The Atlantic Sun and the WAC of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) have agreed to merge and form a 10-member football-only conference and make the jump to the FBS, according to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Once the move is finalized, the member schools will form the 11th FBS conference.
This would be the first time since 1999, when the Mountain West was formed, that a new conference would join the FBS.
WAC football members Stephen F. Austin, Abilene Christian, Utah Tech, Southern Utah and Tarleton State will join Atlantic Sun members Austin Peay, Eastern Kentucky, Central Arkansas and North Alabama to form the newly-merged FBS conference. There is currently not a name for the new conference, but it is being referred to in the planning process as “ASUN-WAC Football.”
The league plans to begin playing together in 2024 with nine members before adding one additional team, UT Rio Grande Valley, and making the move to the FBS. UT Rio Grande Valley just announced it’s starting a football program, and is expected to join the league in 2025 as the 10th member of the conference.
The schools listed have signed a “multi-party term sheet agreement” to commit to playing in the new league and that the schools “desire to form a partnership for the development and operation of a football-only conference.”
Per Thamel’s report, there is ambiguity that looms around the process to becoming an FBS league, but that all FCS schools involved will have to go through a formal transition process. The ambiguity is present due to the current moratorium in NCAA Division I athletics on single-sport conferences. Ending the moratorium would require the matter being put up for a vote from the NCAA Division I board of directors.
For FCS schools to jump to the FBS, there is generally a two-year transition period which would require the board of directors’ approval. There have been no discussions on how the new conference would fit into the expanded College Football Playoff, but that is expected to change in the near future.
