LEXINGTON, Ky. — When the stunning news broke last summer that Big 12 cornerstones Oklahoma and Texas were on the cusp of moving to the SEC, I will surmise that few reacted by thinking, “I bet this is going to have a massive impact on Western Kentucky University athletics.”
Yet that is what has happened.
The game of conference musical chairs set off by OU and Texas has had a dramatic influence on the health of WKU’s league, Conference USA.
“I use the term ‘Carousel of Madness,’ ” says Western Kentucky Athletics Director Todd Stewart of conference realignment. “That’s honestly what it feels like at times.”
By moving to the SEC, Oklahoma and Texas unleashed reactions that have just kept spreading down the food chain of conferences.
The Big 12 responded by raiding the American Athletic Conference for three members, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston, while also adding football independent BYU.
That led the American to decimate C-USA by taking almost half of the 14-team league — adding Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice, UAB and UTSA (Texas-San Antonio for the abbreviation-challenged).
Sensing C-USA’s vulnerability, the Sun Belt Conference also swooped in and plucked Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Mississippi.
So in only a matter of months from the time the Oklahoma/Texas news broke, WKU went from being in a viable 14-team league to being one of five remaining members — with Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State and UTEP — of a conference battling to survive.
“Just a domino effect,” Stewart says. “Once it started, the dominoes kept falling.”
It fleetingly appeared that WKU had its own off ramp out of the foundering C-USA. The Mid-American Conference seemed to be ramping up to extend membership invitations to both Western and Middle Tennessee.
That would have put the Hilltoppers into a stable conference that has an innovative television contract with ESPN for football. It also would have meant WKU’s main rival, MTSU, would have been going with them.
Yet as the gears for a move to the MAC started turning, MTSU reversed course and announced its intention to stay in C-USA.
Did WKU think it and MTSU were working in concert in regard to the MAC?
“We thought we were,” Stewart said. “Originally, the MAC made it clear that they were interested in adding both of us and going to 14 (members). So we started down that road and were very interested in the MAC — and remain so.
“But when Middle Tennessee changed course, I think for the MAC at this present time, adding one (school), adding an odd number, wasn’t really the way they were looking at it.”
The nature of the Sun Belt Conference’s raid on C-USA was intriguing.
Both Western and MTSU were among Conference-USA members who had once been in the Sun Belt. Once the current round of realignment so weakened C-USA, it is interesting that the Sun Belt did not offer a lifeline to WKU or MTSU.
A conference’s revenge?
“That’s what some people have speculated,” Stewart said. “The conversations I have had with (the Sun Belt), that’s not what we’ve been told. They added Southern Miss because that is right in the middle of their (geographic) footprint. Then they had kind of an East Coast strategy to add two schools from Virginia, James Madison and Old Dominion, and then, also, Marshall (from West Virginia).”
The American Conference’s plundering of C-USA programs seemed based entirely on market size.
Western has one of the most successful athletics programs in Conference USA in terms of championships won. But Bowling Green is roughly the 182nd-largest media market in the U.S.
“A very good friend of mine, who actually is an athletics director in our conference who is going to the American Conference, said, ‘If everything about (Western) was exactly the same except you were (located) in Nashville, you’d be No. 1 on everybody’s (expansion) list,’ ” Stewart said. “But, we’re not in Nashville. And we’re not going to be in Nashville.”
So, for now, WKU remains in C-USA. To its remaining five schools, the league has added Liberty and New Mexico State, while also dipping into the FCS football ranks for Jacksonville State and Sam Houston State.
Stewart says the challenge for Western is to continue to position itself for the next spin of the realignment wheel.
“We just became bowl-eligible (in football) for the 10th time in 11 years,” Stewart says. “Our volleyball program is ranked No. 18 in the country. Men’s basketball has nine wins (over) Power Five (conference teams) since (coach) Rick Stansbury’s been here. Softball went to the NCAA Tournament last year. ... We feel like that level of success will continue.”
Over the next two to three years, WKU plans to bring several major facilities enhancements on line, Stewart says. Included are an indoor training facility for football and other sports; a new football press box; and new locker rooms for the university’s women’s soccer and softball programs.
So that is how Western Kentucky University seeks to manage the ramifications for it of the chaos Texas and Oklahoma ignited.
“The short game (of realignment), right now, has been a little frustrating,” Stewart says. “In the long game, I still believe we will win.”
