Brett McMurphy
Updated:
Oct 21, 2021, 02:01 PM EDT

The wild, wacky, wonderful world of conference realignment that started with Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC has come down to this: a tug of war, Battle Royale loser-leaves-town deathmatch between the Sun Belt and Conference USA over Marshall, Old Dominion and James Madison.

With the American officially adding C-USA members Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA on Thursday, there still remains a great deal of uncertainty about what happens next with the Sun Belt and Conference USA.

Here are the two most likely scenarios as of Thursday morning, sources told the Action Network, regarding Conference USA and the Sun Belt with all the schools beginning play in their new conferences in 2023:

Sun Belt Adds Marshall, ODU, Southern Miss & JMU, Crippling C-USA
Scenario: Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss leave C-USA and join the Sun Belt along with FCS member James Madison.

This would give the Sun Belt a 14-team football league split into two seven-team divisions. Current member Troy would move from the East to the West Division, where Southern Miss would reside. New members Marshall, ODU and JMU would be in the East Division.

Non-football playing Sun Belt members Arkansas-Little Rock and Texas-Arlington also will no longer be league members, sources said.

These moves also could put Conference USA — or is it Conference DOA? — on life support.

In this scenario, C-USA will have lost nine of its 14 members — three to the Sun Belt, six to the AAC — and have only five remaining schools: FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, UTEP and Western Kentucky.

The NCAA requires six schools for a league to compete at the FBS level.

Realistically, a conference needs at least 10 members for scheduling purposes, unless a six-member league plays conference members twice to get to eight or 10 league games.

C-USA would have to immediately bolster its membership. Liberty would be an automatic addition, sources said, but it’s unknown if the league would also reach out to independents UMass, UConn or New Mexico State or try to entice any FCS programs to move up to the FBS level.

C-USA Keeps Marshall & ODU, Adds Liberty & James Madison
Scenario: Conference USA keeps Marshall and Old Dominion from leaving while adding independent Liberty and FCS member James Madison.

This would be huge for C-USA. It managed to survive. That’s the good news for the league.

The bad news is C-USA would still likely lose two more members. Southern Miss and Western Kentucky could then be headed to the Sun Belt, sources said.

Conference USA
In this scenario, C-USA would have eight members: FIU, James Madison, Liberty, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion and UTEP.

Sun Belt Conference
The Sun Belt would have 12 members: Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Louisiana, South Alabama, Southern Miss, Texas State, Troy, ULM and Western Kentucky.

This scenario is the best case for Conference USA, but it still would have a weaker football product than the Sun Belt.

So in the first scenario, CUSA is left with FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, UTEP and Western Kentucky.

C-USA would have to immediately bolster its membership. Liberty would be an automatic addition, sources said, but it’s unknown if the league would also reach out to independents UMass, UConn or New Mexico State or try to entice any FCS programs to move up to the FBS level.

I could see CUSA reaching out to LR and another non-football school to balance out UConn and UMass who would likely be football only members. If we end up with our old "friends", FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, and New Mexico State plus UTEP, Liberty, and maybe UTA we'd be in a stronger basketball conference than the Sun Belt. Sure the Sun Belt would be stronger in football, but I could care less about that.

(10-21-2021 01:38 PM)mjs Wrote:  So in the first scenario, CUSA is left with FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, UTEP and Western Kentucky.

C-USA would have to immediately bolster its membership. Liberty would be an automatic addition, sources said, but it’s unknown if the league would also reach out to independents UMass, UConn or New Mexico State or try to entice any FCS programs to move up to the FBS level.

I could see CUSA reaching out to LR and another non-football school to balance out UConn and UMass who would likely be football only members. If we end up with our old "friends", FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, and New Mexico State plus UTEP, Liberty, and maybe UTA we'd be in a stronger basketball conference than the Sun Belt. Sure the Sun Belt would be stronger in football, but I could care less about that.

One thing in that scenario is absolutely certain- UConn is NOT leaving the Big East in basketball, and UMass is NOT leaving the A10 in basketball. Although it sounds pretty implausible to me, given the Wild West that conference shuffling has become, who knows!

(10-21-2021 03:00 PM)PTJR Wrote:  

(10-21-2021 01:38 PM)mjs Wrote:  So in the first scenario, CUSA is left with FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, UTEP and Western Kentucky.

C-USA would have to immediately bolster its membership. Liberty would be an automatic addition, sources said, but it’s unknown if the league would also reach out to independents UMass, UConn or New Mexico State or try to entice any FCS programs to move up to the FBS level.

I could see CUSA reaching out to LR and another non-football school to balance out UConn and UMass who would likely be football only members. If we end up with our old "friends", FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, and New Mexico State plus UTEP, Liberty, and maybe UTA we'd be in a stronger basketball conference than the Sun Belt. Sure the Sun Belt would be stronger in football, but I could care less about that.

One thing in that scenario is absolutely certain- UConn is NOT leaving the Big East in basketball, and UMass is NOT leaving the A10 in basketball. Although it sounds pretty implausible to me, given the Wild West that conference shuffling has become, who knows!

UConn and UMass are independents in football. I don't think that can work for them in the long term. Maybe UConn and/or UMass might be best served by dropping football. I could see them joining CUSA in football only, if only to give them more time to make this decision.

(10-21-2021 04:11 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(10-21-2021 03:00 PM)PTJR Wrote:  

(10-21-2021 01:38 PM)mjs Wrote:  So in the first scenario, CUSA is left with FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, UTEP and Western Kentucky.

C-USA would have to immediately bolster its membership. Liberty would be an automatic addition, sources said, but it’s unknown if the league would also reach out to independents UMass, UConn or New Mexico State or try to entice any FCS programs to move up to the FBS level.

I could see CUSA reaching out to LR and another non-football school to balance out UConn and UMass who would likely be football only members. If we end up with our old "friends", FIU, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky, and New Mexico State plus UTEP, Liberty, and maybe UTA we'd be in a stronger basketball conference than the Sun Belt. Sure the Sun Belt would be stronger in football, but I could care less about that.

One thing in that scenario is absolutely certain- UConn is NOT leaving the Big East in basketball, and UMass is NOT leaving the A10 in basketball. Although it sounds pretty implausible to me, given the Wild West that conference shuffling has become, who knows!

UConn and UMass are independents in football. I don't think that can work for them in the long term. Maybe UConn and/or UMass might be best served by dropping football. I could see them joining CUSA in football only, if only to give them more time to make this decision.

I could see that. New Mexico State would also jump at the chance if UTEP didn’t block it. UTEP might definitely be ok with it if it was football only, but might go for everything, but NMST might be happy to leave their other sports in the WAC. Pretty interesting idea.