At one point in time, oh, a couple years years ago, the Southland Conference was on life support. The league, founded in 1963, went from 11 football-playing schools in 2019 to just six by 2021.
Various forces tugged at the strings of the Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas based conference, but the biggest culprit was the WAC. Once the home of schools like BYU, Utah and Boise State, the WAC was attempting a revival, based in large part by pulling SLC members Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin, Abilene Christian and Lamar westward.
Fast forward to today, and it's safe to say that plan has failed. The Southland Conference has survived, and now another former member is coming home.
Lamar played the 2021 football season in the WAC, but was back in the Southland by 2022. Incarnate Word announced its departure for the WAC, but never actually left.
And now, multiple outlets are reporting that Stephen F. Austin will announce this coming week it will leave the WAC to return to the Southland in time for the 2024 football season.
Having joined the league back in 1987, Stephen F. Austin was tied for the longest-standing membership in the Southland when it joined the WAC in 2021.
The WAC joined forces with the ASUN to created the United Athletic Conference, which in 2023 sent the SFA to Utah and Kentucky for conference games. (The Lumberjacks, led by Colby Carthel, were a combined 8-1 in conference play in 2021-22, but went 0-6 in '23.)
SFA's addition will give the Southland 10 football-playing schools: Texas A&M-Commerce, Houston Christian, Incarnate Word, Lamar, SFA and UTRGV (beginning in 2025) in Texas, plus McNeese, Nicholls, Northwestern State and Southeastern Louisiana in Louisiana. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and New Orleans are also aboard as non-football members.
Without SFA, the UAC will be down to just nine football-playing institutions, and two in Texas: Abilene Christian and Tarleton, as well as Austin Peay, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, North Alabama, Southern Utah, and Utah Tech, with West Georgia joining this fall. What sense does it make for West Georgia and Utah Tech to be in the same conference? Might this move inspire other moves elsewhere?
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.