2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
The Big Ten expansion, and its effect on the Big East, gave these talks even greater significance. At the time of the ESPN report, the Big East was confirmed to be losing Rutgers to the Big Ten, and within days would lose Louisville to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Boise State and San Diego State had planned to join the Big East for football because of the promise of more TV money, but the loss of two members was seen as likely to cause a significant revenue loss.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
When the MW announced earlier in the year that it would add San Jose State and Utah State, it explicitly said that it did not expand beyond 10 football schools in hopes that Boise State and San Diego State would return. However, all three potential returnees faced significant financial obstacles to a MW return.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
Boise State and San Diego State each reportedly faced a $10 million Big East exit fee — although Boise State's buyout was subject to reduction if the Big East's new TV contract did not meet certain revenue goals, a scenario that became more likely with the announced exit of the seven Big East schools that do not play Division I FBS football. As for BYU, it would have needed to get out of a TV contract with ESPN that was worth about $4 million annually through 2018. BYU would also not be assured of the same level of revenue in the MW (or Big East), although it would get better bowl game access.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
On December 22, 2012, after the Big East's non-FBS schools announced their departure, ESPN reported that Boise State was playing off the Big East and MW in an attempt to retain TV rights to its home football games. At the time (and now), no school in an FBS conference retained its home TV rights. One TV industry source indicated that at least one of the conferences might allow this arrangement, but both conferences and several other industry sources disagreed. Another source said that Boise State was the "lynchpin" (sic) as to whether the Big East or MW would survive.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
The December ESPN report indicated that if Boise State opted to stay in the MW, the conference would then seek to add a 12th football member for 2014. As San Diego State then appeared to be committed to Big East football, the likeliest candidates for that slot were seen as incoming Big East members Houston and SMU and C-USA members Tulsa and UTEP. For its part, the Big East had reached out to four schools as potential football members—MW members Air Force, Fresno State, and UNLV, plus football independent BYU. However, Air Force and BYU were said to be content with their current situations, and the other two schools reportedly had no interest in a Big East without Boise State.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
On December 31, Boise State announced it had decided to stay in the MW, leaving the Big East, much like TCU, without ever playing a game in it. Boise State decided to remain in the MW because of that conference's geographic proximity and the Big East's continued instability. While the school's attempted TV rights power play was not successful, it did gain several concessions from the MW. Rights to the Broncos' home games would be sold in a separate package from the league's primary contract with CBS Sports Network.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
As a part of the deal, any MW member (not just Boise State) that appears on ESPN, ESPN2, or broadcast networks ABC, CBS, or NBC could receive a bonus of $300,000, with an extra $200,000 for a Saturday game.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, Boise State remains in MW
Also, beginning in 2014, if an MW team appeared in a BCS-sponsored bowl game—either the four-team national playoff expected to begin at that time (ultimately known as the College Football Playoff), or one of the so-called "access bowls" (one of which has a guaranteed spot for a "Group of Five" team)—the revenue from that game would be split 50-50 between the participating school and the conference. Finally, the MW removed its previous uniform restrictions on Boise State, allowing it to once again wear its standard home blue uniforms in conference games at Bronco Stadium, famous for its blue playing surface.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, San Diego State follows suit
With Boise State staying in the Mountain West, it was reported that San Diego State would indeed try to rejoin the Mountain West as well. San Diego State's contract with the Big East allowed that school to leave without penalty if there were no other member schools west of the Rockies. The Mountain West was also looking at potentially adding Houston or SMU, both of which stated they would join the Big East in 2013, as its 12th football member. The Idaho Statesman obtained a copy of Boise State's MW offer sheet through an open records request; according to the sheet, if the MW extended an invitation to any school on or before January 31, 2013, the first offer had to be made to San Diego State.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, San Diego State follows suit
On January 16, 2013, veteran sportswriter Mark Blaudschun reported on his blog, A Jersey Guy, that San Diego State and the Big East were working on a joint release announcing that the Aztecs would not join the Big East, and would stay in the MW. ESPN and CBS Sports quickly picked up the story. The MW presidents voted that day to readmit SDSU.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, San Diego State follows suit
SDSU was not subject to a Big East exit fee (as noted earlier), but had to pay a $1.5 million exit fee to the Big West. The main concession SDSU received from the MW was that the school received its 2012–13 year-end distribution of $2.5 million from the MW, a sum that it had forfeited when it announced its departure.


2010–2013 Mountain West Conference realignment, San Diego State follows suit
SDSU athletic director Jim Sterk reportedly tried to make the Big East move work even after Boise State's decision to stay in the MW. While the Big East had one more football season under its current TV deal, which likely would have meant more money for SDSU in the 2013 season, further turnover in the Big East membership meant that the Big East could not guarantee or even solidly project future revenue. In addition, the decisions of Boise State and SDSU to stay in the MW gave the conference 12 football members in 2013; as a result, the MW was expected to (and ultimately did) split into divisions and launch a football championship game.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought
The 2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought was a severe to extreme drought that plagued the Southern United States, including parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, and Oklahoma; the Southwestern States, including Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona; as well as large parts of Mexico, in a three-year pattern from 2010 to 2013.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought
The worst effects were in Texas, which experienced the brunt of the drought and its driest August–July (12-month) period on record from 2010-11. The dry spell in May 2011 was also said to be the worst period of drought in Texas since 1895. The U.S. Drought Monitor reported that Lubbock, Texas has experienced the nation's worst average level of drought since the beginning of 2011. McAllen, Harlingen, Brownsville and Corpus Christi also ranked among the nine U.S. cities most affected by extreme drought. The drought in Texas caused an estimated $7.62 billion in crop and livestock losses, surpassing the previous record loss of $4.1 billion set in 2006.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, History
The drought began due to a strong La Niña developing by the summer of 2010 which brings below average rainfall to the southern United States. The effects of the La Niña could be noticed immediately as much of the south receives important rainfall during the summer, and this was the driest summer for Texas and Georgia in the 21st century thus far, and much of the south received record low rainfall.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, History
Throughout 2011, the drought was confined to the Deep South as the mid-south received flooding due to severe weather and tornadoes. However, the drought continued and intensified in the Deep South as Texas saw 2011 become its second-driest year on record, Oklahoma saw its fourth-driest, and Georgia saw its seventh-driest year on record. The winter of 2011–12 was one of the driest winters on record for the eastern and central United States. In the spring of 2012, the drought made a massive expansion from the Deep South to the Midwest, Mid-south, Great Plains, and Ohio valley.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, History
At its peak in August 2012 the drought covered approximately 81% of the United States. Throughout the winter of 2012–13, heavy rain and snow brought relief to the drought in the southern and eastern United States, even causing severe flooding. By March 2013, the eastern United States was drought-free, effectively ending the 2010–13 southern U.S. drought. Drought continued on the Great Plains until 2014. However, drought developed in the western United States in 2013 and still exists today in some areas.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, Effects
The drought caused severe lack of water in the southern plains and Rocky Mountains as well as numerous wildfires, in particular the 2011 Texas wildfires, the Wallow Fire and Horseshoe 2 Fire in Arizona, the Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire and Little Bear Fire in New Mexico, and the 2012 Colorado wildfires in Colorado. Mexico also saw serious impact from the drought which decimated crops, killed over a million cattle, and stressed local water and food supplies. The drought has been described as the worst seen in the country in 70 years.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, Effects
By the end of August 2011, a ban on outdoor burning was in effect for 251 of the 254 Texas counties. Lake levels in Texas had declined vastly, some by as much as 50 feet; E.V. Spence Reservoir was only 1% full. This revealed various previously submerged items, ranging from a Native American's skull to a Space Shuttle Columbia tank. On August 30, several homes in Oklahoma City were destroyed along with 1,500 wooded acres. Hundreds of homes had to be evacuated.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, Effects
The drought had a detrimental effect on Texas and Oklahoma cattle ranches, who deeply culled their herds and helped cut the national cattle population to the lowest level in decades.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, Effects
2012 spring rainfall improved conditions in many parts of Texas and by April 12, 2012 only 14% of the state was in "exceptional" drought, compared to 88% at the drought's peak.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, Effects
In spring and summer of 2012, the drought expanded and formed the 2012 North American drought, affecting more than 80% of the contiguous United States.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, Effects
In late summer of 2012, the drought eased in portions of the southern US, but continued to intensify in the central US.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, In Texas
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a joint effort of the National Drought Mitigation Center, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as of late November 2012, about 4 percent of Texas remained in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought, the two most severe categories.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, In Texas
The drought caused billions of dollars in losses throughout the state economy. Farmers and ranchers were among those hardest hit. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service estimates that Texas agricultural producers lost nearly $7.6 billion due to the drought.


