By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – Declaring the Sun Belt Conference to "arguably be the best Group of 5 football conference in the nation," Athletic Director Dr. Wood Selig joined President Brian O. Hemphill, Ph.D., and Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill Thursday morning in formally announcing that Old Dominion will join the league.
"Today, the Sun belt got stronger," Gill said before a packed, enthusiastic crowd of coaches, fans, donors and athletic staff at the Priority Club at S.B. Ballard Stadium.
"This is really an historic day," added Bruce Bradley, rector of the ODU Board of Visitors. "I have not spoken to anybody who hasn't expressed anything but enthusiasm about this move."
The move from Conference USA to the Sun Belt Conference is expected to occur no later than 2023-24, but could occur sooner.
"We have a commitment to work with Conference USA, but we also have to do what's best for the institution and our student-athletes," President Hemphill said when asked if the move could occur as early as 2022.
Selig noted that unlike other leagues that are expanding, the Sun Belt does not need to shed any teams to make room for ODU or Southern Miss, which announced Tuesday it is also leaving C-USA for the Sun Belt.
"The transition to other leagues will be a little more clunky," he said. "This one would be clean."
This will be ODU's second time in the Sun Belt and the fifth league change since the school moved to Division I. ODU joined the ECAC in 1976, left the ECAC for the Sun Belt in 1982, joined the Colonial Athletic Association in 1991 and then left for Conference USA in 2013, when the Monarchs moved up to the Football Bowl Subdivision.
It is anticipated that ODU will join a Sun Belt East Division that will include Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia State and Georgia Southern.
"The expansion process is not over," Gill said, adding he expects the league to add two more schools in the East.
The West will be composed of Louisiana, UL-Monroe, South Alabama, Troy, Texas State, Arkansas State and Southern Miss.
President Brian O. Hemphill, Ph.D., played a key role for ODU
Sun Belt football has been on the rise in recent years, but the league had a breakthrough season in 2020 when both Coastal Carolina and Louisiana were ranked among the Top 25 in the final rankings. The Sun Belt had a 6-3 record against Conference USA in 2020, including a 3-0 record in bowl games, and is 5-1 against C-USA this season.
The move will strengthen other sports as well. Sun Belt men's basketball has been ranked higher than Conference USA in four of the last six seasons, Selig said, and Sun Belt baseball is among the nation's best leagues. Coastal Carolina won the 2016 NCAA Baseball College World Series.
"Traditionally, it's a multi-bid league," said ODU baseball coach Chris Finwood, who coached in the Sun Belt at Western Kentucky before coming to ODU.
Adding ODU and Southern Miss will make Sun Belt baseball stronger. Both participated in last season's NCAA tournament.
Most sports will move to the Sun Belt, with field hockey remaining in the BIG EAST and rowing and lacrosse in the American Athletic Conference.
The Sun Belt does not sponsor men's soccer, but Selig said when expansion is complete, there will be six schools with men's soccer, enough to form a league. He said some affiliate Conference USA members may also join Sun Belt men's soccer.
"I'm confident that it will be one of the strongest men's soccer leagues in the nation," he said.
Selig said the overriding attraction to the Sun Belt was the regional nature of the East Division.
No longer will ODU's teams travel to four Texas schools and to the Miami area. ODU's furthest East Division rival will be Georgia State, a nine-hour drive from Norfolk. Florida International in Miami is about six hours further south.
App State and Coastal Carolina will be within driving distance for ODU athletic teams.
"It's always better to get on a bus than get on a plane," Selig said.
Rector Bruce Bradley said the move to the Sun Belt is popular with alumni
"Student-athlete welfare is always the top priority in every decision we make in athletics. The move to the Sun Belt Conference means less travel, less missed class time, less wear and tear on our student-athletes physically."
He recalled a recent football trip to UTEP, in which a game began at 9 p.m. eastern time and because of mechanical issues on the charter flight, the team did not arrive back on campus until almost 9 a.m.
"We've made that trip three times," he said of the football team. "And all of our teams have been going to El Paso."
Located almost 2,000 miles apart, UTEP and ODU are the most distant conference rivals in the nation.
Joining the Sun Belt will also make travelling to the men's and women's basketball tournaments easier for fans. Conference USA hosts its tournament in Frisco, Texas, a Dallas suburb. The Sun Belt tournament is held over spring break in Pensacola, Florida, where the tournament is scheduled to be played through 2025.
"Who doesn't want go to Pensacola over spring break?" Selig said.
The move will also benefit fans because the Sun Belt includes several natural rivals for ODU. The Sun Belt also has a number of schools whose fans travel well and many Sun Belt schools, including App State, Coastal and Louisiana, have national brands.
"We heard our fan base loud and clear," Selig said. "The common theme has been a desire to be in a league that has a more regional focus with recognizable teams who are supported by a strong fan base.
