![]() ![]() UL is in the midst of a $115 million athletic facilities masterplan announced in 2013.Īlready, a new Athletic Performance Center has been built, Cajun Field was expanded to include added seating in one end zone and the program’s soccer and track complex has been renovated. “It’s a behind-the-scenes,” he added, “but that is a significant inroad – because now, wherever the room is, whatever conference you’re talking about, if you have people in the room that have been there and seen it, they understand it.” All of them are looking at me like, ‘Are you kidding me? I had no idea you had this.’ “But I think we’ve really opened eyes,” Farmer said, “as we’ve invited athletic directors at some of these schools to come when their team is playing us, and they see what they see. The Sun Belt counters with – after New Mexico State and Idaho leave following the 2017 season – UL, UL Monroe, Arkansas State, Texas State, South Alabama, Troy, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Appalachian State and Coastal Carolina for football in 2018. the Sun Belt – “What it would mean,” he said, “to travel, and what it would mean to all sports, not just … football, basketball, baseball, softball.”Īs currently comprised, the AAC has Houston, Memphis, Navy, SMU, Tulane and Tulsa in its West Division and Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Temple, Central Florida and South Florida in its East Division. In fact, Farmer said his department has not yet completed a cost analysis to gauge expenses related to playing in the AAC vs. ![]() With no actual vacancies yet, the AAC – again, according to Farmer – has not selected UL as being among any narrow list of potential new members. “No,” he said, suggesting that would be quite premature at this stage. The AAC, according to Farmer, has not made any site visits to UL. That is not to suggest, however, that UL is engaged in active talks with the AAC or any other conference about leaving the Sun Belt to join their league. “I would hope we would have friends from (current AAC-member) Tulane that would speak highly of us, and speak highly of having somebody in close proximity as a travel partner.” “I certainly hope it would be,” Farmer said. ![]() Ragin’ Cajuns athletic director Scott Farmer was asked that question and many more related to conference realignment during a pair of interviews last week, one held on the open floor of a Superdome gathering room during the Sun Belt’s football Media Day in New Orleans and another behind closed doors in his Lafayette office.įarmer also was asked if he expected UL’s name to be among the front-runners of candidates for filling an American Athletic Conference (AAC) opening, should any arise this year. ![]() With that in mind, how has UL – a member of the Sun Belt Conference, one of those aforementioned Group of Five leagues – positioned itself for a possible move to another conference should vacancies arise as a trickle-down result of probable Big 12 expansion? It could happen before the fast-approaching 2016 college football season gets under way.Īnd at least one Group of Five league, the American Athletic Conference, has acknowledged it could lose multiple members to the Big 12, with Houston, Memphis, UConn and Cincinnati all widely viewed as top contenders and others perhaps in the mix. The Big 12, a Power 5 conference, has acknowledged plans to likely expand from its current membership of ten. ![]()
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