2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought, In Texas
Drought and unprecedented heat made 2011 the worst year for wildfires in Texas history. From Nov. 15, 2010 through Sept. 29, 2011, Texas saw 23,835 fires that burned more than 3.8 million acres and destroyed 2,763 Texas homes. Timber lost to drought and wildfire could have produced $1.6 billion worth of products, resulting in a $3.4 billion economic impact in East Texas.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment
The 2010–13 Sun Belt Conference realignment refers to the Sun Belt Conference dealing with several proposed and actual conference expansion and reduction plans among various NCAA conferences and institutions from 2010 to 2013.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
The Sun Belt Conference had seen little effect from the first several rounds of realignment, with the only change being the loss of non-football member Denver to the WAC. Although South Alabama had announced it would establish an FBS football program and join the Sun Belt football league in 2012, this move was finalized before the Big Ten and Pac-10 set the realignment process into motion.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
However, reports emerged in March 2012 that the conference considered Charlotte and UTSA "leading candidates" for expansion, and had entered into talks with both schools. One source indicated that both had received informal invitations. In another significant move, the Sun Belt replaced its commissioner Wright Waters, who retired on March 15, with WAC commissioner Karl Benson.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
The Sun Belt's first official move, however, involved neither Charlotte nor UTSA. Instead, CBSSports.com reported on April 3 that conference presidents had voted to extend an invitation to Georgia State University, then a member of the Colonial Athletic Association, effective in 2013. Four days later, it was reported that Georgia State had accepted the invitation, and that the move would officially be announced on April 9. As a part of this move, the school will move its football program from FCS to FBS, play a full conference schedule in 2013, and become a full FBS member in 2014.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
The timing of Georgia State's move was no coincidence. The CAA was set to vote on April 10 to increase its exit fee from $250,000 to at least $1 million. Also, the NCAA has a deadline of June 1 for Division I FCS schools to announce the start of a transition to FBS.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
On May 2, the Sun Belt and Texas State announced that the Bobcats would leave the WAC after only one season and join the Sun Belt in 2013. Benson implied that the Sun Belt's invitation to Texas State was in part driven by the then-rumored departure of North Texas to Conference USA:


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
"It was important that we remain in the state of Texas, and Texas State certainly does that, regardless of what happens with the University of North Texas."


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
At that time, it was reported by Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson that it would be his goal to expand the SBC to 12 teams in order to sponsor a conference championship game.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
The Sun Belt then announced on May 23 that UT Arlington, at the time a non-football school in the Southland Conference that was set to join the WAC that July, had accepted an invitation to join the Sun Belt in 2013. The move became official the following day, after approval by the University of Texas Board of Regents. Also on May 23, Benson categorically stated that the Sun Belt would not expand beyond 10 football members—a move that could have forced Idaho and New Mexico State, the only two football programs remaining in the WAC beyond 2012, to drop to FCS football.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
On November 28, 2012, Conference USA added current Sun Belt members Middle Tennessee State and Florida Atlantic, later announcing the two would join that conference in 2013.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
On March 27, 2013, the Sun Belt announced the addition of four more members, two in all sports and two for football only, in 2014. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern will begin FBS transitions in 2013, join the Sun Belt in 2014, and become full FBS members in 2015. After the WAC dropped football, Idaho, a former football-only Sun Belt member, and New Mexico State, formerly an all-sports member, will both return for football after one season as FBS independents.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
On September 1, 2015, the Sun Belt announced the addition of Coastal Carolina as a full member effective 2016 for all sports except football. For football, Coastal Carolina will begin its FBS transition in 2016, join the conference in 2017, and become bowl-eligible in 2018.


2010–2013 Sun Belt Conference realignment, Background
On March 1, 2016, the Sun Belt announced that it would not renew the associate memberships of Idaho and New Mexico State for football after the 2017 FBS season.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment
The 2010–13 Western Athletic Conference realignment refers to the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) dealing with several proposed and actual conference expansion and reduction plans among various NCAA conferences and institutions from 2010 to 2013. Moves involving the WAC were a significant part of a much larger NCAA conference realignment in which it was one of the most impacted conferences. Of the nine members of the WAC in 2010, only two—the University of Idaho and New Mexico State University—remained in the conference beyond the 2012–13 school year, and Idaho departed for the Big Sky Conference after the 2013–14 school year. Five pre-2010 members are now all-sports members of the Mountain West Conference (MW), and another joined the MW for football only while placing most of its other sports in the Big West Conference. Another pre-2010 member joined Conference USA (C-USA) in July 2013.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment
After the first defections from the conference were announced in 2010 and 2011, the WAC attempted to reload by bringing in five new members for 2012, but four of these soon announced moves to other conferences that took effect in 2013, with Seattle University being the only 2012 entrant to remain in the WAC beyond the 2012–13 school year. The WAC added six new members in 2013.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment
These moves resulted in the WAC dropping football as a league-sponsored sport after the 2012 season; it became the first NCAA Division I FBS conference to drop the sport since the Big West did the same after the 2000 season. The only two remaining football schools, Idaho and New Mexico State, became independent programs for the 2013 season and returned to football-only membership in the Sun Belt Conference starting in 2014 (both had been either all-sports or football members of the Sun Belt in the early 2000s).


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment
Nearly a decade later, the WAC reinstated football, resuming play in 2021. However, this league does not play in FBS, but rather in the second tier of Division I football, the Football Championship Subdivision. Also, the FCS version of the WAC is, at least for the 2021 season, a partnership with the ASUN Conference, a non-football conference that announced plans to launch its own FCS football league in 2022 or later.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
The WAC was founded in 1962 by six schools in the interior West, five public and one private—the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Brigham Young University (BYU), the University of New Mexico, the University of Utah, and the University of Wyoming. The creation of the WAC directly led to the demise of the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association (or Border Conference) and Mountain States Conference (popularly known as the Skyline Eight), and soon led to the creation of the Big Sky Conference in 1963.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
The conference added two more schools later in the 1960s, with Colorado State University and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) arriving in 1967. The WAC's competitive balance, especially in football, became heavily skewed in the 1970s toward the Arizona schools due to rapid growth in that state, and they would leave in 1978 to expand the Pacific-8 Conference into the Pacific-10.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
San Diego State University joined at the time the two Arizona schools left; the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (Hawaiʻi or UH) joined the following year, and the United States Air Force Academy (Air Force) arrived in 1980. The conference then remained stable for more than a decade, with the next change being the addition of California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) in 1992.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
In 1996, the demise of the Southwest Conference (SWC) led to a major conference realignment. The WAC took advantage of the changing landscape to expand to 16 members. Three SWC members left out of the soon-to-launch Big 12 Conference—Rice University, Southern Methodist University (SMU), and Texas Christian University (TCU)—all joined the WAC, as did San Jose State University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) from the Big West, plus the University of Tulsa, a Division I-A football independent which had been a member of the non-football Missouri Valley Conference.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
However, CBSSports.com writer Matt Hinton would say in 2012 that the expansion "quickly divided the league between old members and new." The league now spanned from Hawaii to Oklahoma—a distance of about 3,900 miles (6,300 km) and four time zones. Originally, the league was divided into four "quads" with four members each, but this setup soon proved unsatisfactory to several members, most notably BYU and Utah, who proposed a permanent split into eight-team divisions in 1998. This proposal created further problems, because the geographic distribution of the 16 members meant that a clean north-south or east-west split was impossible.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
While New Mexico and UTEP agreed to move to a proposed East Division, Air Force and UNLV were unhappy; Karl Benson, who was WAC commissioner during this period, recalled in 2011 that Air Force threatened to go independent. Soon, the presidents of Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Utah, and Wyoming, a group that Benson would later call the "Gang of Five", met at Denver International Airport and quickly decided to form a new league. They invited New Mexico, San Diego State, and UNLV to join them to form what would become the Mountain West Conference, which launched in 1999.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
After this upheaval, the WAC saw further movement in the 2000s. In 2000, the University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada) joined from the Big West. A year later, the Big West dropped football. While four schools from that conference, all within the WAC's geographic footprint, wanted to continue in football, only Boise State University was invited at that time. Louisiana Tech University, a Division I-A independent and otherwise a member of the Sun Belt Conference, also joined in 2001, while TCU left for C-USA. The WAC saw further membership turnover in  2005. Rice, SMU, Tulsa, and UTEP left for C-USA, while the three former Big West football schools that had been left out of the 2001 expansion—Idaho, New Mexico State, and Utah State University—all joined.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
The early-2010s realignment cycle began in 2010, after both the Big Ten Conference and Pacific-10 Conference (now Pac-12) announced plans to expand to 12 members. Brett McMurphy, then of CBSSports.com, would sum up the fallout in 2012:


