SBC schools to vote on extending membership invitation

President and chancellors from Sun Belt Conference schools will meet Sunday in Dallas to vote on extending a possible membership invitation, it’s been learned.

It’s known that Coastal Carolina and Eastern Kentucky have been under consideration, and that current football-only member New Mexico State remains a candidate for full-fledged membership.

All three schools were paid on-campus visits by Sun Belt reps at some point earlier this year, including two this month.

Seventy-five percent approval is required to issue an invite, however, so it’s also possible that no bid will go out.

What criteria are considered could impact any favorable vote.

Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson said when the league held its annual football Media Day last month in New Orleans that the membership matter is “no longer a football issue.”

It once was, as prior focus for some had been on getting to 12 teams for football so that the conference could stage a revenue-generating football title game.

“As we now go forward, and expecting that the NCAA will roll back the policy that requires 12 teams to do a conference football championship game,” Benson said, “we are no longer driven by a football championship game when it comes to our future membership. We now need to focus on what is in the best interest of our other sports.”

Basketball and other SBC programs do not currently play balanced schedules.

The Sun Belt has 11 football-playing members, including football-only Idaho and NMSU. Little Rock and Texas-Arlington play other sports including basketball but don’t play football, leaving basketball and others with 11 as well.

“We need to get to get divisions for our other sports,” Benson said in New Orleans.

“When we will get there? We’ve tried. We’ve tried to make sure we get that right fit, both from an academic standpoint, from an athletic standpoint, from a maturity standpoint. We know the options aren’t numerous.

“We will continue to explore,” he added, “but I think it’s important that we do this not necessarily with football in mind. This is no longer a football issue.”

At least one Sun Belt football coach seems to wish it was, however.

“Whoever comes into this conference as a 12th team, we want them to bring something to the conference,” UL coach Mark Hudspeth said while in New Orleans last month. “When I look at what we just added — I thought Georgia Southern and Appalachian State brought a lot to our conference.”

Those two programs — both traditional I-AA/FCS powers — were Sun Belt newcomers last season after moving up from the FCS level to FBS football.

Georgia Southern wound up winning the conference after going 8-0 in league play, and Appalachian State beat UL at Cajun Field.

“Sometimes the Sun Belt takes a hit, unfortunately, to me,” Hudspeth said. “I think it’s one of the top of the (Group of) Five conferences out there.

“When you look at who we brought into our conference as compared to some other conferences – some other conferences took teams that haven’t even played football and started up new programs. And we added two of the most-prestigious programs in the country out of FCS.

“So I think that was a good ‘get’ for our conference,” he added, “and hopefully we continue looking for those types of teams that can really bring some validity to our conference — for the most part in football, in my eyes.”

But it’s easier said than done.

“That’s the type of addition you always want to have,” Benson said of the immediate impact made by, and rich football history of, Georgia Southern and App State. “It doesn’t always work out that way.

“If there was school X, Y and Z that had those same types of characteristics, we probably would have added them a year ago or two years ago. … So, while it would be great to have it, another Georgia Southern or App State, I don’t know if there’s one out there right now.”

Inviting New Mexico State for other sports and not taking a current FCS program would mean the Sun Belt could get to two divisions for basketball and others, but that might mean football — which currently does not play a balanced schedule either — would stay at 11 or fewer.

(The football-only membership of NMSU and Idaho is contractually up for review after this year).

Coastal Carolina played its first football season in 2003, and remains an FCS program — for now, at least.

The Chanticleers — based in Conway, South Carolina, not far from Myrtle Beach — have expressed an interest in moving up to FBS.

According to The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, Coastal Carolina president David DeCenzo — speaking shortly after hosting Sun Belt reps on campus in early August — said in an exclusive interview that “I will accept an offer from the Sun Belt if an offer is made.”

Coastal Carolina could provide the Sun Belt a 12th football team as it transitioned from FCS to FBS, as well as a 12th for basketball and other programs.

Adding Coastal Carolina also could solve the issue of finding a so-called travel partner for Appalachian State, which doesn’t currently have one in the Sun Belt.

“Appalachian State? Out there by themselves,” Benson said when discussing travel partners, “and it’s not fair to Appalachian State, and it’s not fair to our student-athletes to make that single trip.”

Adding a new football-and-all-sports member also would allow the Sun Belt to realize the original divisional membership model Benson previously had in mind, something that was disrupted when Western Kentucky opted to follow ex-SBC members North Texas, Middle Tennessee, Florida International and Florida Atlantic to Conference USA.

“When we first started to put the Sun Belt back together … our athletic directors, our presidents and chancellors, and our football coaches were very instrumental in saying that ‘We need to stay in Texas,’ ” Benson said. “That meant that if we were going to stay in Texas, and we were … going to be on the east coast, we had to get divisions. That was the original goal. That was the original model, it was the original structure.”

Losing WKU left the SBC one team shy of six in a would-be eastern division, however.

“If we’re a conference that stretches from San Marcos, Texas (Texas State), to Boone, North Carolina (Appalachian State), and Little Rock to Statesboro, Georgia (Georgia Southern),” Benson said, “we need to get to divisions for other sports — our men’s and women’s basketball, our volleyball, our baseball, our softball, our women’s soccer. That is our goal.”

Benson is certain how, or even if, that goal is realized in the short-term. But he knows many are anxious to learn what the Sun Belt will do next.

“I can’t through a week without somebody asking about a new member,” he said.