Mass exodus placed ODU on new course
More travel-friendly Sun Belt became a much easier decision
NORFOLK — Shortly after Texas and Oklahoma accepted invitations to join the Southeastern Conference in late July, the wheels began to turn in the minds of Old Dominion and Sun Belt Conference administrators.
Change was coming to college sports, they were sure, but in what form?
When Conference USA athletic directors met about a month ago and learned that six schools planned to leave the league for the American Athletic Conference, that change became both imminent and local. It formally culminated in Thursday’s public announcement that ODU would leave C-USA for the Sun Belt Conference.
Representatives of both entities gathered in a lounge overlooking the 50-yard line at S.B. Ballard Stadium to celebrate the move and explain the process.
Just last week, ODU president Brian O. Hemphill released a statement saying the university intended to try to find ways to make staying in C-USA viable and attractive. But the league’s loss of Alabama Birmingham, Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, North Texas, Rice and UT San Antonio moved the goalposts.
“It was pretty clear that we needed to think about what are some traditional rivalries that we could potentially bring back,” Hemphill said Thursday. “And to be candid, we were working on trying to deliver some of that with Conference USA. But the departure of the six changed a lot of our thinking at that point, and we knew that we needed to pivot and start thinking about the future in a different way.”
ODU AD Wood Selig relayed to the gathered crowd, which included many coaches and athletic department employees, his five main reasons for joining the more geographically compact Sun Belt, of which the school was a member from 1982-91.
Selig’s reasons:
■ Student-athlete welfare, including less travel and missed class time.
■ Excellent competition; the Sun Belt has become the nation’s most successful non-Power Five conference in football, and it has outperformed C-USA in basketball four of the past six years.
■ Fan-friendliness; the Monarchs will play teams that fans recognize.
■ Compatible competition; Sun Belt schools are similar to ODU.
■ An ongoing 10-year deal with ESPN, which will broadcast every Sun Belt football and men’s and women’s basketball game on one of its platforms.
“I promise you,” Selig said, “I don’t think I’m going to hear what I have heard quite a bit the last several years: ‘I don’t know where to look for ODU games on TV.’ “
Hemphill, who was hired in February to replace the retired John Broderick, said he discussed conference realignment with the school’s board, alumni and donors when he was hired, making it one of many early priorities.
What he considered a longterm project became a short-term necessity.
“It became pretty clear to me when we lost the six schools that things were moving a lot quicker,” Hemphill said. “I thought I had a few years to work toward this, not
a few months.”
ODU and Southern Miss have both accepted invitations to leave C-USA for the Sun Belt. Marshall is expected to do the same, and James Madison reportedly has been invited to move from the FCS-level Colonial Athletic Association to the FBS level and the Sun Belt.
JMU’s membership would give the Monarchs a familiar regional rivalry that expansive C-USA, which stretched from ODU in the east to El Paso, Texas, in the west and included two Florida schools, simply couldn’t provide.
In a proposed Sun Belt East Division that would include ODU, JMU, Marshall and Appalachian State, the Monarchs’ teams would spend considerably more time on buses than in airports and on planes.
“You multiply that across all your sports, that’s a lot of savings,” Selig said. “It’s always better to go by bus than air, and that’s what we’re creating within the Sun Belt Conference.”
Monarchs baseball coach Chris Finwood, whose team received a national seed in last season’s NCAA Tournament, agreed.
“I’d much rather be on a bus for six, seven hours than flying because that’s an all-day affair,” Finwood said. “Jet lag is a real thing.”
Second-year football coach
Ricky Rahne, whose team hosts Louisiana Tech on Saturday, appreciates the tight geography contained within the Sun Belt and, like Finwood, plans to use it as a recruiting tool.
“The parents want to be able to see their kids play as much possible,” Rahne said. “So they want to be able to drive to away games and see their kids after. Mom wants to be able to give him a kiss before he rolls out there and all those sort of things. That’s what makes college football so special. They’re young men, but they’re still kids. I think that’s the thing that makes this thing so great.”
Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill, a former AD at Richmond and American, said he kept a list of potential league members should the need ever arise.
ODU, thanks partly to its facilities and rabid fan base, moved close to the top after the shakeups at other schools quickly trickled down.
“ODU checked all those boxes,” Gill said. “I think they fit in really well.”
ODU is scheduled to begin play in the Sun Belt in 2023, but both Gill and Selig said it could happen earlier.
“I would think that would make a lot of sense if it could possibly work,” Selig said. “And if we all keep the mantra of ‘student-athlete experience’ as No. 1 guiding principle, it should allow us to do that.”