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Background
It was [Big Ten commissioner] Jim Delany's cow in a Chicago barn that kicked over the lantern that started the country's conference realignment inferno. After that it was a hundred reactionary moves from other conference commissioners, shoring up their ranks, while scorching college football's landscape. The other 10 [FBS] conferences may have had some hardships, but they will all survive. It's the WAC that got burned to a crisp.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
During the week of June 7, 2010, amid rumors surrounding Boise State's future in the WAC, the conference held a meeting of its athletic directors and university presidents in Las Vegas to discuss contingency options. The conference fully expected to lose Boise State, and according to WAC commissioner Karl Benson, there was no bitterness toward BSU by the rest of the current membership. Benson also added that the WAC was considering expanding itself, with the conference eyeing up to six current members of the second-tier Football Championship Subdivision.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
Boise State left the WAC for the Mountain West at the end of the 2010–2011 season. On August 18, 2010, Nevada (Reno) and Fresno State were both extended invitations to join the Mountain West Conference, and subsequently accepted.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
Four months later, Hawaiʻi also left for the Mountain West, but as a football-only member. Hawaiʻi's other sports joined the Big West. The most dominant football member of the remaining WAC had been considering football independence. With a guaranteed bowl berth into the Hawaiʻi Bowl each year, the Warriors could have negotiated their own TV deal and kept all of the profits. An NCAA rule that allows any team willing to travel to Hawaiʻi to play a 13th regular-season game (which, in practice, means an extra home game) makes it easier for the Warriors to schedule other opponents.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
Utah State turned down an offer from the Mountain West at the same time that Fresno State and Nevada accepted theirs, believing that the WAC schools were going to stay together and even be stronger with the possible addition of BYU. After Fresno State and Nevada accepted invitations to the Mountain West it was reported that the WAC had extended invitations to the University of North Texas and University of Louisiana at Lafayette of the Sun Belt Conference. Both schools however declined the invitations to the WAC.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
On Sep. 28, 2010, the WAC heard presentations from five schools in an effort to replenish their ranks after Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada leave for the Mountain West. The schools that made presentations were:


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
The WAC stated at the time that they planned to issue invitations within 30 to 60 days of hearing the presentation. On November 11, the WAC announced that Denver, UTSA, and Texas State would join the WAC for the 2012–13 season for all sports (with the exception of Denver, which does not sponsor varsity football).


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
During a September interview with WAC commissioner Karl Benson the only school invited to a private meeting for possible expansion of teams was Montana. However, on November 11, Montana decided to remain a Football Championship Subdivision school in the Big Sky Conference.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
On June 14, 2011, the WAC added Division I independent Seattle University, who had been seeking membership to the WCC in the past. Exactly one month later on July 14, the WAC added UT Arlington from the Southland Conference.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
On December 7, 2011 Boise State announced it would return its non-football sports to the WAC in 2013 when it begins playing football with the Big East. Later, Boise State chose to instead place their non-football sports in the Big West Conference, and still later due to further membership changes in the Big East, Boise State decided to stay in the Mountain West.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
This would have put the WAC at 11 full members, seven football and two non-football (Seattle, Denver, UT Arlington, and Boise State), one football team short of the eight required for FBS conferences.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
However, in the last days of April 2012, multiple media outlets indicated that six teams—three of which had not yet officially joined the conference—would shortly leave the WAC for other conferences. UTSA, which had yet to join the WAC, declared its intent to join Conference USA in 2013, with Louisiana Tech seen as likely to follow suit. Utah State and San Jose State declared their intent to join the Mountain West Conference in 2013. Another report indicated that Texas State and UT-Arlington, which were set to join the WAC alongside UTSA in 2012, would leave for the Sun Belt Conference effective in 2013. This would leave the WAC with only 5 full members, 2 football and 3 non-football.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
The first of these schools to make its departure official was Texas State, which announced its move to the Sun Belt on May 2. Two days later, Louisiana Tech and UTSA accepted invitations from C-USA, and San Jose State and Utah State announced their departure for the Mountain West.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
Due to the Western Athletic Conference being "raided" by the Mountain West Conference, Conference USA, and the Sun Belt Conference, it was initially unknown what path the WAC would take. After these moves, the WAC was down to only two football programs for the 2013 season – New Mexico State University and the University of Idaho. Since the WAC was not be able to sponsor football for the 2013 season (eight teams are needed for a conference to sponsor football at the FBS level); NMSU and Idaho became FBS independents for the 2013 season before becoming football-only members of the Sun Belt in 2014.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
The WAC seemingly secured its continued existence as a non-football conference, at least for the time being, when it announced on October 9, 2012 that California State University, Bakersfield and Utah Valley University would join the conference starting with the 2013–14 school year. Cal State Bakersfield had previously been independent, and had become a WAC affiliate in baseball for 2012–13. Utah Valley joins from the Great West Conference. Interim WAC commissioner Jeff Hurd added that the WAC was seeking to add further schools, with an immediate goal of eight members and a longer-term goal of 10.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
However, Hurd's job became more difficult on October 19 when Idaho announced it would move its non-football sports to the Big Sky Conference in July 2014. In addition, Denver announced it was joining The Summit League in 2013. The WAC countered this move with inviting Division II Grand Canyon University to join the conference, who accepted. The conference added another member from the disintegrating Great West on December 5, announcing the 2013 arrival of Chicago State University. An invitation was also extended to the Great West's University of Texas–Pan American, which was accepted on December 19.


2010–2013 Western Athletic Conference realignment, Timeline
By adding these last Great West Conference schools the WAC was able to return to seven schools, which under current NCAA rules a Division I conference that drops below seven members must do within two years to avoid losing its automatic bids to the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. Then, on February 7, 2013, the University of Missouri–Kansas City announced that it had accepted an invitation to join the WAC, bringing the membership to nine for 2013-14 and eight after Idaho's departure.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment
The 2010–14 Big Ten Conference realignment refers to the Big Ten Conference dealing with several proposed and actual conference expansion and reduction plans among various NCAA conferences and institutions from 2010 to 2014. U.S. sports media credited expansion plans by the Big Ten as being the trigger for a massive wave of conference realignment during this period. While no Big Ten members announced plans to join other conferences, the league announced expansion from 11 members to an ultimate total of 14 full members and one single-sport associate member, with one full member joining in 2011 and the remaining schools joining in July 2014.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Background
The Big Ten, founded in 1896 as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives (which remained the conference's legal name until 1987), had been for decades one of the more stable major college conferences.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Background
Before the 2010–14 realignment, the conference had seen only three changes in membership since World War I. In 1946, the University of Chicago, one of the league's charter members, chose to de-emphasize varsity athletics and left the conference, although it continued its academic affiliation until 2016, when the Big Ten decided to limit its academic arm, originally known as the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and now as the Big Ten Academic Alliance, to full conference members. In 1949, Michigan State University joined the conference, bringing its membership back to 10. The next change came in 1990, when Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) joined.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Background
The first hints of the coming realignment came in December 2009, when Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany announced that the league would consider adding one or more teams. Media reports then indicated that the Big Ten had two major motives for expansion. First, adding one or more schools would increase the reach of the conference's cable network, the Big Ten Network.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Background
The conference reportedly received as much as 88 cents per month for every subscriber to the network in the Big Ten member states, and in the 2008–09 fiscal year, the Big Ten Network alone distributed $6.4 million to each of the conference's 11 schools. Second, expanding to 12 or more schools would allow the conference to launch a potentially lucrative conference championship game in football.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Background
In April 2012, after moves by the Big Ten triggered massive realignment, then-CBSSports.com sportswriter Brett McMurphy commented,


