To help you visualize WKU’s move, here are a couple noted Hilltoppers topping an imaginary hill. Today we learned the Big Red costume has a pocket on the leg, presumably to hold the vials of human tears that sustain its existence.

Since we last updated our easy-to-use conference realignment graphic, a length of time ago so short it can still comfortably be expressed in hours, here’s what else has transpired in the ceaseless league-hopping square dance: As first reported over the weekend by the Bowling Green Daily News, Western Kentucky has elected to join Conference USA next summer.

The move will take effect on July 1, 2014; the school will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. ET to formally announce the switch. No replacement member institution has been announced for the Sun Belt, but our pals at SB Nation heard a while back that JMU was next in line to level up should a current team depart.

Karl Benson, you deserve all these balloons for not naming your divisions Helios and Apollo or some damn thing. (Andrew Fielding/Zumapress.com)

The four-team Sun Belt expansion is official, and once it’s complete — and if nobody else leaves — the league will boast 12 teams and the ability to split into divisions and stage a conference championship game. Sagely observing the errors of power conferences we shall not name here, the SBC has elected to name its divisions Sun Belt East and Sun Belt West; the league will split as follows, per an Idaho press release:

When the Vandals enter the league in 2014, there will be two six-team divisions. A Western Division with Idaho, New Mexico State, Texas State, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe, and an Eastern Division with Appalachian State, Georgia State, Georgia State, South Alabama, Troy and Western Kentucky. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern will be in transition from FCS status. 

Y’all know how these things go. You know there was at least a sliver of a chance that Very, Very Western Sun Belt members Idaho and New Mexico State could’ve ended up in the East. Excellent avoidance of typical pitfalls, Sun Belt bigshots.

This makes two Idaho football-related posts in a row for us, which has to be some sort of record, and also involves us writing about realignment without grinding our back teeth to powder in seething resentment, which is definitely also a record. College football’s controlling interests have heeded our “Everybody into the Sun Belt” advice and the SBC’s ranks will swell with four new teams, not two. From Dennis Dodd:

Later in the week, perhaps as early Thursday, it is expected that New Mexico State and Idaho will also join the league beginning in 2014. Idaho and New Mexico State football will be football-only members. Beginning in 2014, that will give the league 12 members, enough to stage a conference playoff that will be played on the campuses.

We all know what this means, right? Right:

FINALLY. RT @TheRealPSJ: Idaho's back in the Sun Belt which means ULL might get to avenge that 2004 loss in the Kibbie Dome—
Bill Connelly (@SBN_BillC) March 26, 2013

Monstrously promising scheduling idea from friend of the program @Jerkwheatery:

I want a Sun Belt/MAC Challenge every year in football. Played exclusively on a Tuesday and Wednesday nights.—
Chris Driver (@Jerkwheatery) March 25, 2013

BRING FORTH THE CAJUNS TO YPSILANTI. SEND THE HUSKIES TO JONESBORO. MURFREESBORO CRIES OUT FOR YOU, BUFFALO.—
Chris Driver (@Jerkwheatery) March 25, 2013

You know, we were going to have to redo this graphic anyway to update Boise State’s un-defection and whatnot, but now we’re just running out of room:

Two of the most prominent teams in the second tier of college football will be moving up, as Georgia Southern and Appalachian State are going to join the Sun Belt of the FBS, a source tells SB Nation’s Steven Godfrey. Godfrey reports GSU will make the move in 2015.

Y’all have no idea how long it took to align all those scribbles properly.

2012 Sun Belt champs Arkansas State will rematch with the runner-up Ragin’ Cajuns in mid-October. (AP)

The 2013 Sun Belt football schedule is out, including agendas for new members Georgia State and Texas State, and can be perused in its entirety on the conference’s website. The release contains a phrase that’ll probably become common once conference realignment becomes the new normal, but still elicits a giggle: “All four of the Sun Belt Conference’s bowl teams from 2012 (Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe and WKU) return for the 2013 season.”

Check out some key dates after the jump:

Read More…

Maybe we go with “Conference Mike TranghEast,” for fond memories’ sake. (AP)

After a couple solid years of making jokes about ManifEast Destiny, we may really have to rename the Big East. If the conference goes through with selling its brand to the just-hatching conference of Catholic basketball defectors — always knew the Big East wasn’t suited for football, didn’t we? — and the Sun Belt remains an independent entity, depriving us of the long dreamed-of SunBEast merger, fresh titling will be called for. The internet is here to help.

