Last week was a busy one that ended with four commencement ceremonies and the Board of Governors’ approval of our move to Conference USA (CUSA) — a football bowl series (FBS) conference.
It feels like yesterday we were welcoming our students to campus for the 2023/24 school year. Notably, many in this graduating class started as first years in fall 2020. Everything we did that year revolved around COVID-19 and how to conduct classes without causing thousands of cases on campus.
I look back at that time and wonder how in the heck did we pull it off? Then I remember — with the hard work and dedication of everyone across campus, our collaboration with city leaders and the support of our Board of Governors. We worked together to ensure we provided our students as normal a college experience as possible amid a pandemic. And we succeeded.
Why CUSA?
As a university, the move to CUSA allows us to look forward to continuing to raise our profile on a national level. Admittedly, I can barely contain my excitement over a move that transitions our football program to a bowl-level conference. But there is much more to this than football.
- The majority of CUSA schools are R1 or R2 institutions. This strengthens our aspirational academic goals to be included with the next level of Carnegie classification schools.
- This will provide a better experience for our student-athletes as they’ll now travel primarily by air to competitions, which is safer and faster than traveling by bus.
- The university will be providing “cost of attendance” to a greater number of our athletes.
Moving to an FBS conference has been a thoughtful two-year process, where we reviewed costs, explored options and determined the overall impact on the university. Given the state of athletic conferences over the last two years, this was not a minor consideration.
The board encouraged us to pursue the options available. It wasn’t a one-sided affair. CUSA vetted Missouri State and determined we were the best fit among a group of potential new members.
This is a financially neutral move, where our revenues and expenses will increase by approximately $5 million, respectively.
Incoming president Dr. Richard “Biff” Williams was engaged in the decision-making process soon after he accepted the offer to become MSU’s next president.
It’s an exciting time at Missouri State — both academically and now on the athletics side. We have a bright future ahead of us.
Thanks for all you do for Missouri State.
Clif