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Background
It was Jim Delany's cow in a Chicago barn that kicked over the lantern that started the country's conference realignment inferno. After that it was a hundred reactionary moves from other conference commissioners, shoring up their ranks, while scorching college football's landscape.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, First wave: Nebraska joins
After the Big Ten's initial announcement that it was looking at expansion in December 2009, rumors about possible expansion targets and the possibility that the conference might expand to as many as 14 or 16 teams circulated into May 2010. On June 11, 2010, Nebraska applied for membership in the Big Ten and was unanimously approved as the conference's 12th school. Its membership became effective July 1, 2011. Big Ten officials later stated that they had no plans to expand beyond 12 teams in the near future.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, First wave: Nebraska joins
Furthermore, the decision by Penn State to add varsity men's ice hockey starting in 2012 triggered a series of changes in college ice hockey conference alignment. Most significantly, the number of Big Ten universities with men's ice hockey programs reached six, the minimum number of teams needed by a conference to receive an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. Thus, in 2011, the Big Ten member institutions voted to add men's ice hockey as a conference-sponsored sport beginning in 2013. The decision required the five existing men's ice hockey programs from Big Ten member schools to leave their current conferences – Minnesota and Wisconsin from the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, and Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State from the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
However, in mid-November 2012, the landscape changed, as ESPN reported that the University of Maryland, a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), was in "serious negotiations" to join the Big Ten. Yahoo! Sports confirmed the news, and added that Big East Conference member Rutgers University was also in advanced talks to join the Big Ten.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
These reports noted that the Big Ten's then-current first-tier media rights deal was set to expire in 2017, and the conference was preparing for negotiations on a new deal. Both potential new members offer access to large new media markets for the conference. Maryland is in the Washington suburb of College Park, and is also within 35 miles (56 km) of another large media market in Baltimore. Rutgers is located in the New York City market, the largest in the country.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
Both schools are also members of the Association of American Universities, a status viewed as very important to the leaders of current Big Ten members (every Big Ten member institution except Nebraska is a member of the AAU; Nebraska was an AAU member when it was approved to join). The ESPN report indicated that Maryland was somewhat torn over the possible move. Two key players for Maryland in the negotiations, president Wallace Loh and athletic director Kevin Anderson, did not have ACC ties, and Loh was a former provost of Big Ten member Iowa.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
However, the chancellor of the University System of Maryland (USM) that ultimately oversees the school, Brit Kirwan, had been on the College Park campus for 30 years and, according to ESPN, had a strong affinity for the ACC. In addition, one of the Maryland regents told ESPN that Under Armour founder and major Maryland athletic booster Kevin Plank was "100 percent" behind a Big Ten move, and was heavily lobbying regents. On November 19, the Maryland regents voted to accept the Big Ten's offer, and the Big Ten presidents unanimously approved Maryland's entry later that day.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
The Terrapins officially joined on July 1, 2014. The Rutgers board of governors held a regularly scheduled meeting on the same day that the Maryland regents voted, and voted to authorize athletic director Tim Pernetti to accept the Big Ten's invitation. The Big Ten unanimously accepted Rutgers' application on November 20; however, the announcement only said that the school would join "at a date to be determined".


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
Neither athletic department was in a strong financial position at the time. The Star-Ledger of Newark reported in December 2011 that Rutgers' athletic department had lost nearly $27 million in the 2010–11 academic year, and in July 2012, Maryland dropped seven varsity teams due to a deficit reported by The Washington Post as $4 million. In addition, the ACC voted earlier in 2012 to increase its exit fee to $50 million; the only two members to vote against the increase were Maryland and Florida State. Sources at Maryland believed that the school would be able to negotiate the buyout downward.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
Rutgers faced a less steep exit fee of $10 million, but the Big East requires 27 months' notice. However, at least three schools that had left the Big East during the current realignment cycle had been able to buy themselves out of the full waiting period. In the days leading up to the Maryland and Rutgers moves, another current Big East member, Connecticut, was seen as the most likely candidate to replace the Terrapins in the ACC, with still another Big East member, Louisville, also seen as a possible ACC target.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
Forbes magazine speculated that Plank, estimated by the magazine to be worth more than $1.3 billion, was a key driving force in Maryland's Big Ten move. In the week before the Big Ten negotiations were revealed, Under Armour filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating that Plank would sell 1.3 million shares in the company. According to Forbes, this sale would net about $56 million after taxes, more than enough to cover the full ACC buyout. However, ESPN later reported that the Forbes speculation was inaccurate, with unnamed sources saying that Plank would not use the funds from the sale for the school's benefit.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
In December 2012, another part of the Big Ten's rationale for its latest round of expansion was revealed by Barry Alvarez, athletic director of conference charter member Wisconsin. As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Alvarez told the school's athletics board,


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
Jim [Delany] felt that someday, if we didn’t have anyone else in that corridor [i.e., Northeast Corridor], someday it wouldn’t make sense maybe for Penn State to be in our league. That they would go into a league somewhere on the east coast. By doing that [adding Maryland and Rutgers], it keeps us in the northeast corridor.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Second wave: Maryland and Rutgers join
Still more light was shed on the situation in late May 2013, when comments made by Ohio State president Gordon Gee in a December 2012 talk to the university's athletic council were made public. Media attention focused on comments that were interpreted as slurs against Catholics and Notre Dame, plus digs at former Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema, the Southeastern Conference, the University of Cincinnati, and Kentucky's two major state universities of Kentucky and Louisville. The furor over Gee's comments soon led him to retire effective July 1, 2013. However, his comments also included his takes on current and possible future Big Ten realignment:


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
In June 2013, the Big Ten announced that with the arrival of Maryland and Rutgers, both of which sponsor lacrosse for both men and women, the conference would begin sponsoring the sport for both sexes in the 2014–15 school year (2015 lacrosse season). Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State already sponsored both men's and women's lacrosse, while Northwestern sponsored the sport for women only. The two new full members brought the Big Ten to six schools with women's lacrosse, the minimum number of schools required under conference bylaws for the sponsoring of an official Big Ten championship.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
With five men's lacrosse schools set for 2014–15, the Big Ten added its sixth program by inviting Johns Hopkins University as an affiliate member for that sport only. Hopkins is an NCAA Division III member that fields Division I teams in men's and women's lacrosse. Also, like all other Big Ten members except for Nebraska, it is an AAU member.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
The Hopkins men's team, which had played as an independent since its creation in 1883, is one of the most successful in college history, with a total of 44 national championships (nine NCAA championships, second all-time to Syracuse, and 35 pre-NCAA national titles). Hopkins became the first affiliate member in Big Ten history.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
The official Johns Hopkins press release announcing this move indicated that it was driven largely by the school's desire to join a conference with an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The then-current wave of conference realignment was making it more difficult for Hopkins to fill out a nationally competitive schedule. The Blue Jays' familiarity with the Big Ten's present and future men's lacrosse programs was also a major factor in the school's decision to affiliate with that conference. Hopkins' rivalry with Maryland is one of the sport's most famous, having first been played in 1895.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
The Blue Jays have played Rutgers intermittently since 1920, added Michigan to their regular-season schedule in 2013, and at the time of the announcement played their two annual preseason exhibitions against Ohio State and Penn State. The Big Ten reportedly allowed Hopkins to keep its then-current television contract with ESPNU for its home games.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
Hopkins' move was seen as having major ramifications for future conference realignment within men's lacrosse. An SB Nation lacrosse blog called the future of ECAC Lacrosse into serious doubt. That conference was already set to lose Loyola to the Patriot League and Denver to the Big East, and would then lose Michigan and Ohio State to the Big Ten. Barring any future moves, the ECAC would have been left with an unsustainable four-team league in 2014–15. The Colonial Athletic Association, which would lose Penn State to the Big Ten, was tentatively left with six men's lacrosse teams in 2015. According to the blog, "The formation of the Big Ten lacrosse league was the biggest realignment issue out there [in men's lacrosse], and its effects are ill-defined."


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
Within weeks of Hopkins' move, three of the four remaining ECAC Lacrosse teams announced their departure for other conferences, signaling the demise of that league after the 2014 season. First, on June 18, Fairfield announced it would move its men's lacrosse team to the CAA for 2014–15, effectively replacing Penn State in that league. Then, on July 1, Hobart, like Johns Hopkins a Division III institution with a Division I lacrosse program, announced it was joining the Northeast Conference effective immediately.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
One week later, Bellarmine, a Division II school with a Division I lacrosse team, announced it would become an affiliate of the Atlantic Sun Conference (A-Sun) in 2014–15 (it ultimately joined the Southern Conference following the January 2014 announcement of an alliance between that league and the A-Sun, under whose terms the Southern Conference took over A-Sun men's lacrosse). These moves left Air Force as the only ECAC Lacrosse member that had no confirmed conference home for the 2015 season; it would ultimately play that season as an independent before becoming a lacrosse member of the Southern Conference for the 2016 season.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Addition of lacrosse and first-ever associate member
The Big Ten lacrosse announcement also led to the demise of the American Lacrosse Conference (ALC), a women's lacrosse league which had been home to the four pre-2015 Big Ten women's lacrosse programs. With four of its seven members leaving for the Big Ten, and Johns Hopkins announcing its move to independence, the ALC was left with only two members, Florida and Vanderbilt. Both became single-sport members of the Big East Conference effective with the 2015 season.


