Today’s announcement of a new league being formed is just the first of what is likely to be many changes in conferences over the next year or so. Legislation is on the table at the upcoming NCAA convention to allow conferences to change membership without resulting in the loss of an automatic bid. (Currently, even if the members remain at seven each year, there’s a danger of losing the automatic bid if the number of consistent members from year to year falls below a certain level.)
The three MAC football expatriates, who will be playing football in the Liberty League or Centennial Conference and everything else in the “Interstate Eight” — we can call it that for now — got it started by leaving the MAC back in October, ending a period of speculation that had teams moving to the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, to the Centennial, from the Capital and the like.
Villa Julie to the CAC is a lock, just waiting to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. Hood is a natural, although the MAC is pursuing them as well. Wesley is going to be a strong CAC candidate as well, after getting turned down some years back. Frostburg State is locked into position in the AMCC until the summer, when the school will be looking for a new president, but could be a candidate, if the private schools in the league are willing to consent to take on another state school.
The MAC has to be worried. It sent out feelers to six schools and two of them must have football. Even Gallaudet, whose football program is club status, is getting looks because of that, and Misericordia has expressed an interest in adding the sport as well. Some say three schools from the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference are on the six-school list, though sources disagree on which ones aside from Misericordia.
Even the Atlantic Women’s Colleges Conference, which I had given up for dead about six months ago, seems to be breathing. The conference watched Hood and Chestnut Hill add men and saw Mary Baldwin latch up with the USA South and did nothing with its membership for more than a year, putting it in danger of losing its automatic bid (and it still could, for a year or more). But salvation might come in the form of St. Elizabeth, an all-women’s school in New Jersey, and New Rochelle, in New York. That’s a mission worth saving, and with a little more action a year ago the conference would be in better shape now.
There’s already shuffling in the Northeast, with Western New England talking about moving out of the Great Northeast Athletic Conference. The Commonwealth Coast Conference, North Atlantic Conference and GNAC could all see changes in membership since they are large enough to spawn other leagues and gobble up more automatic bids.
Beware.
In the Southeast there is talk of a new league forming involving Maryville (Tenn.), LaGrange, Piedmont, Huntingdon, Mississippi College, Louisiana College, and Oglethorpe. (Someone also told us Trinity (Texas) was looking at this league as well, but we took that with a grain of salt, as did our source.)
While we haven’t heard much rumbling from other parts of the country, the SCAC still has a stated mission of expansion on the table, after Rose-Hulman announced its pending departure for the HCAC this offseason and Austin College came in. Much of that movement could be football-related.
We’re in for an interesting few months. This “Interstate Eight” deal came together in a month or so. More will follow.