference | Sport sponsorship | ||||||
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| Foot- ball |
Basketball | Base- ball |
Soft- ball |
Soccer | ||||||
| M | W | M | W | |||||||
| Bellarmine Knights [a] | Bellarmine University | Louisville | ASUN |  [b] |
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| Eastern Kentucky Colonels | Eastern Kentucky University | Richmond | ASUN | FCS | |
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| Kentucky Wildcats | University of Kentucky | Lexington | SEC | FBS | |
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[c] |
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| Louisville Cardinals | University of Louisville | Louisville | ACC | FBS | |
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| Morehead State Eagles | Morehead State University | Morehead | Ohio Valley | FCS [d] | |
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| Murray State Racers [e] | Murray State University | Murray | Missouri Valley | FCS [f] | |
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| Northern Kentucky Norse | Northern Kentucky University | Highland Heights | Horizon | |
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| Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and Lady Toppers | Western Kentucky University | Bowling Green | C-USA | FBS | |
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- ^ As of the 2022–23 academic year, Bellarmine is in the third year of a four-year transition to Division I and will become an active member in 2024–25.
- ^ Bellarmine began playing sprint football, a weight-restricted form of football not governed by the NCAA, in 2022 as a charter member of the Midwest Sprint Football League.
- ^ Kentucky's men's soccer team competes in the Sun Belt Conference.
- ^ Morehead State's football team competes in the Pioneer Football League.
- ^ Murray State's baseball team was nicknamed "Thoroughbreds" instead of "Racers" until 2014.
- ^ Murray State's football team remains as an Ohio Valley affiliate only for the 2022 football season before joining the Missouri Valley Football Conference, a separate entity from the MVC, in 2023.
| Team | School | City | Conference | Sport sponsorship | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foot- ball |
Basketball | Base- ball |
Soft- ball |
Soccer | ||||||
| M | W | M | W | |||||||
| Kentucky State Thorobreds and Thorobrettes | Kentucky State University | Frankfort | SIAC | |
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| Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers | Kentucky Wesleyan College | Owensboro | Great Midwest | |
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| Team | School | City | Conference | Sport sponsorship | ||||||
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| Foot- ball |
Basketball | Base- ball |
Soft- ball |
Soccer | ||||||
| M | W | M | W | |||||||
| Asbury Eagles [a] | Asbury University | Wilmore | TBD | |
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| Berea Mountaineers | Berea College | Berea | CCS | |
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| Centre Colonels | Centre College | Danville | SAA | |
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| Spalding Golden Eagles | Spalding University | Louisville | St. Louis | |
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| Transylvania Pioneers | Transylvania University | Lexington | HCAC | |
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- ^ As of the 2022–23 academic year, Asbury is in the second year of a three-year transition to Division II and will become an active member in 2024–25.
- ^ Kentucky Christian's softball team competes in the Mid-South Conference.
- ^ Midway plays its first season of sprint football, a weight-restricted form of football not governed by the NCAA, as a charter member of the Midwest Sprint Football League.
- ^ Thomas More will move to Division II Great Midwest Athletic Conference in 2023–24.
| Team | School | City | Conference |
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| Boyce Bulldogs | Boyce College | Louisville | |
| Campbellsville Pioneers | Campbellsville University | Harrodsburg | |
| Simmons College Falcons | Simmons College | Louisville |