MTSU And FAU To Join CUSA In July
Early speculation and a recent report by Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com has been confirmed by AL.com. Middle Tennessee State and Florida Atlantic have negotiated their buyout and will be joining Conference USA on July 1.
They will follow North Texas and Florida International who announced plans to join CUSA for the 2013 season prior to the 2012 football season. This will affect the 2013 football schedule for all Sun Belt members.
An official announcement is expected to be released on Tueday concerning MTSU and FAU’s early exit from the conference.
Originally MTSU and FAU would have joined CUSA on July 1, 2014, however with the early exit this will leave the conference with eight football-sponsoring schools. The Sun Belt currently provides an eight game conference schedule for each team, however with eight teams they will only be able to provide a seven-game conference schedule.
Now the remaining schools will have time to seek another game to fill their schedule with another non-conference game.
South Alabama’s non-conference schedule next season has trips to Tennessee, Navy and Tulane with a home game against GoDaddy.com Bowl participant Kent State.
A letter was released by the South Alabama Ticket Office about 2013 season tickets concerning a delay about renewal letters being released. Since the number of home games is currently unknown, they are working with the conference office and the football program to see how many home games will be on the schedule this season for pricing and such.
It may be difficult to schedule a FBS program for the 2013 season and may have to turn to the FCS ranks to fill the open date on the scedule. The Jags currently do not have a FCS program on the schedule this upcoming season so it would not affect the number of wins needed to be eligible for a bowl game. FBS programs can only use one win over an FCS team towards bowl eligibility unless there are not enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all of the bowl slots.