Sun Belt Expansion
What’s Going On? One of the biggest movers and shakers in the expansion and realignment game, the Sun Belt won a big fight to get Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss from Conference USA, and it added James Madison from the FCS.
Best Case Scenario: The league gets even stronger with a few more moves. It pries away FIU, Middle Tennessee, and WKU from Conference USA, locks in the current members, and the league’s branding goes up a whole other level.
Worst Case Scenario: The Sun Belt needle doesn’t move with the new acquisitions. Worse yet, the American Athletic Conference starts sniffing around and the rumors start flying that a Marshall or Appalachian State or Coastal Carolina or Louisiana might do just fine.
Crazy Idea That Won’t Work, But … It forms an alliance with the American Athletic Conference and/or the Mountain West. The MAC could be right there for the deal, and Conference USA would LOVE to be a part of anything, but coming up with a plan to work with the AAC and Mountain West would be the big play for even more legitimacy.
What Will Probably Happen: The Sun Belt will keep on working. The league did an amazing job of proactively having everything in place to make a huge move to get a whole lot stronger, and it’s going to keep pushing.
Conference Expansion: What’s Going On?
ACC | AAC | Big Ten | Big 12 | C-USA | Ind
MAC | Mountain West | Pac-12 | SEC | Sun Belt
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