Conference USA reveals plan for departing schools

Marshall, Southern Miss and Old Dominion all announced Friday that they would cutting ties with Conference USA, but not amicably. In a response to the news, the Conference USA Board of Directors released a statement about its future plans.

“Conference USA intends to conduct the 2022-23 athletic year with the full 14 institution membership intact,” the statement read. “The C-USA Board of Directors will exhaust all necessary legal actions to ensure all members meet their contractual obligations as defined by and agreed to in the Conference USA bylaws.”

The three schools are planning to join the Sun Belt, but that was not initially supposed to happen until the July 1, 2023. Now, the goal is to speed up that timeline, although Conference USA is stepping in to intervene.

Both the schools and conferences involved now find themselves in a difficult spot. Marshall, Southern Miss and Old Dominion each put out statements that they plan to leave the conference on June 30, 2022 but could face legal action by the conference if they go through with the plan.

Conference USA and the Sun Belt must now both move forward over the coming months with no certainty on the number of members for the upcoming athletic year, making scheduling and further planning nearly impossible.

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In total, nine schools are planning to leave Conference USA as the conference realignment dominoes continue to fall.

Marshall, Old Dominion, Southern Miss, UAB, Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, North Texas, Rice and Texas-San Antonio are all leaving the league at some point. The latter five are joining the American Athletic Conference, which is losing Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston at some point.

Based on these statements, Conference USA is going to have a new look next year without Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss. Four schools — Jacksonville State, Liberty, New Mexico State and Sam Houston — are planning to enter the league in the future.

The only remaining schools that aren’t planning to leave Conference USA at this moment are Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State, Texas-El Paso and Western Kentucky.