FIU and North Texas Expected to Announce Moves to Conference USA, Leaving Sun Belt Seeking New Members
FIU and North Texas are expected to announce moves to Conference USA, leaving South Alabama's Sun Belt Conference with 12 members and a need for at least two more football-playing schools.
MOBILE, Ala. — Florida International and North Texas are expected to announce Friday that they have accepted invitations to join Conference USA, a move that would leave South Alabama and the Sun Belt Conference searching for additional football-playing members.
The two Sun Belt schools are expected to take part in a series of press conferences alongside Charlotte, Texas-San Antonio and Louisiana Tech, which are also expected to announce their acceptance of invitations to Conference USA. Old Dominion is studying a possible move to Conference USA from the Football Championship Subdivision.
Sun Belt Realignment and Conference USA Expansion
With the additions, Conference USA could be split into divisions along these lines:
- Eastern Division: UAB, Charlotte, East Carolina, FIU, Marshall and Southern Miss
- Western Division: Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, Texas-San Antonio, Tulane, Tulsa and UTEP
The departures of FIU and North Texas would leave the Sun Belt with 12 members: South Alabama, Arkansas-Little Rock, Arkansas State, Florida Atlantic, Georgia State, Middle Tennessee, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Texas State, Texas-Arlington, Troy and Western Kentucky.
Two of those schools, Texas-Arlington and Arkansas-Little Rock, do not sponsor football. There had also been concern that Middle Tennessee and Florida Atlantic could follow FIU and North Texas to Conference USA.
Search for Football Members
To hold a conference championship game, the Sun Belt needs 12 football-sponsoring members, meaning the league would need to add at least two schools that play football.
Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson said Wednesday that between four and six FCS schools located within the conference’s current geographic footprint have inquired about joining. FCS programs that want to move to the Football Bowl Subdivision in 2013 must apply by June 1, 2012.
Benson cautioned that the Sun Belt would add schools only if the league believed they would improve the conference.
Possible Candidates
Georgia Southern and Appalachian State are among the FCS programs that have been mentioned as potential candidates to move up to the FBS level. Reports have also circulated that Western Athletic Conference members New Mexico State and Idaho could join the Sun Belt, but Benson called those reports “premature.”
Denver is scheduled to leave the Sun Belt this summer.
South Alabama, which began playing football in 2009, is in the process of moving its program to the FBS level as a Sun Belt member.
