Once again, the Sun Belt Conference is right in the middle of the ever-shifting conference alignment puzzle after James Madison announced Monday it’s leaving for the American Conference no later than July 1, 2028.
Multiple reports have stated James Madison will pay nearly $23 million to enter the league and a $5 million exit fee to leave the Sun Belt, which is close to voting to increase the required exit fee.
So how does the Sun Belt replace the Dukes?
“With James Madison’s recent announcement of its planned departure, the conference leadership will examine and evaluate all opportunities as it continues its work to ensure the sustained rise of the Sun Belt Conference — the premier FBS non-autonomy conference in the country,” the league said in a statement. “The Sun Belt Conference is ‘Rising’, and our best days are ahead.”
The Sun Belt’s blueprint always has been an example of geographical feasibility.
“Through a tumultuous period in collegiate athletics, the Sun Belt has remained steadfast in its commitment to regional rivalries, geographic alignment and broad-based competitive excellence — pillars that have ushered in the most successful era in the conference’s history,” said Kyle Marrero, the Sun Belt board of directors president.
Several of the same names that came up when Texas State decided to leave the Sun Belt will be discussed, such as Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State, Liberty or Jacksonville State from Conference USA.
Western Kentucky’s association with the Sun Belt goes all the way back to 1982 when the Hilltoppers left the Ohio Valley Conference for the Sun Belt, primarily for basketball. WKU was also in the Sun Belt from 2009-13 in all sports, including football.
Western Kentucky has an annual athletic budget of approximately $45 million.
Middle Tennessee, which left the Sun Belt along with Western in 2014, is similar in the $49 million range. It was an original Sun Belt football school from 2000-13. The argument for Middle Tennessee would be the Nashville market.
Liberty would be more of a one-for-one replacement for James Madison with both schools being from Virginia, although Liberty’s athletic budget is more Sun Belt-like around $50 million as opposed to James Madison’s number of close to $78 million which is driven heavily by mandatory student fees that the majority of schools in the Sun Belt don’t enjoy.
Another potential option is exploring the Mid-American Conference, where schools such as Ohio University and/or Miami of Ohio might be interested. Both still would meet the geographical blueprint for the northern part of the Sun Belt.
Ohio has a reported athletic budget of around $37 million and Miami of Ohio $40 million.
For reference, the UL athletic budget is around $42 million.
James Madison’s exit from the Sun Belt makes sense. It does seem like a better fit being with schools such as Memphis with a $73 million budget, as well as Tulane at $66 million and East Carolina at $70 million.
So there are multiple ways to view James Madison’s departure. On one hand, it’s good to have sort of a bell-cow football program in the league to raise expectations and give all the schools in the league something to shoot for.
On the other hand, James Madison has been playing a very different game money-wise than every other Sun Belt team for a while now, so this makes more sense competitively.
UL football coach Michael Desormeaux certainly wasn’t surprised by the Dukes’ success in football, making the school attractive to the American Conference.
“I have a lot of respect from afar, obviously,” Desormeaux said of James Madison. “It’s a program that can sustain success through three different head coaches. Obviously, those three head coaches are pretty, pretty special (Curt Cignetti, Bob Chesney and Billy Napier). That’s evidence of what they’re doing right now.
“It means that it’s a program that’s set up for success, and I don’t mean that as a knock to anybody. It means that they’ve got a system and they’ve got a process that they’re committed to. They do a really good job allocating resources to it. I think they’re in a unique footprint as far as the Sun Belt goes, but there’s a lot of really good football up there in Virginia in that area.”
James Madison’s departure doesn’t necessarily mean the Sun Belt must invoke a one-for-one replacement plan. Theoretically, the Sun Belt could add three teams from Conference USA and/or the MAC to get to 16 teams.
On the day of James Madison’s announcement, it’s obviously all just speculation. But the wheels have started to turn again.
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