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Membership changes, Gallery of Big Ten membership changes
A map of the Big Ten as it existed between 1990 and 2011


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Membership changes, Gallery of Big Ten membership changes
The Big Ten as it existed between 2011 and 2014, after the addition of Nebraska


2010–2014 Big Ten Conference realignment, Membership changes, Gallery of Big Ten membership changes
The Big Ten as it now exists, after the 2014 additions of Maryland and Rutgers


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment
The 2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment refers to extensive changes in conference membership at all three levels of NCAA competition—Division I, Division II, and Division III— beginning in the 2010–11 academic year.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment
Most of these changes involved conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of Division I. Every FBS conference, as well as the ranks of FBS independents, gained and/or lost football members, and the Mid-American Conference was the only FBS conference whose all-sports membership did not change. Most notably, the old Big East Conference split into football-sponsoring and non-football sponsoring conferences in 2013 with the establishment of the American Athletic Conference and the new Big East Conference, while the Western Athletic Conference became the first Division I FBS conference to drop football since the Big West Conference did so in 2000.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment
The Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) also saw major changes, the most significant being the collapse of the Great West Conference, which dropped football after the 2011 season before folding completely in 2013.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment
Additionally, Division I men's ice hockey underwent major realignment with the Big Ten beginning sponsorship of men's hockey, the formation of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, and the demise of the original Central Collegiate Hockey Association. Every men's hockey conference, with the exception of the ECAC, was ultimately affected.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Background
Rumors of conference expansion began in December 2009, when Big Ten Conference commissioner Jim Delany announced that the league would consider adding one or more teams. Media reports indicated that the Big Ten had two major motives for expansion, the first being the conference's desire to increase the reach of its cable network, the Big Ten Network.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Background
At the time, the conference reportedly received as much as 88 cents per month for every subscriber to the network in the Big Ten member states, and in the 2008–09 fiscal year, the Big Ten Network alone distributed $6.4 million to each of the conference's 11 schools. Second, expanding to 12 or more schools would allow the conference to launch a potentially lucrative conference championship game in football.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Background
Shortly after the Big Ten announced its intention to explore expansion, the Pacific-10 Conference, under new commissioner Larry Scott, announced similar plans. As with the Big Ten, television played a major role in the Pac-10's efforts. The conference's then-current deal with Fox Sports Net was set to expire at the end of the 2010–11 school year, and in the wake of lucrative TV deals recently signed by the ACC and SEC, the Pac-10 felt a need to expand its footprint to gain more leverage in broadcast negotiations. Expansion to at least 12 teams would also allow the Pac-10 to host a conference championship game.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Background
While television was undeniably a factor in the realignment speculation, it was not the only one; Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick claimed that at most schools, realignment was being driven primarily by university administrators who saw an opportunity to improve the academic image of their schools—not by athletic directors. Also, for at least three schools—Hawaiʻi, Belmont, and Denver—travel costs played a major role in their decisions to change conferences.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Background
The realignment process consumed much of the resources of conference administrators. Karl Benson, who was commissioner of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) when the cycle started and became Sun Belt Conference commissioner in March 2012, estimated that about 90 percent of his workload in his first two months as Sun Belt commissioner had been taken up by realignment-related issues—either recruiting new members or trying to keep current members in the conference.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big Ten Conference, First wave
After the Big Ten's initial announcement that it was looking at expansion in December 2009, rumors about possible expansion targets and the possibility that the conference might expand to as many as 14 or 16 teams circulated into May 2010.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big Ten Conference, First wave
On June 11, 2010, Nebraska applied for membership in the Big Ten and was unanimously approved as the conference's 12th school. Its membership became effective July 1, 2011.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big Ten Conference, First wave
Big Ten officials later stated that they had no plans to expand beyond 12 teams in the near future.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big Ten Conference, Second wave
However, in mid-November 2012, the landscape changed, as ESPN reported that the University of Maryland, a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), was in "serious negotiations" to join the Big Ten, ultimately concluding in the Big Ten making an offer to Maryland to join the conference. Rutgers University of the Big East Conference was also reported to be in consideration to join the Big Ten as well.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big Ten Conference, Second wave
On November 19, 2012, the Maryland regents voted to accept the Big Ten's offer, and the Big Ten presidents unanimously approved Maryland's entry later that day. Rutgers announced the day after that they would also join the Big Ten. Maryland and Rutgers officially became the thirteenth and fourteenth Big Ten members on July 1, 2014.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Pac-12 Conference
On June 7, 2010, the universities of the Pac-10 approved potential expansion plans and authorized commissioner Larry Scott to move ahead with expansion and issue invitations to six prospective schools: Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Pac-12 Conference
On June 10, 2010, the Pac-10 announced that Colorado would be joining the conference in 2012. In the following days, rumors circulated that Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State might follow suit and join the Pac-10 as soon as June 15, 2010, though Texas had not yet made a final decision.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Pac-12 Conference
On June 14, Pac-10 Commissioner Larry Scott revealed that Texas had rejected the offer to join the conference. Shortly thereafter Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech pledged to follow suit and stay in the Big 12. Consequently, there was widespread belief that Utah would be offered an invitation to become the 12th member of the Pac-10 in order to ensure an even number of members and allow the Pac-10 to have a football conference championship game.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Pac-12 Conference
On June 17, Utah accepted an invitation to join the conference as its 12th member.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Pac-12 Conference
On September 21, 2010, Colorado and the Big 12 reached an agreement to allow Colorado to join the Pac-10 a year earlier in 2011.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big East Conference and American Athletic Conference
Six Big East schools departed for other conferences. These include West Virginia to the Big 12 in 2012; Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Notre Dame to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in 2013, followed by Louisville in 2014; and Rutgers to the Big Ten in 2014. The seven remaining non-FBS football schools, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall and Villanova, announced in December 2012 that they would leave as a group and form a new non-football conference under the Big East name. Joining them in the revamped Big East were Creighton of the Missouri Valley Conference and Butler and Xavier of the Atlantic 10.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big East Conference and American Athletic Conference
The remaining three members of the old Big East (Cincinnati, Connecticut, and South Florida) formed the American Athletic Conference along with nine other schools: UCF, East Carolina, Houston, Memphis, SMU, Temple, Tulsa, and Tulane as full members, and Navy for football only. Three additional schools, TCU, Boise State and San Diego State had announced plans to join the old Big East but later backed out as the number of football members dwindled.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big 12 Conference
In June 2010, former Big Eight members Nebraska and Colorado announced their departures for the Big Ten and PAC-10, respectively. The Big 12 survived total collapse in the following days when its most prominent football schools (Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech) turned down offers from the Pac-10 to form a 16-team "superconference". The Big 12 was forced to discontinue its football championship game after membership fell below twelve, the minimum number of schools then required to hold such a game.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big 12 Conference
Two more schools departed in 2012 when Texas A&M and Missouri left to join the Southeastern Conference. The Big 12 responded by adding TCU of the Mountain West (formerly committed to join the Big East) and West Virginia of the Big East to keep conference membership at 10 schools.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Big 12 Conference
After the Big 12 was shut out of the initial College Football Playoff in 2014 despite TCU and Baylor finishing as co-champions at 11-1, there was speculation that the Big 12 might expand back to 12 or more teams in order to resume the Big 12 Championship Game for football. In 2016, the NCAA removed its rule requiring FBS conferences to have at least 12 football members to hold a championship game, allowing the Big 12 to reinstate its championship game with only 10 teams, starting with the 2017 season.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Atlantic Coast Conference
Meanwhile, the ACC also faced the rumors of members leaving for the SEC or other conferences. As with the Big East (though the ACC did not have any non-football members until Notre Dame joined in 2013) the rumors were fueled by perceived tension between the basketball powerhouse "Tobacco Road" programs (Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Wake Forest) and the football-dominant schools (primarily Clemson, Virginia Tech, University of Miami, and Florida State) as to whether it should add members with strong basketball programs or those with stronger football programs.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Atlantic Coast Conference
In light of the rumors, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) voted unanimously on September 13, 2011 to raise its exit fees to $20 million. At the same time, multiple schools were rumored as possibilities to join the ACC. On September 18, 2011, the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University officially applied to join the ACC. The applications were accepted later that day. Both teams were from the Big East Conference. They rejoined Virginia Tech, the University of Miami, and Boston College who defected from the Big East in 2003. Even Jim Boeheim, who at the time had played or coached men's basketball at Syracuse for nearly 50 years, did not know about the change in affiliation before it occurred. Pittsburgh and Syracuse ultimately negotiated a buyout that enabled them to join the ACC in 2013.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Atlantic Coast Conference
On September 12, 2012, the conference announced that the University of Notre Dame would become the conference's 15th member, moving all of its intercollegiate sports except for football, men's ice hockey, and fencing into the conference (the ACC at the time did not sponsor the latter two sports, however ACC fencing was reinstated in 2014-15 and Notre Dame fencing joined the conference). As part of the agreement, the football team now plays five games each season with ACC opponents. There remained speculation regarding the timing of the change until March 12, 2013, when it was announced that the Big East would allow Notre Dame to leave for the ACC after the 2012–13 academic year.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Atlantic Coast Conference
