MTSU And FAU To Hold News Conferences Today
With Middle Tennessee and FAU scheduled to have press conferences today where they are speculated to announce their acceptance of invitations to join Conference USA.
The dominos began with Maryland and Rutgers announcing that they were going to move to the Big10 from the Big East. Then more dominos fell when the Big East extended invitations that were accepted by Louisville and Tulane to join the conference.
It seems that the dominos continue to fall with Conference USA extending invitations to Middle Tennessee and FAU to join to replace the exiting schools.
This leaves the Sun Belt on the brink of falling below the eight school minimum for a football conference. Rumors are circulating that Western Kentucky may be shopping around but would be held back by the TV market.
Schools are out there ready for invitations to the conference. Some make sense but others don’t. Georgia Southern, New Mexico State and Appalachain State are out there with some eager to move to FBS while New Mexico State is being left out in the cold as the Mountain West dissolves. Lamar, Jacksonville State and Liberty may be schools ready and waiting for an invitations as well.
Don’t think Conference USA is content, they want to jump ahead and try to be a 16 team super-conference and they will almost certainly look to the Sun Belt for two more schools. Schools that are on their radar include Western Kentucky and UL-Lafayette.
The Sun Belt made big strides this season in outclassing Conference USA on the field, but C-USA has the better TV contract. I would like to see the Sun Belt get out in front and make pro-active moves instead of sitting back and waiting for the dominos to fall and then pick up the pieces afterwards.
Commissioner Benson has said throughout the season that the SBC wants to be a regional conference. They need to talk with some schools to gauge interest in moving to the Sun Belt. Southern Miss and UAB could be prime schools that are uninterested in continuing their relationship with CUSA.
Another topic that needs to be addressed is that the Sun Belt does not have an exit fee for members. This asks them to explore the grass on the other side of the fence.
What do you think? What should the Sun Belt do? Who should they consider adding? What should South Alabama do?