Well, this is new.
On Friday, the trio of Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Miss announced, with negotiations at a standstill, they were leaving for the Sun Belt a year earlier than planned -- for the 2022-23 academic year. In football terms, that meant they'd played their last games as C-USA members.
The announcement happened to come on the day Conference USA internally circulated its 2022 football schedule which, naturally, included Marshall, ODU and USM.
On Tuesday, the league publicly released its schedule, unchanged from Friday, along with this statement.
— Conference USA (@ConferenceUSA) February 15, 2022
That leaves the 11 remaining members in the crossroads. See UAB's scheduling announcement for an example.
UAB 2022 Schedule...
— UAB Football (@UAB_FB) February 15, 2022
9/1 - Alabama A&M
9/10 - at Liberty
9/17 - Ga. Southern
10/1 - at FAU
𝟏𝟎/𝟖 - 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
10/15 - at LA Tech
10/22 - at Rice
10/29 - North Texas
11/5 - UTSA
11/12 - at UTEP
11/19 - at LSU
𝟏𝟏/𝟐𝟓 - 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Maybe Marshall will make that Oct. 8 trip to Birmingham, maybe they won't. Conference USA can't physically force them to board the plane, but they can make this as financially painful as possible.
In the meantime, lawyers for both sides will suit up and hit the legal gridiron as the clock ticks toward kickoff.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.