2 more set to bolt SBC for C-USA

Correction: The University of Tennessee in Knoxville is the largest public university in the state with an enrollment estimated at 27,000. Middle Tennessee is the second-largest with an overall enrollment of 25,394. This story incorrectly stated that Middle Tennessee was the largest university in Tennessee.

Long-standing Sun Belt Conference members Middle Tennessee and Florida Atlantic appear poised to leave the league seven months after the departure of North Texas and Florida International.

Middle Tennessee accepted an offer Wednesday to join Conference USA, according to The Associated Press and The Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Several hours later, ESPN reported Florida Atlantic would make a similar move, with both schools planning to join in 2014.

Middle Tennessee is expected to announce its move at a 10 a.m. news conference today, the Daily News Journal reported, just three days before the Blue Raiders (8-3, 6-1) face Arkansas State (8-3, 6-1) in Jonesboro, a game which will determine the Sun Belt champion.

The Sun Belt defections come one day after reports that Tulane and East Carolina are jumping from Conference USA to the Big East Conference. The Big East needed to fill slots after announcements by Louisville (Atlantic Coast Conference) and Rutgers (Big Ten) that they plan to leave.

Losing Middle Tennessee and Florida Atlantic would leave the Sun Belt with eight football-playing members and 10 overall.

Arkansas State Athletic Director Terry Mohajir, who was hired in September, said Wednesday he expects the shake-up to continue.

“My initial reaction is that things aren’t settled,” Mohajir said. “That’s the best answer I can give you, if it happens to be true.”

Mohajir said ASU has not been contacted by Conference USA but said ASU “will explore all of our options” and will “do what’s best for this university and our fans.”

UALR Athletic Director Chris Peterson declined to go into detail until the moves were announced by the league and schools.

“Until something is official, I can’t really comment, but it’s the world of college athletics,” he said.

In Middle Tennessee, Conference USA is getting the largest public university in Tennessee with 19,682 undergraduate students. The school is located 30 miles southeast of the Nashville media market in Murfreesboro.

Financially, Middle Tennessee’s roughly $21 million athletic budget also matches up well with most of the schools in the planned 14-member Conference USA.

Florida Atlantic, whose move was also reported by The Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has made moves in recent years to make itself attractive to potential suitors since joining the Sun Belt in 2006. In October 2011, the school, which has an undergraduate enrollment of 15,029 on its Boca Raton, Fla., campus, opened a 30,000-seat football stadium that cost roughly $70 million.

Mohajir served seven years as an associate athletic director in charge of fund-raising for Florida Atlantic, and said the school is fulfilling its goal by moving to a league with a more lucrative TV deal.

“They’ve been working on it for a long time, and that’s one of the reasons we built all those new facilities and budget, so they would be attractive for a stronger conference with a better TV contract,” Mohajir said. “That’s what it’s about at the end of the day.”

In May, the Sun Belt replaced lost members by adding Georgia State and Texas State, which will join as full members in July 2013. The conference added Texas-Arlington as a nonfootball-playing member.

Those moves ensured the Sun Belt maintained 10 football-playing schools and 12 members overall, ensuring the conference could maintain two, six-team divisions for men’s and women’s basketball.

Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Harris and Troy Schulte of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Sports, Pages 24 on 11/29/2012

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