At the same time that Notre Dame's future arrival was originally announced, the ACC also instituted an even more massive increase in exit fees. The fee is now set at three times the conference's annual operating budget; for 2012–13, the fee would be roughly $50 million. This, however, was not enough to keep Maryland from announcing a 2014 move to the Big Ten.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Atlantic Coast Conference
On November 28, 2012, the ACC voted to accept Louisville as its 14th member, replacing Maryland. On July 1, 2014, Maryland left the ACC and Louisville joined the ACC.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Major FBS conferences affected, Southeastern Conference
While the Southeastern Conference has made few changes, the conference's 2011 addition of Texas A&M and later of Missouri from the Big 12 Conference set off the second wave of major conference realignment. Several other schools have been rumored as potential expansion candidates. No schools have departed the conference since the 1966 departure of Tulane.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Mountain West Conference
Three schools that had been members at the beginning of the realignment cycle announced plans to join other conferences (the University of Utah, BYU and TCU), and six schools announced plans to join the conference (Boise State University, San Jose State University, California State University, Fresno (generally known as Fresno State), the University of Nevada and Utah State University joined as all-sports members and the University of Hawaii joined for football only). Two schools—one a pre-2010 member (San Diego State University), and the other joining during the cycle (Boise State University)—had announced their upcoming departure, but later decided to stay in the MW.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Conference USA
On October 14, 2011 Conference USA (C-USA) and the Mountain West Conference announced they would enter into a football-only alliance, forming a 22-team league. The league would span 15 states and 5 time zones.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Conference USA
However, following further defections from both conferences, the two leagues decided to enter into talks on a full merger. In early February 2012, ESPN.com reported that the C-USA board of directors was to meet to discuss the merger. However, this merger idea was later scrapped, because of lost revenue from NCAA tournaments. The Mountain West ultimately regained members, thus making this idea unnecessary.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Conference USA
Attrition from C-USA continued, with the former Big East recruiting more than half its members: Central Florida, Houston, Memphis and SMU left in 2013, and East Carolina, Tulane, and Tulsa in 2014. To replace them C-USA turned to the Sun Belt for Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Middle Tennessee, North Texas, and Western Kentucky; the WAC for Louisiana Tech and UT-San Antonio; the Atlantic 10 for former C-USA member Charlotte; and the CAA for Old Dominion. The last two schools had formerly been non-football schools, but ODU began sponsoring football in 2009 (2014 in FBS) and Charlotte in 2013.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Western Athletic Conference
From 2011 to 2014, the WAC saw a near-total replacement of its membership. The departure of Boise State in 2011 for the Mountain West, to be followed by Nevada and Fresno State the next year, kicked off sequential rounds of additions and departures that brought in Denver, UTSA, Texas State, UT Arlington and Seattle, but saw the announced departure of all of the newly added schools except Seattle, along with Hawaiʻi, Utah State, San Jose State, Louisiana Tech and Idaho, leaving only New Mexico State and new member Seattle, thereby endangering the survival of the league.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Western Athletic Conference
Reorganizing as a non-football conference, they repopulated their ranks with Chicago State, UT-Pan American (since merged into UTRGV), Utah Valley, CSU Bakersfield, UMKC (now known athletically as Kansas City) and Division II Grand Canyon University, but since none of these schools participate in women's gymnastics the conference dropped the sport. The WAC also added men's soccer in order to maintain its status as a Division I conference, recruiting four schools from the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation soccer league to join the three WAC members that sponsored the sport at that time.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Mid-American Conference
On April 19, 2011, several media outlets reported that the University of Massachusetts Amherst (also known as UMass) would upgrade its football program to FBS level and become an affiliate member of the Mid-American Conference (MAC), effective in 2013, for that sport only. The formal announcement came the following day at a joint UMass–MAC press conference; the effective date of UMass' move was 2012, with full FBS membership and eligibility for the conference championship coming in 2013. The school continues to maintain all other current conference affiliations, mostly in the Atlantic 10 Conference.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Mid-American Conference
At the time of the announcement, the A10 was also home to Temple University, whose football team was in the MAC; however, by the time UMass football arrived in the MAC, Temple's football program had left for the Big East, and that school had announced that the rest of its athletic program would join the Big East a year later.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Mid-American Conference
As a part of this football upgrade, the Minutemen moved from the 17,000-seat Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium on its Amherst campus, whose capacity is only modestly above the NCAA's requirement of 15,000 average attendance for FBS football. As of 2012, they play their home games 93 miles (150 km) away at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, the 69,000-seat home of the NFL's New England Patriots and the New England Revolution of MLS. UMass is expanding McGuirk Stadium to a capacity of 25,000, and hopes to eventually return at least some games to campus, but was contractually obligated to play all of its home games in 2012 and 2013, plus four games in each season from 2014 to 2016, at Gillette Stadium.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Mid-American Conference
Despite these changes in football membership, the MAC was the only FBS conference whose full-time membership did not change during the realignment cycle. The conference's last change in its core membership was Marshall's departure for Conference USA in 2005.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Sun Belt Conference
The Sun Belt Conference had seen little effect from the first several rounds of realignment, with the only change being the loss of non-football member Denver to the WAC. Although South Alabama had announced it would establish an FBS football program and join the Sun Belt football league in 2012, this move was finalized before the Big Ten and Pac-10 set the realignment process into motion.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Sun Belt Conference
The Sun Belt's next move was to bring back one of its charter members, FCS upgrader Georgia State, effective in 2013. Soon afterwards, it became a target for C-USA after that conference lost several members to the American Athletic Conference. FIU, Florida Atlantic, Middle Tennessee, and North Texas all left for C-USA in 2013, and Western Kentucky did the same in 2014. The Sun Belt initially reloaded by adding new FBS member Texas State and non-football UT Arlington, both from the WAC, effective in 2013.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Sun Belt Conference
It added four more members, two in all sports and two for football only, in 2014. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, both from the FCS Southern Conference, started their FBS transitions in 2013 (remaining in the Southern Conference, ineligible for the conference title and the FCS playoffs, at that time), joined the Sun Belt in 2014, and became full FBS members in 2015. After the WAC dropped football, Idaho, a former football-only Sun Belt member, and New Mexico State, formerly an all-sports member, both returned for football after one season as FBS independents.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Other FBS conferences affected, Sun Belt Conference
On September 1, 2015, the Sun Belt announced that Coastal Carolina of the FCS Big South would join the Sun Belt in 2016 as an all sports-member; however, the football program, as part of its FBS transition, played the 2016 season as an FCS independent, and joined the Sun Belt in football in 2017 (being postseason-eligible only if the team has more than six wins, and more games than six-win eligible teams), becoming fully eligible in 2018. On March 1, 2016, the Sun Belt announced that it would not renew Idaho's and New Mexico State's football associate memberships after 2017.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
Conference realignment came to the second-tier Division I FCS in September 2010, when the Big Sky Conference increased its profile in California by inviting two schools from that state—California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly SLO) and the University of California, Davis (UC Davis)—to join as football-only members. Both schools accepted; no firm date was set at that time, but both were expected to play a full Big Sky schedule starting no later than 2013. The two ultimately began Big Sky play in 2012.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
Cal Poly SLO and UC Davis had previously been full members of the non-football Big West Conference, and at the time of the move had associate football-only memberships in the Great West Conference. Their move to the Big Sky gave them the chance to compete for an automatic bid in the FCS playoffs, which the Great West did not have at any time in its football history.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
From the Big Sky's perspective, the move expanded their presence in California (Sacramento State was already a full member), and also gave the conference the ability to contend for more at-large berths in the FCS playoffs. In order to accommodate this move, the Big Sky school presidents approved an exception to the league bylaws, which normally require member schools to compete in all conference sports. The addition of Cal Poly SLO and UC Davis tentatively gave the Big Sky 11 football members; at that time, the conference was reportedly planning to expand to 12 football members in the future.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
As it turned out, the conference would expand even further, issuing invitations to the University of North Dakota and Southern Utah University to become full members on October 29. On November 1, the Big Sky announced that both schools had accepted and would join effective with the 2012–13 academic year. Southern Utah moved from The Summit League, in which it was a full member, and the Great West football conference.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
North Dakota previously competed in the Great West for most sports, but was not eligible for Division I postseason competition (except in ice hockey) because it had been in transition from Division II since the 2007–08 academic year. UND completed its transition in 2012, at the same time it joined the Big Sky. The conference also announced that the University of South Dakota was on the verge of becoming a full member as well. South Dakota, then a Great West member, also began its transition to Division I in 2007–08.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
A report by the Grand Forks Herald on October 29 shed more light on the second round of Big Sky expansion. Both UND and USD were seeking a stable home for their respective football programs. USD had accepted an invitation to join The Summit League in 2011, and UND was seeking membership in that conference as well. There had been speculation for several months that The Summit League would merge with the Missouri Valley Football Conference (MVFC), which would have provided both schools a football home alongside their respective in-state rivals, North Dakota State and South Dakota State. However, no momentum had developed for such a move in fall 2010, which led both UND and USD to reevaluate their options. In the end, USD turned down the Big Sky offer (see below).


