Today, the Big South Conference, in conjunction with the Atlantic Sun Conference, announced the creation of a joint football conference. This comes as a response to the loss of Coastal Carolina to the FBS and the Big South’s need to maintain their future with the FCS, along with procuring their automatic FCS playoff bid.
These are the main specifics of the agreement:
- Effective immediately, any current or future scholarship football program that the ASUN houses will automatically be an associate member of the Big South Conference, depending on the geographical location of the program.
- Of course, should the Big South add a scholarship football program, it will be apart of the conference as well.
The ASUN does not carry football in their conference. There are four schools that are members of the ASUN conference with football programs though (Jacksonville, Stetson, Campbell, Kennesaw State). Because of this, the programs compete outside of the ASUN. Kennesaw State is already an associate member of the Big South. The three other programs are associate members of the Pioneer Football League.
Basically, this makes things easier for the Big South to add associate members in football and secures Kennesaw State’s future with the conference. Programs who are most likely to join would be Jacksonville University (Liberty just beat them 7-55), Stetson University, and Campbell, but again, they would have to become a scholarship program. Could this move encourage that? We will see.
To sum things up, nothing is changing for Big South football right now. They will stick with 6 teams and remain the Big South Conference. But this agreement ensures a future home for any programs looking to add scholarships whether it be from the Big South itself or the ASUN.
We will update you on the story as more information becomes available.
