Sun Belt presidents and chancellors yesterday announced that they agreed to "proceed as a 10-team football conference" and later notified football-only members New Mexico State and Idaho the four-year agreement with both schools "will not be renewed when it expires in two seasons," according to a front-page piece by Jason Groves of the LAS CRUCES SUN-NEWS. NMSU President Garrey Carruthers said that Sun Belt Commissioner Karl Benson "informed him last Wednesday there would not be a vote March 10, as originally planned, regarding NMSU's future in the conference." Benson said that there was "no vote conducted ... but rather a series of conversations that resulted in moving forward without New Mexico State and Idaho." Carruthers on Monday said that playing as an FCS program as soon as '18 "would be under serious consideration." Groves notes the Sun Belt announcement "does not affect other Aggies' sports teams, which remain Division I as members of the Western Athletic Conference." NMSU's "best hope for staying an FBS team is to become an independent football program and hope for another round of conference shuffling and league expansion." Carruthers said that dropping football "was not currently on the table" (LAS CRUCES SUN-NEWS, 3/2).
REASONS FOR THE MOVE: In Boise, Dave Southorn notes the Sun Belt's reasons for going with a 10-team football league "were plentiful, starting with the NCAA decision in January to allow conferences with fewer than 12 teams to hold a championship game." The reduction of the maximum amount of CFP money a Group of Five conference could be distributed, from $12M to $10M, "also had an impact" (IDAHO STATESMAN, 3/2). Benson said that the NCAA's recent move to deregulate football title games and remove a 12-team minimum was a "major factor" in the move. A championship game, which "would be held at a campus site, would not be staged" before '17 and possibly '18 (USATODAY.com, 3/1).
