West Florida Broadcaster Will Kennedy Talks UWF’s DI Move

April 8, 2026·30 min·2 clips

West Florida broadcaster Will Kennedy discusses the Argos' rapid move to Division I FCS football.

1. FCS Football Talk host Sam Herter interviews Will Kennedy, the play-by-play broadcaster for the West Florida Argos, about UWF's move from D2 to D1 FCS football. 2. Kennedy is the voice of the Argos and a University of Texas graduate who has spent roughly a decade at the Pensacola-based institution. 3. The episode's thesis is that West Florida's DI move was both long-anticipated and significantly accelerated by the collapse of the Gulf South Conference's football membership and the school's growth to 16,000 students. 4. The Gulf South Conference had previously included Troy State, Jacksonville State, and West Georgia before losing members to D1 upgrades; by the time UWF announced its move, only four football programs remained in the conference. 5. West Florida was founded in 2016 as a football program, reached the D2 national title game in 2017, and won the national championship in 2019 under coach Pete Shinnick, now at Towson. 6. Kennedy credits Shinnick for building the program sustainably, utilizing early transfer portal access to bring in players with D1 experience from programs including Georgia and Purdue, and capitalizing on Florida's density of high school football talent. 7. During its first decade, West Florida played home games in the Pensacola Blue Wahoos' double-A baseball stadium downtown, next to Pensacola Bay — Kennedy calls it probably the most unique venue in D2 football. 8. Scheduling conflicts with minor league baseball forced a campus move to a turf field with temporary bleachers; a permanent 7,500-seat on-campus stadium is under construction and targeted for 2027. 9. Kennedy describes the financial scale of the transition: $2 million to apply to the NCAA, and approximately $8 million per year across a three-year ineligibility window during which the program cannot compete in NCAA playoffs. 10. West Florida will join the UAC for football — described by Herter as a top-three FCS conference — and the ASUN for all other sports, gaining natural regional rivalries with North Florida, Florida Gulf Coast, and Stetson. 11. Current head coach Caleb Nobles was 29 when hired, played at UWF in 2016, served as a GA and then director of football operations at Clemson under Dabo Sweeney, and returned to West Florida with defensive coordinator Cavell Conner — a former Clemson linebacker who played in the NFL for nearly a decade. 12. Kennedy describes D2 programs as functioning like JUCOs — developing players who are then poached by FCS and FBS programs: quarterback Marcus Stokes went to Memphis for what Kennedy calls 'a boatload of money,' receiver Corey Scott went to James Madison, and receiver Tyree Holloway — who played through a punctured lung at Grand Valley State — ended up playing for Lane Kiffin at LSU. 13. Kennedy says the DI move is partially motivated by keeping talent longer, though he acknowledges it will not stop top players from moving up, just slow the rate. 14. When discussing physical differences between D2 and D1, Kennedy describes staying in a hotel and seeing Tennessee State's players in the hallway during an FCS game: 'I see the difference physically — it had been a minute since I'd seen that.' 15. Kennedy praises the Ferris State D2 program as an outlier that 'looks like that team' at FCS level, recounting how UWF nearly beat them in 2022 and noting the Ferris coach has not received expected higher-level job offers. 16. He says UWF will carry a D2 roster into its first D1 season since the announcement came too fast to significantly rebuild the depth chart via the portal. 17. UWF's 2026 schedule will include some D2 opponents; Delta State dropped them the week of the interview when it realized UWF would no longer count toward D2 playoff eligibility minimums. 18. The conversation is warm and candid; Kennedy speaks as a broadcaster with deep knowledge of the institution rather than as a media spokesperson, discussing costs, roster limitations, and NIL frankly. 19. Listeners who follow the FCS closely — particularly the UAC — or who are interested in the mechanics of D2-to-D1 program transitions will find this episode most useful. 20. General sports fans with no prior FCS knowledge may find the conference and program references require too much background to follow easily.

As heard by us

West Florida's Division I jump lands clearly because the practical details carry the story.

West Florida's move to Division I sits at the center of the story, and the framing is practical rather than ceremonial. Will Kennedy presents a successful D-II program that is moving quickly into FCS life, with UAC football and ASUN alignment for the other sports setting the…

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A practical read on West Florida's jump from Division II into the FCS.

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