Conference realignment is picking up pace once again, this time with the impact being felt strongest by Conference USA football in the Group of Five.
The conference, founded in 1995, currently has eight members after the American Athletic Conference poached six of their members to join their conference: UAB, Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, North Texas, Rice, and UTSA.
That leaves Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee State, Old Dominion, Southern Miss, Texas-El Paso, and Western Kentucky as the only teams that currently call C-USA home — for now.
There are multiple reports out that say more of these C-USA teams could be poached by the Sun Belt Conference to further proliferate conference realignment.
What will happen to Conference USA football after realignment?
According to a report from The Athletic, the Sun Belt Conference is in the process of pitching current C-USA members Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss to abandon ship and find safe harbor in the Sun Belt.
Basic logic says Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss are taking a look around and seeing that the conference doesn’t have anywhere near as much value as it did a few days ago (i.e. before the AAC poaching). They’re thinking about their own future and how they can put their teams in the best position to be successful and prosper.
In an effort to calm those fears and boost the value of the conference as a whole, C-USA is said to be giving its best pitch to Liberty and James Madison to join the conference.
But why would Liberty agree to join C-USA when it seems like any Group of Five conference would welcome them — especially ones in a better current state, like the Sun Belt or the American?
James Madison makes sense. They would be taking a massive leap forward from very few eyeballs on their product to hundreds of thousands each week with C-USA’s nationally televised games.
If C-USA totally strikes out on Liberty or any other Group of Five teams, Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss will be as good as gone. That would leave C-USA with FIU, Louisiana Tech, MTSU, UTEP and WKU, and James Madison — not enough to be a full-fledged Group of Five conference or enough to keep those three teams happy enough to stay.
At that point, C-USA would either have to keep mining the FCS or dissolve. Either solution equates to a very grim outlook. Grim days are ahead for C-USA.