On Thursday, the American Athletic Conference formally announced the addition of six new member institutions which is the next set of dominoes to fall in the FBS conference realignment puzzle. UAB, North Texas, Rice, FAU, Charlotte, and UTSA will bring the AAC’s membership total to 14 following the departure of Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati’s to the Big 12.
As news of the AAC’s move this week began to make traction, all attention then turned to the remaining Group of Five conferences, primarily the Sun Belt and Conference USA. All six new members of the AAC currently reside in CUSA, dropping that league’s membership total to just eight institutions – Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, Southern Miss, UTEP, and Western Kentucky.
Meanwhile, the Sun Belt is currently operating from a position of strength as teams such as Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, and Louisiana have become nationally prominent in recent seasons. This has led many to speculate that the Sun Belt will turn to the CUSA for additional members and deliver what would be the final blow to CUSA as an established FBS conference.
Southern Miss has been the most widely regarded candidate to join the Sun Belt. It would make more sense from a geographic standpoint as the Golden Eagles are right in the heart of most of the Sun Belt’s West Division including Louisiana, South Alabama, and UL-Monroe. Another school that has been linked to the Sun Belt as a potential candidate is Marshall. Adding the Thundering Herd would help balance out the East and West members in the current 10-member league.
Losing Southern Miss would hurt the CUSA but not cripple it; however, losing Marshall as well would likely be a knockout punch to the conference. Reports surfaced on Wednesday, first reported by Chris Vannini of The Athletic, that the Sun Belt was targeting not only Southern Miss and Marshall but also Old Dominion and James Madison.
Meanwhile, CUSA is reportedly targeting JMU and Liberty with the intentions of keeping Marshall and ODU as part of a nine-team league with the CUSA only losing Southern Miss.
If Conference USA’s outreach to JMU and Liberty is successful, that’d be a key stabilizing factor for Marshall to stay. ODU has been bullish on building C-USA’s eastern front. Lot of moving parts and ambiguity here. https://t.co/CGM3kyiFKL
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) October 20, 2021
If that were to happen, the new look Conference USA would feature Liberty, James Madison, Old Dominion, Marshall, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, UTEP, and Western Kentucky. Liberty athletic director Ian McCaw has frequently mentioned the possibility of a mid-Atlantic FBS conference, and these moves could lay the groundwork for such a conference.
Liberty is only 100 miles from James Madison, just less than 200 miles from Old Dominion, and less than 300 miles to Marshall. In recent years, Liberty’s athletic department has been able to make considerable strides in their relationship with nearby schools including ODU, JMU, and Marshall. While nothing has been formally announced yet about the next steps for the Sun Belt or Conference USA or where Liberty will fall once all the dust settles, the next few days and weeks will be interesting.
Liberty University is not “trash” as you guys called it today in your dumpster fire podcast on Twitter today. Your comments are a poor reflection on the mission of the university and the distinctives that allow it to be the beautiful, successful, and powerful university that it is. Completely missing from your comments were any reflection on how sports fits into the overall mission of the school or even the challenges that other schools like Notre Dame or BYU faced in their early years. I believe that one of the leagues you mentioned today, the Big East, formed with a majority of Catholic schools who banded together in their commonalities. Liberty has more potential and power than you realize-and a lot of sister schools who share its mission and who are also rising in an age of absolute cultural madness. It sounded so odd to me to hear you all talk fondly of “true peers” including FCS school JMU. I remember being absolutely harassed by JMU fans as a student when we played them in 1985. They taunted us with chants “F-U” “F-U” because Jerry Falwell, Sr. was despised by their fans. We didn’t go home thinking that they were great tail-gaters and it certainly wasn’t a good family environment. They aren’t any more favorable to our worldview today. Do you even remember what NC State did to our team last year-how they made that game about defeating the “evil” of Liberty University? You guys don’t need to keep “drinking the cool aid” as you two said What a weak and pathetic whine-an absolute embarrassment for fans of the university’s teams. Pick up your game with a better perspective.