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
The Big Sky's next move came in October 2012, when one of its charter members, the University of Idaho, announced its return to the conference in July 2014. Idaho had been one of the six original members of the Big Sky in 1963, and remained in the conference until 1996. The Vandals joined for all sports except football, which it was planning to play as an FBS independent before rejoining the Sun Belt football conference.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big Sky Conference
By returning to the Big Sky, Idaho rejoined a conference with numerous regional rivals, most notably cross-state rival Idaho State. Another Big Sky rivalry, against Eastern Washington, dates to 1905, and rivalries with two other Big Sky members, Montana and Montana State, were then more than 90 years old.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Missouri Valley Football Conference
Ultimately, South Dakota decided to turn down the offer of Big Sky membership after receiving an invitation to join the MVFC on November 3, 2010. Their acceptance, which was officially announced the following day, took effect in 2012, when USD became fully eligible for Division I postseason competition. This move also meant that USD followed through with its announced plans to join The Summit League in 2011.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Ohio Valley Conference
On May 13, 2011, the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) and Belmont University jointly announced that Belmont would leave the non-football Atlantic Sun Conference to become the 12th member of the OVC in July 2012. Belmont became the second OVC member in Nashville, joining Tennessee State; the OVC headquarters are in the suburb of Brentwood. Three other member schools are located in Tennessee (Austin Peay, Tennessee Tech, and UT–Martin), and a fourth (Murray State) is in a Kentucky county that borders Tennessee.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Ohio Valley Conference
Belmont had aspirations of joining the OVC while it was transitioning from NAIA to NCAA Division I, but could not at the time because the OVC then required all members to sponsor football. This rule does not exist today—two other OVC members do not play football in the conference, with Morehead State playing non-scholarship football in the Pioneer Football League and SIU Edwardsville not sponsoring the sport. Belmont president Dr. Robert C. Fisher unequivocally denied any interest in starting a football program, stating "Football is not on the back burner. It's not on any burner."


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Ohio Valley Conference
Belmont had to pay a $200,000 exit fee to the Atlantic Sun. However, Belmont AD Mike Strickland said, "...ballpark, I think it is going to be well over $250,000 a year in savings because we fly a lot in the Atlantic Sun. Half the places in the OVC we won't spend the night, so it will be a great savings and hopefully we can reinvest that in our programs." Fisher shared that sentiment, adding, "We will more than make that up in travel costs the first year. We don't have to get on an airplane.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Ohio Valley Conference
The longest trip we have to take in the OVC is about the same distance as our shortest trip outside of Nashville to play an A-Sun team." Although Belmont left behind an in-city rival in Lipscomb, all involved with the move wished that rivalry to continue. Ultimately, both Belmont and Lipscomb announced their basketball series would continue with home-and-home games each season, unusual among non-conference rivalries.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Ohio Valley Conference
Belmont also became the first private school in the OVC since Samford University left for the Southern Conference in 2008, and only the third ever to compete in the conference (the University of Evansville was the first).


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Southland Conference
On October 25, 2011, the conference announced Oral Roberts University would join in 2012 from The Summit League. Nearly a month later, on November 21, the Southland added Houston Baptist University as a member to join one year later, in 2013. Houston Baptist also announced intentions to start a football program, which would begin play in the Southland in 2014.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Southland Conference
The conference was not done with expansion; on August 20, 2012, it announced that the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) would join alongside Houston Baptist in 2013. Since UIW upgraded from the Division II Lone Star Conference, it was not eligible for Division I postseason play until the 2017–18 school year. In football, it began playing a full Southland schedule in 2014–15, the same year that it was first counted as a Division I school for NCAA scheduling purposes.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Southland Conference
Three days after the UIW announcement, the conference announced that a third school, the University of New Orleans, would join in 2013. After Hurricane Katrina caused major damage to the university and led to a substantial drop in enrollment, UNO had applied at different times for Division III and Division II membership.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Southland Conference
However, a change in UNO's leadership led to the Privateers remaining in Division I. On August 25, Abilene Christian University, a charter member of the Southland but for the last forty years playing in Division II, announced that they too would be promoting their programs from the Lone Star Conference to rejoin the Southland.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Southland Conference
Oral Roberts would ultimately spend only two years in the Southland Conference, returning to the Summit League in 2014.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big South Conference
The Big South Conference, made up of a mix of smaller public and private institutions in the South Atlantic states, had 10 members when the realignment cycle started in 2010, but had committed to bringing back charter member Campbell University in 2011, making for a somewhat awkward 11-member lineup.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big South Conference
On January 23, 2012, the Big South announced Longwood University, a small public school in Farmville, Virginia, as its 12th member, effective in 2012–13. The Lancers, which then (as now) had no football program, had been independent since moving up from Division II in 2007, and had sought membership in a Division I conference. After the Big South invitation came, Longwood athletic director Troy Austin said the school's athletic program now had "a place to call home", and longtime Lancers baseball coach Buddy Bolding called the move "the best thing to happen at Longwood since coeducation and university status."


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big South Conference
(Longwood, founded in 1839, had been an all-women's school until 1976, and did not become a university until 2002.) The addition of Longwood allowed the Big South to split into divisions, and also balanced the league's geographic distribution, giving it a fourth Virginia member along with the four from both North and South Carolina.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big South Conference
About a month after Longwood became a Big South member, the football side of the conference suffered a significant blow with the loss of football-only associate Stony Brook to the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA). The Seawolves' move left the Big South with only six schools in its football league—one of which, Liberty, had announced plans to leave the Big South and upgrade to FBS football once it received an invitation from an FBS conference. The NCAA requires that conferences have at least six members to maintain their automatic berths in the FCS playoffs.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big South Conference
With that in mind, the Big South announced on February 14, 2013 that Monmouth University, set to leave the Northeast Conference (NEC) for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) in July 2013, would become a football-only associate in 2014. Monmouth was seeking a new home for its football program because its new conference has not sponsored the sport since 2007.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big South Conference
The move was a significant upgrade for Monmouth football; at that time, the NEC imposed a limit of 40 full scholarship equivalents in football (which has since increased to 45), while the Big South then (as now) allowed the FCS maximum of 63. In order to more effectively manage the transition, Monmouth competed as an FCS independent in 2013 before playing a full Big South schedule in 2014. The initial agreement between the Big South and Monmouth was for four seasons, and Monmouth remains a Big South football member today.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Big South Conference
On September 1, 2015, Coastal Carolina announced that it would depart from the Big South to the FBS Sun Belt Conference in 2016 for all sports except football, which will join the conference in 2017 in its second year of the FBS transition.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Patriot League
Realignment reached still further into the ranks of mid-major schools when Boston University, a charter member of the America East Conference, announced on June 15, 2012 that it would depart for the Patriot League in 2013. The BU ice hockey teams for both men and women remained in Hockey East, as the Patriot League does not sponsor the sport. In an irony, the Patriot League, which began in 1986 as the football-only Colonial League before becoming an all-sports conference in 1990, brought in a school that dropped football in 1997. The official announcement of the conference move made no mention of football.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Patriot League
According to BU athletic director Mike Lynch, the school had been in exploratory talks with the Patriot League "for four or five years" prior to the announcement. Ultimately, the school's administration saw the move as what Lynch called "an opportunity to go someplace that's extremely stable with brand-name institutions."


