Here we go again
AAC sets up another round of realignment
The American Athletic Conference’s latest rebuilding job will leave Conference USA in a precarious position.
Six schools from Conference USA — Charlotte, Florida Atlantic University, North Texas, Rice, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Texas at San Antonio — have applied for membership with the AAC and are expected to be accepted by the end of the week, according to two people with knowledge of the process who spoke with The Associated Press.
An announcement could come as soon as Thursday. The people spoke to AP on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the league was not yet prepared to make its expansion plans public.
The shuffling is part of the fallout stemming from the latest round of conference realignment that kicked off this past summer when Oklahoma and Texas decided to bolt the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference no later than 2025. The ripple effects of those impending moves are now being felt across the country.
The AAC was in the market for new members after three of its most successful schools — Cincinnati, Houston and the University of Central Florida — announced in September they would be joining the Big 12. Those moves are expected by the 2023 football season, and the AAC hopes to have six new members in place when the departing schools leave.
The result would be a 14-team conference, with four schools in Texas — the three new members and Southern Methodist University.
C-USA has been a frequent target when the AAC, formerly the Big East, has needed to reconstitute. After the latest realignment moves have been completed, 12 of the AAC’s 14 members will be former C-USA schools.
Earlier this month, C-USA commissioner Judy McLeod sent a letter to AAC commissioner Mike Aresco proposing a merger of sorts between the two conferences to make each a better geographic fit for its members. The AAC had no interest and instead went on the offensive.
C-USA will be down to eight members — Florida International University, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee State University, Old Dominion, Southern Mississippi, the University of Texas at El Paso and Western Kentucky — with an unclear future. In the past, the league has poached the Sun Belt Conference when it needed replacement schools — FIU, MTSU and Western Kentucky were all members of the Sun Belt — but now that conference is in a position of strength relative to C-USA.
“I don’t see any Sun Belt Schools leaving,” former Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters said.
And this time, it could be the Sun Belt poaching C-USA.
“Throughout this process, if we identify a school that adds value to the Sun Belt, we’ll certainly consider them for membership,” Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill said in September.
Marshall, in Huntington, West Virginia, would have a natural geographic rival among the Sun Belt’s 10-team football conference with Appalachian State in Boone, North Carolina.
Southern Miss could fit between Sun Belt schools South Alabama and Troy to the east and Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe to the West. Where could C-USA turn? “There does come a time when there are no more options,” said Karl Benson, a former commissioner of the Sun Belt, as well as the Mid-American Conference and the Western Athletic Conference.
Liberty, a private school in Lynchburg, Virginia, has expressed interest in joining a conference that could house its currently independent Football Bowl Subdivision team. It has invested heavily in athletics, and the Flames have played in bowl games each of the past two football seasons. Liberty’s other sports programs compete in the ASUN.
C-USA might have turn to FCS programs looking to make the jump from NCAA Division I college football’s second tier to its top level, the Football Championship Subdivision, to the FBS.
When Benson was trying to save WAC football in the early 2010s, he couldn’t persuade some of the strong FCS programs in the West such as Montana and Montana State to make the step up. When he became Sun Belt commissioner in 2012, he found FCS schools in the region more eager to jump, and they helped fortify the conference. No. 15 Coastal Carolina and Appalachian State have turned into two of the Sun Belt’s best programs since transitioning.
FCS powerhouse James Madison in Harrisonburg, Virginia, has shown some interest in moving up and could be a potential solution for C-USA, if not a target for the Sun Belt. Northeast football independents Connecticut and Massachusetts would likely be football-only options for C-USA.