Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Tulane & ECU Leaving for Big East

Tulane will hold a 2pm ET press conference today announcing their departure from Conference USA for the Big East. Per multiple reports, the Green Wave will begin competing in the Big East during the 2014-2015 academic year.

Not to be left behind, East Carolina has scheduled a 5pm ET press conference to announce its football program will join the Big East in 2014. With the move, ECU will also need to find a new home for its other athletic programs.

Without Tulane and ECU, C-USA will be down to ten football playing members in 2014, Marshall, Southern Miss, FIU, Louisiana Tech, UAB, Tulsa, Rice, UTEP, Texas San Antonio, and North Texas. Two other programs, Old Dominion University and the University of Charlotte are slated to begin playing C-USA football in 2015.

If C-USA desires to have 14 members, they could turn to Sun Belt Conference schools Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee State for expansion. Slated to become a football independent because the Western Athletic Conference will no longer support football following this season, New Mexico State is another option. Also, C-USA could target schools like ODU and Charlotte that want to grow their football programs from the FCS to the FBS level.   

We will have more on this story as further details become available.

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