• “All-you-can-EAST Buffet” — @TomBraggSports

• “Bandwagons East” — @bbhrusty

• “the Middle East” — @WacJack

• “fEAST for Crows…we can read about the destruction of the Big East AND the family Stark…SIMULTANEOUSLY.” — @purplebuckeye

• “Cats n Corgis Conference (for SEO purposes, obvs)” — @tholzerman

• “Cease and DesEAST” — @ecuamerican

• “(Way) East of Eden” — @cyrisjonfs

• “EASTbound and Down” — IAmSpilly

• “The Big Espagnole” — @TCMcG

• “EastSPN3.Conference” — @MattCox

(We’ve tried all night and most of the morning to make a good Roll Tide joke out of this; if anybody can come up with one, do let us know.)

Our continued best wishes to Tulane’s Devon Walker for a complete recovery. (AP Photo/Tulane University)

Newsy bits of varying degrees of quality from the weekend that was:

• Good news first. “As a senior, I had only a few more credits to get and it would seem like a waste of time for me to have gone through all the struggles I have and just act like I don’t need it any more or act like it wouldn’t help me in the future.” New Orleans’ WWL-TV catches up with Tulane’s Devon Walker, who intends to return to school this fall and wrap up his cell and molecular biology degree.

• And then deer antler spray news, as God intended. Intrepid internet personality Rick Muscles bought him some Bambi shavings at the S.W.A.T.S. gym, which went about how you might expect it to go:

RM: Please remember: a dude with a hologram taped to his nipple was telling me about my second brain.

SH: In your stomach.

RM: In my stomach.

SH: Go on.

• Phrasing. As Friday evening news dumps go, the revelation that Texas offensive coordinator Major Applewhite was disciplined in 2009 for having a relationship with a student was a doozy, and that’s not even counting what may be the most unfortunately placed “during” in sports history:

Deloss Dodds: ""Major Applewhite engaged in inappropriate, consensual behavior with an adult student one time during the 2009 Fiesta Bowl."—
Bob Ballou (@KEYESportsBob) February 02, 2013

Burnt Orange Nation breaks down the situation over here.

• ‘Crootin! When We Get Interested About Recruiting: When we can up our tally of schools holding Signing Day events at Buffalo Wild Wings (New Mexico State makes three!), when the AJC gets to explain what a bong is and when Jim Mora invites everybody over for hot dish, velvet ropes be damned:

Read More…

In the dystopian future of the Big East, BBVA Compass Bowl trophies will be a highly valued currency. (AP)

• “Group of five” still just sounds so ominous. Jeremy Fowler reports on the coalescing system the Big East, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt are working on to distribute playoff revenue from the new postseason system:

In this proposed system, more than half the group’s roughly $86-million playoff pot would be distributed among the Big East, Mountain West, Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and Sun Belt as guaranteed base shares, according to a source with direct knowledge of the discussions. The source expects those shares to be evenly split, but added discussions are ongoing. The second tier pays out based on a conference’s body of work — the top conference gets the highest amount, then “X” amount for the next-rated conference, and on down. The third tier pays a kicker to the conference with the highest-ranked team, which is guaranteed an access bowl bid or, if among the top-four teams in the country, a semifinal berth in the playoff.

• Harbros’ early broing days. Check out Dan Wetzel’s tale of relatively wee Harbaughs recruiting youngsters to their dad’s team at Western Kentucky, including an appearance by one Willie Taggart.

• Exactly how you would’ve guessed. Former Miami Hurricanes make up the biggest slice of Super Bowl roster pie charts, but two of the next five teams on that list are … Marshall and Utah? Marshall and Utah! Go ThunderUtes!

• From the no-jokes department. Compelling story via OTL on UCLA researchers and evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in living football players.

Read More…

We have at least three weeks’ worth of Sebastian photos on hand, in case this Miami story keeps dragging on. (AP)

Assorted newsy bits — of varying degrees of importance — you might have missed over the long weekend:

• Didn’t we already do this headline a week ago? ”Imminent” can mean a lot of things! In the cosmic sense, the NCAA’s investigation of Miami has spanned less than a fraction of an eyeblink, but here we are, riding on a human-speed space-time wave, just twiddling our bloggy thumbs until the ‘Canes’ notice of allegations drops. The latest rumblings, per Bruce Feldman, involve a very large book being thrown at ex-Miami and current Louisville assistant Clint Hurtt and other former ‘Canes colleagues. We’ll have more on this when we actually see the notice of allegations, unless we don’t see this notice of allegations, in which case we’ll be right back here next Monday writing a third variation on this same headline.

• And speaking of the NCAA: On the final day of the annual NCAA convention, the latest raft of changes — touted as an effort to streamline NCAA regulations — were unveiled. Your friendly neighborhood Bylaw Blogger takes a look at one proposal, regarding recruiting start dates, that was left out of the bundle.

Read More…