From

Joining conference in 2013

New this season

Leaving after 2012

No change in affiliation

Mississippi State Louisiana State South Carolina Tenneessee Mississippi Vanderbilt Kentucky Arkansas Alabama Georgia Auburn Florida

Missouri Texas A&M

Western Michigan Eastern Michigan Central Michigan Northern Illinois Bowling Green Kent State Ball State Buffalo Toledo Miami Akron Ohio

Massachusetts

Oklahoma State Kansas State Texas Tech Iowa State Oklahoma Kansas Baylor Texas

West Virginia Texas Christian

From

San Jose State Utah State

Nevada-Las Vegas Colorado State New Mexico Wyoming Air Force

Fresno State Nevada Hawaii

San Diego State Boise State

From

Georgia State Texas State

Middle Tennessee St. Louisiana-Lafayette Western Kentucky Louisiana-Monroe Arkansas State Florida Atlantic Troy

South Alabama

Florida International North Texas

North Texas Florida International Texas-San Antonio Louisiana Tech Old Dominion Charlotte

Southern Mississippi East Carolina Marshall Tulane UTEP Tulsa Rice UAB

Southern Methodist Central Florida Memphis Houston

San Diego State Boise State Southern Methodist Central Florida Memphis Houston

South Florida Connecticut Cincinnati Louisville Rutgers

Temple

Pittsburgh Syracuse

Arrows indicate changes occurring in 2013.

Shifting Conference Alignments

Nearly a quarter of the 124 programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision will have changed their conference affiliation between 2011-’13. The reality of conference realignment is that every league is affected, and it will take at least a year or two for most of us to remember that universities like Temple, Nevada and Missouri play in the Big East, Mountain West and Southeastern Conference. A look at the 2012-13 changes. By PAUL MYERBERG

Big East

Sun Belt

Southeastern Conference

Mountain West

Mid-American Conference

Conference USA

Big 12

Atlantic Coast Conference

2012

2012

2012

2012

2013

2012

JOINING IN

JOINING IN

JOINING IN

JOINING IN

JOINING IN

2013

2012

2013

2012

2013

2012

2013

C.A.A.

WAC

C.A.A.

WAC

WAC

Atlantic 10

Pittsburgh Syracuse

Boston College North Carolina Georgia Tech Virginia Tech Florida State Wake Forest N.C. State Maryland Clemson Virginia Miami Duke

Utah State

South Alabama

Georgia State

Texas State

Texas A&M

Missouri

Hawaii

Nevada

Fresno State

San Jose State

Massachusetts

Florida International

Texas-San Antonio

North Texas

Louisiana Tech

Old Dominion

Charlotte

Southern Methodist

Central Florida

San Diego State

Boise State

Houston

Temple

Memphis

West Virginia

Texas Christian

Pittsburgh

Syracuse

The Mountain West has already lost three marquee programs, with Texas Christian joining the Big 12, Utah the Pacific-12 and Brigham Young becoming an independent. The league will lose a fourth once Boise State joins the Big East in 2013. The conference’s response has been to raid the WAC. The end result will be a more competitive conference. But unlike in the recent past, the Mountain West will lack national relevance.

This season, the SEC will take Texas A&M and Missouri from the Big 12, making it the first power conference to move to 14 teams. Adding A&M expands the SEC’s footprint into Texas, potentially giving teams like Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana State yet another talent-rich state to dip into for recruiting purposes. The Tigers’ move to the SEC helped the program land the nation’s No. 1 recruit, wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham.

For a few weeks this year, the MAC believed it had finally cemented a 14-team league. This alignment, which would have created matching seven-team divisions, would have sent Bowling Green into the West division while Massachusetts stepped into the East. But with Temple gone, the MAC is left with the same awkward alignment: seven teams in the East, six in the West.

The Big 12 has remained stable despite losing Nebraska and Colorado after the 2010 season and Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC over the summer. How did the Big 12 react to losing the Aggies and Tigers? By adding West Virginia and Texas Christian, giving the league three teams that were conference championship winners a year ago — West Virginia in the Big East, Texas Christian in the Mountain West and Oklahoma State, the reigning Big 12 champs.

What does the nation’s weakest conference do when two of its programs are gobbled up by Conference USA? It gets even weaker, of course. South Alabama started its football program in 2009. Georgia State, which joins in 2013, began play in 2010. Another 2013 arrival, Texas State, is led by the former Texas Christian, Alabama and Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione.

Conference USA took an unorthodox approach to replacing the four programs it is losing to the Big East in 2013. One of the league’s five new teams, Texas-San Antonio, unveiled its football program during the 2011 season; the Roadrunners will play in the Western Athletic Conference in 2012 before moving east. A second, Old Dominion, which is part of the Football Championship Subdivision, did not field a team from 1941 to 2008.

One addition may seem familiar: Temple, which spent the last five years in the Mid-American Conference, was a member of the Big East from 1991 to 2004 before the league’s members, tired of the program’s losing ways and poor fan support, voted the Owls out. Temple is one of seven universities set to join the Big East over the next two years. Four have at least one double-digit loss season since 2006.