Football: Farmer – Not sure how conference moves affect UL 12/20/12

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, December 20, 2012

NEW ORLEANS — It’s a little too early to tell how a recent decision by seven schools that do not play FBS football to leave the Big East will impact the Ragin’ Cajuns’ chances for landing in a new conference, UL athletic director Scott Farmer said Wednesday.

St. John’s, Villanova, Marquette, Providence, Georgetown, DePaul and Seton Hall — all Catholic universities in the Big East — announced Saturday that their presidents voted unanimously to form a basketball-centric conference starting in 2015.

"It hasn’t hurt us. I’ll say it that way," said Farmer, who is in town for Saturday’s New Orleans Bowl between UL and East Carolina. "It definitely hasn’t hurt the situation."

But there has been no new conversation in the last few weeks, Farmer said, between UL and any conference the Cajuns might hope to join.

The Sun Belt Conference to which UL currently belongs, meanwhile, has not yet moved to replace Middle Tennessee and Florida Atlantic, which recently announced plans to join fellow SBC members North Texas and Florida International in a move to Conference USA.

"There’s nothing definitive," said Farmer, who was updated by conference commissioner Karl Benson via conference call earlier this week. "There’s no moves in or moves out, or anything like that.

"I think everybody right now is just trying to figure out this Big East scenario, with the seven Catholic basketball-playing schools that are leaving — how it affects the whole climate, the whole culture of college athletics, the conference climate out there."

It could be January or beyond, Farmer suggested, before the Sun Belt makes any additions beyond those already planned — bringing in Georgia State and Texas State to replace North Texas and FIU.

"You want to see what happens," Farmer said. "There’s so much in flux out there with Conference USA."

Besides North Texas, FIU, FAU and Middle Tennessee from the Sun Belt, Louisiana Tech, Charlotte, Texas-San Antonio and Old Dominion all plan to eventually join C-USA as football-playing members.

But East Carolina (for football only), Central Florida, Memphis, Houston, Tulane and SMU plan to leave C-USA for the ever-changing Big East — or at least they all did before the seven Catholic schools plotted their escape.

"Are they all still gonna move? Are they gonna stay together, or, ‘Maybe it’s not the conference we thought it was; maybe we’ll stay where we were,’" Farmer said.

"There’s so much of that going on.

"I think that’s got to play out, potentially, before it’s so important for the Sun Belt to jump open and start adding."