AP sources: 6 C-USA schools apply for AAC membership

Six schools from Conference USA, including UAB, Texas-San Antonio and Florida Atlantic, have applied for membership to the American Athletic Conference and are expected to be accepted by the end of the week.

Rice, North Texas and Charlotte also have applied for membership, said two people who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the league was not yet prepared to make its expansion plans public.

The AAC was in the market for new members after three of its most successful schools, Cincinnati, Houston

and Central Florida, announced in September they’re joining the Big 12.

Those moves are expected to happen by 2023, and the AAC hopes to have its six new members in place when the departing schools leave.

The end result would be a 14-team conference, with four schools in Texas — the three new members and SMU.

UAB has been C-USA’s most consistent winner in recent seasons, playing in three straight league title games and winning two. It has been a remarkable run for a program terminated after the 2014 season but to return in 2017.

FAU won C-USA titles in 2017 and ‘19 under thencoach Lane Kiffin.

Charlotte is also a newcomer to the highest tier of Division I football, having joined in 2013.

Rice has the longest history of major college football competition among the six schools heading to the AAC and were once a member of the Southwest Conference.

C-USA has been a frequent target when the American, 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 members.

C-USA will be down to eight members — Old Dominion, UTEP, Southern Miss, Marshall, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Florida International and Western Kentucky.