WKU athletics ready to embrace move to Conference USA

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Western Kentucky University football coach Jeff Brohm is happily wearing a black Conference-USA shirt. The logo for the new home of WKU athletics is already on the Houchens Industries–L. T. Smith Stadium field and will be placed on the basketball court floor at Diddle Arena soon.

There will be a party in the (Conference) USA on July 1 — the day the Hilltoppers officially join the league. The university is hosting a celebration with its coaches and the public at 643 Sports Bar. All the paperwork has been signed. C-USA is a go.

Speculation about WKU making a move from the Sun Belt Conference to C-USA existed for years prior to the official press conference in April 2013. WKU is taking over the spot vacated by Tulsa, which is joining the American Athletic Conference. Though WKU's move might have seemed inevitable to some as the conference realignment changed the face of the college athletics, don't tell that to WKU athletic director Todd Stewart.

Speaking recently to The Courier-Journal, Stewart said he didn't assume anything.

"There were some nervous moments," Stewart said. "There was so much movement. Then it started to settle down. It was like a game of musical chairs. You didn't want to be the one left standing when the music stopped."

How much better will the sports life be for WKU in C-USA?

Potentially, significantly better.

In football for 2014, C-USA will have five primary bowl-game tie ins (the New Mexico Bowl, the Heart of Dallas Bowl, the Boca Raton Bowl, the Bahamas Bowl, and the Hawaii Bowl).

The Sun Belt only had two primary tie ins. Despite being bowl eligible the past three seasons, the Hilltoppers have only gone to one bowl (the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in 2012) during that stretch.

In basketball, since the 2010 NCAA tournament, C-USA has received three at-large berths: UTEP (2010), Alabama-Birmingham (2011) and Southern Mississippi (2012). The Sun Belt hasn't received an at-large bid since South Alabama in 2008.

The power conferences rule college sports. The Big Ten, Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 and the Pacific-12 Conference dominate on the field and the finances. But then there is a second tier, and Stewart said WKU's move into C-USA puts it on favorable level within those other schools.

"There are 32 Division I conferences," Stewart said. "You have (the power five) but in C-USA, we're in that next group of five: Conference USA, the Mountain West, the American, the MAC, and the Sun Belt. That group of five is at a high level, but I believe that Conference USA gives us a stage to be at that highest level within that group of five."

Financially, WKU should be ready to compete. The Hilltoppers' athletic budget of $24.7 million for 2013-14 would have put it in the middle of the pack among last year's C-USA teams. (Rice, a private institution, had the league's highest budget at $32 million.).

In 2012, WKU was the national runner-up for the Excellence in Management Cup, which determines which athletic departments are maximizing fiscal resources leading to championship victories. (Kent State was in first place).

On the field, for football in 2014 Conference USA there will be seven teams in the East Division and six teams in the West Division. WKU will play in the East along with FIU, Florida Atlantic, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, and UAB. The West will be Louisiana Tech, North Texas, Rice, Southern Miss, UTEP and UTSA. The teams will play an 8-game schedule with Charlotte scheduled to join in football in 2015.

In basketball, there will be an 18-game slate but no divisional split.

Football has been the driving force behind conference realignment. WKU and Old Dominion will be playing their first year in the league. On paper, WKU (8-4, last season) looks like it should be able to contend in C-USA. The Sporting News picked the Hilltoppers to finish second in the East behind Marshall. Athlon Sports magazine predicted a fourth-place finish.

Marshall, led by quarterback Rakeem Cato, will be the overall league favorite and could make a run at an undefeated season. Rice will be favored to win the West.

Brohm, an offensive coordinator at UAB in 2012, has some familiarity with the league.

"I know the type of talent we're going to play," Brohm said. "It's a league where teams like to spread it out — go fast. They try to put a lot of points on the board. ... I don't think there are any weeks on the schedule where you breathe a little bit. That's what makes the conference good. It's going to be very competitive for us."

For the immediate future, WKU probably will have a better chance at winning a conference title in basketball. The Hilltoppers went 20-12 last year and will have four returning starters including all-conference players T.J. Price and George Fant and the Sun Belt freshman of the year in Chris Harrison-Docks. That doesn't include center Aleksej Rostov who missed the second half of the season with a blood clot.

The preseason favorite will be Louisiana Tech (29-8) with four returning starters, including three all-conference guards from a team that reached the quarterfinals of the National Invitational Tournament. He said The Bulldogs and UTEP (four returning starters) could potentially be preseason top 25 teams. That's a good thing as far as WKU coach Ray Harper is concerned.

Having a couple of top 25 programs in C-USA enhances the league's chance of receiving multiple NCAA bids.

"It's going to be a heck of a league," said Harper of a conference that had five teams win over 20 games last year. "If you look at the A-10 putting six team in the tournament (last season), Missouri Valley (in 2006) putting in four, I think Conference USA can be like that this coming season."

Women's basketball coach Michelle Clark-Heard hopes the move will position her program for the possibility of an at-large berth. The WKU grad is also happy to renew some rivalry games. The Lady Toppers will again face their longtime nemesis Middle Tennessee as well as some other rivals from the past.

"I think it's going to be awesome to be able to play Old Dominion, Charlotte, Louisiana Tech," Clark-Heard said. "A lot of those schools were in the Sun Belt when I played. You get to play against Middle again. It's going to be a very strong league."

The internal expectations will be high — for all sports.

Stewart points out that WKU has won 11 Sun Belt titles over the past two seasons and nine in different programs. Two years from now, he wants the same results in C-USA.

"I would hope we would not take a step back in any way, shape or form," Stewart said.

Contact Michael Grant at (502) 582-4069, and on Twitter @MichaelGrant_CJ.

Conference-USA schools

*Charlotte 49ers

Charlotte, N.C.

Founded: 1946 (Enrollment 25,063)

*will enter for football in 2015

Florida Atlantic Owls

Boca Raton, Fla.

Founded: 1961 (30,759)

Florida International Panthers

Miami, Fla.

Founded: 1972 (50,000)

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs

Ruston, La.

Founded: 1894 (11,014)

Marshall Thundering Herd

Huntington, W. Va.

Founded: 1837 (14,000)

Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders

Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Founded: 1911 (26,432)

North Texas Mean Green

Denton, Texas

Founded: 1890 (36,111)

Old Dominion Monarchs

Norfolk, Va.

Founded: 1930 (24,753)

Rice Owls

Houston, Texas

Founded: 1891 (6,082)

Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles

Hattiesburg, Miss.

Founded: 1910 (16,604)

Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners

San Antonio, Texas

Founded: 1969 (30,474)

UAB Blazers

Birmingham, Ala.

Founded: 1969 (17,999)

UTEP Miners

El Paso, Texas

Founded: 1914 (23,0003

Western Kentucky Hilltoppers

Bowling Green, Ky.

Founded: 1906 (21,124)