"The Sun Belt will be hyper fan friendly, and we are hoping it will spur greater community interest to become Old Dominion Athletic Foundation members and buy season tickets."
The Sun Belt's long-term contract with ESPN was also a major consideration. All Sun Belt football and men's and women's basketball games are broadcast on an ESPN platform.
Athletic Director Wood Selig says the Sun Belt is a more regional league than Conference USA
ESPN is contracted to televise at least 15 Sun Belt football games on linear networks: ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU or ESPNews. All other games will be streamed on ESPN3 or ESPN+.
ESPN also broadcasts hundreds of Sun Belt Conference Olympic sports events.
Last season, seven Sun Belt football games had more than one million viewers. ESPN also broadcasts the semifinals and finals of the Sun Belt men's basketball tournament on a linear network.
Conference USA has contracts with several networks, including the CBS Sports Network, ESPN and Stadium, with some games being broadcast on Facebook.
"No longer am I going to hear ODU fans saying, 'I don't know where to look for ODU games' and 'I can't find ODU on TV,'" Selig said. "Just go to ESPN and you will find ODU on TV."
ODU football coach Ricky Rahne said joining the Sun Belt will enhance recruiting. He said ODU often recruits against App State and Coastal Carolina and that until now, the Sun Belt teams have been able to say, not only can your family travel to home games, but also to many away games.
With more regional rivals, ODU can now say the same, he said.
"Parents want to be able to see their kids play," Rahne said. "That's what makes college football so special. They're young men but they're still kids.
"The Sun Belt has done a great job of raising its profile in the last few years. I love competing against good competition and so do our kids."
President Hemphill said the East Division, when expansion is finished, will be a football juggernaut.
"The East Division is going to be a very competitive environment, but I have a great deal of confidence in coach Rahne and our team," he said. "We will raise our own bar and we will compete at the highest level.
"We're excited about that. We're not going to back away from that."
Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill said "we got stronger" by adding ODU
The move is part of a tsunami of changes that began rippling across FBS when the SEC announced it would add Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12, likely in 2023.
The Big 12 responded by taking Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston from the AAC and independent BYU. After being rebuffed by schools in the Mountain West, the AAC turned to Conference USA, taking six schools in one fell swoop – Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Texas-San Antonio, Rice and UAB.
President Hemphill and Selig said until that point, they were committed to trying to add regional rivals to Conference USA.
"It was the overriding, motivating force," Selig said of C-USA losing six schools. "Everybody was trying to keep Conference USA together. But when you take a hit of six, you really have to start assessing the long-term viability and interest of those who remain staying together."
President Hemphill said the six schools leaving was a "significant factor" in ODU's decision, but added that when he was being hired and early-on in his tenure, he received a clear and nearly unanimous message from the Board of Visitors, alumni and donors that change should be considered.
"They made it very clear to me that we needed to think about, 'is this (Conference USA) the right fit for the student-athlete experience when you think about the travel, when you think about traditional rivalries?'"
Conference realignment, he said, "was already on my mind. This situation elevated it. We needed to move on it and make some clear decisions for the institution."
President Hemphill nonetheless praised and thanked Conference USA.
"They opened an important door in the journey for this institution," he said. "Over the years, a lot of friendships have been developed.
"It was not an easy decision, but we knew it was the right decision. We will always have a place in our hearts for our friends in Conference USA."
Selig paid homage to C-USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod, whose visit to Norfolk in 2012 when she was an assistant commissioner led to ODU's admission to C-USA, and gave the Monarchs the opportunity to move up from the Football Championship Subdivision to FBS.
"We appreciate the opportunity to elevate ODU's athletic profile from FCS to the highest level within Division I," he said.
Gill is a former Duke football player and who, as athletic director at Richmond and American University, was already familiar with ODU. The first African American to head an FBS conference, he said ODU was near the top of the Sun Belt expansion list from the start and that things moved quickly once discussions grew serious.
"We knew our core members were strong, so if we were going to expand, we wanted to add value," he said. "And as we did our analysis, we found Old Dominion would make us stronger.
"Old Dominion fits into our league really well. They have a beautiful football facility, a great fan base and a great history in men's and women's basketball. Baseball is very important to our league and their success last year fits right in.
"There will be no easy games in any sport in the East Division and we're really excited about that. This is about competing at the highest level, of games going down to the wire, of having fun with regional rivals."
The Sun Belt, after all, is referred to as the Fun Belt, in part because of days like Saturday, Sept. 13, 2020, when Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina and Louisiana each defeated three Big 12 teams on the road in one day.
That was the kind of fun Group of 5 schools long for and the kind of fun ODU plans to be a part of in the very near future.
Minium was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in his 39 years at The Virginian-Pilot, where he won 27 writing awards. He covers ODU athletics for odusports.com Follow him on Twitter @Harry_MiniumODU, Instagram @hbminium1 or email hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODU Celebrates its "Historic" Ascension Into the Sun Belt Conference