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Patriot League
The Terriers' move was seen as a major blow to their former conference. At the time of BU's announcement, it had won the previous seven America East Commissioner's Cups for all-sports performance, collecting 40 conference championships in that period. The departure of BU left the America East with eight members; one of them, Stony Brook, was reportedly a CAA expansion target, and eventually joined that league for football only (see 2010–13 Colonial Athletic Association realignment). BU itself had reportedly been a CAA target before announcing its move.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Patriot League
Like the CAA, the America East has a bylaw that allows the conference to prohibit a departing school from participating in any conference postseason tournament. The America East chose to enforce this rule against BU in its lame-duck 2012–13 America East season. In turn, this meant that the 2012–13 Terriers could not receive an automatic bid to any NCAA championship that was linked to an America East tournament, most notably the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Patriot League
The Patriot League was not finished with expansion. On August 29, 2012, it announced that Loyola University Maryland, then in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), would join in 2013. The Baltimore-based Greyhounds were coming off what The Baltimore Sun called "the most successful athletic year in school history", including the men's basketball team's first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 1994, an NCAA quarterfinal berth by the women's lacrosse team, and a national championship for the men's lacrosse team.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Patriot League
While most of Loyola's sports were housed in the MAAC at the time of its announcement, the school's lacrosse teams played elsewhere—the men's team in the ECAC and the women's team in the Big East. Like BU, Loyola does not sponsor football, and as with the BU announcement, the Loyola announcement did not mention that sport.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Patriot League
Current Loyola athletic director Jim Paquette indicated that the move was dictated by academics as much as athletics, saying, "The Patriot League has been a very strong academic league, and at the same time it was very strong in athletics, so it was very appealing to us. We believe we're going to a conference that values both very highly, and we know we can be successful" Former Loyola AD Joe Boylan noted that the school had first discussed joining the Patriot League in the late 1990s. He echoed his successor's sentiments, saying, "I think it's a very significant move. I think it says a lot about where the institution is from the academic side and the national profile side. I think it aligns them with the second Ivy League and it reinforces the school's profile as a fairly top-level academic institution."


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Colonial Athletic Association
After having been raided by several other conferences in the preceding months, the CAA initially decided to reload with football in mind. On August 7, 2012, the conference announced that it would add Albany and Stony Brook as football-only associates in 2013. At the time of the announcement, both schools were full members of the America East with associate football memberships elsewhere—Albany in the Northeast Conference (NEC) and Stony Brook in the Big South Conference. Both remained America East members.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Southern Conference
The Southern Conference lost 5 members and gained 3 between 2013 and 2014. The College of Charleston departed the SoCon in 2013, joining the CAA. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern began transitions to the FBS level in 2013. Both Appalachian State and Georgia Southern remained on the Southern Conference schedule for the 2013 season; however, both teams were ineligible for the league championship and playoffs. Both schools joined the Sun Belt Conference in 2014, becoming bowl eligible in 2015. The other two departing members Elon and Davidson joined the CAA and Atlantic 10, respectively.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, FCS conferences affected, Southern Conference
Two of the three schools joining the SoCon in 2014 were past members. Both VMI and East Tennessee State left the SoCon in 2003, joining the Big South and Atlantic Sun, respectively. Football upstart Mercer departed from the Atlantic Sun to join the SoCon in all sports.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, West Coast Conference
The first non-football conference to make a significant move during this realignment cycle was the West Coast Conference (WCC), which officially invited Mountain West member Brigham Young University (BYU) on August 31, 2010. The move to the WCC, which followed a period in which BYU had flirted with a return to its one-time conference home of the WAC, gave BYU's non-football sports a home while its football program chose to become independent.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, West Coast Conference
The WCC was not finished with expansion; on March 28, 2012, the WCC welcomed back one of its charter members when it announced that the University of the Pacific would rejoin the conference in July 2013. Pacific had been one of the five original members of what was then the California Basketball Association in 1952, but moved its non-football sports to the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA), now the Big West Conference, in 1971. (Pacific's football team, previously an independent, joined the PCAA at the league's founding in 1969.)


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, West Coast Conference
Both BYU and Pacific fit into the WCC's pre-realignment profile of a conference consisting entirely of private, faith-based institutions (all WCC members in 2010 were Catholic except for Pepperdine University, affiliated with the Churches of Christ). BYU is the flagship school of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Pacific was founded by Methodists in 1851 and retains an affiliation with the United Methodist Church, although it is now officially non-denominational and has not received financial support from the church since 1969.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, West Coast Conference
According to The Record, the daily newspaper of Pacific's home city of Stockton, California, "Pacific's administration. . . had a long-stated desire to join the WCC, because they felt it was a better fit academically, geographically and financially." Pacific was an outlier in the PCAA/Big West throughout its tenure in that conference; despite many membership changes, it is the only private school to have ever been a member. It had joined the PCAA to accommodate football, but after the school dropped the sport in 1995, it had openly sought to rejoin the WCC.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, West Coast Conference
However, the WCC, whose membership had been stable with eight schools since 1980, showed no interest because of the lack of available private institutions that would bring the conference membership to 10. Once BYU came on board, the WCC then sought to add a 10th member to ease scheduling, with Pacific becoming an obvious choice, especially after Seattle (also a Catholic institution) chose to join the WAC.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, West Coast Conference
By moving to the WCC, Pacific rejoined a conference with institutions closer to its size and mission. BYU, with an enrollment of nearly 33,000, is the only WCC member with an enrollment in five figures. Also, the WCC's profile in Pacific's major revenue sport of men's basketball has steadily increased in recent years, with the conference's highest-profile program of Gonzaga now joined by Saint Mary's and BYU as frequent NCAA tournament entrants. At the time of Pacific's return, the WCC had a broadcast contract with ESPN, running through 2018–19, that guaranteed each conference member at least three national television appearances per season on one of ESPN's networks.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, Atlantic Sun Conference
On May 13, 2011, Belmont University announced it was leaving for the Ohio Valley Conference. On December 8, 2011, the conference announced Northern Kentucky University would join in 2012. Because Northern Kentucky came to the Atlantic Sun, now branded as the ASUN Conference, from the Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference, the Norse had to undergo a four-year transition period (with the exception of their cross country, golf, and track and field programs), with all teams gaining postseason eligibility for the 2016–17 academic year. Mercer and East Tennessee State left for the Southern Conference in 2014.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, Atlantic 10 Conference
The Atlantic 10 (A-10) had suffered a major blow with the loss of traditional conference power Temple to the Big East in March 2012. Unlike the realignment moves in FBS (which were largely driven by football) the A-10 (which does not sponsor football) made moves with basketball in mind, as the A-10 is one of the strongest basketball-centric conferences.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, Atlantic 10 Conference
When it became clear that Temple was on its way out, the A-10 entered into talks with Butler University of the Horizon League and George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) of the CAA. While initially George Mason opted out, VCU and Butler entered the conference in 2012, only to see Butler and Xavier University depart the Atlantic 10 for the newly formed non-football Big East in 2013. George Mason then agreed to join the conference, while Davidson College of the Southern Conference would be added for the 2014-15 school year.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, America East Conference
The America East eventually offset the loss of Boston University by adding University of Massachusetts Lowell on February 13, 2013. UMass Lowell upgraded all of its sports teams to Division I from the Division II Northeast-10 Conference, with the exception of men's ice hockey, which already competed in Division I as a member of Hockey East. The River Hawks began competition in America East in the 2013–14 academic year, but all UML teams except for ice hockey were ineligible for postseason play until the 2017–18 academic year due to their Division I transition period. Since Lowell is within the Boston metropolitan area, the addition of UML allowed the America East to keep their presence in the Boston television market.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
The MAAC, after having lost Loyola to the Patriot League, sought to shore up its numbers, and also took an opportunity to expand further within its Northeastern footprint. On December 14, 2012, the conference announced that two schools from the Northeast Conference (NEC)—Monmouth University, located in New Jersey, and Quinnipiac University, located in Connecticut—would both join the MAAC in July 2013. Quinnipiac became the second MAAC member from Connecticut, joining Fairfield, while Monmouth joined two other New Jersey schools in Rider and Saint Peter's.


2010–2014 NCAA conference realignment, Non-football Division I conferences affected, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
At the time, the MAAC was reportedly seeking to expand to 12 members, with Wagner College, an NEC member located on Staten Island, being seen as the likeliest candidate for the 12th slot. However, Wagner reportedly had second thoughts about the financial commitments involved. If and when the MAAC reaches 12 members, each school is set to have a regional travel partner; Monmouth was expected to be Rider's partner, and presumably Fairfield and Quinnipiac would be paired.