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| Image from swac.org |
Three weeks ago, the FAMU Rattlers announced that this coming year in the MEAC will be their last, and now their rival and statemate Bethune Cookman will be following in their footsteps. BCU and FAMU will be joined in departure by North Carolina A&T, who will head to the Big South for the 2021-22 academic year. While many factors likely led to Bethune's decision, the writing on the wall for the MEAC had to be among them.
BCU is an interesting geographic outlier. When you remove nearby FAMU, The Wildcats' trip to their next four closest Division I HBCUs is longer than anyone else's. The move to the SWAC makes their longest stretch a bit longer - 1,000 miles to Prairie View vs. just under 900 to Delaware State - but there's something to be said for knowing your conference will be there tomorrow, which was on increasingly shaky ground in the MEAC. Divisional play will also minimize some of the longest trips.
BCU also likely considered a shared fate with FAMU, with whom they've been conferencemates in the SIAC and MEAC since 1950, save for a couple of brief departures for FAMU. The dual move will keep the Florida Classic a conference game, and it will join an already rich slate of intraconference SWAC classics. The addition of BCU and FAMU in the east will certainly also necessitate the shifting of divisions. The new balance would send one of the Mississippi schools to the west; geography would dictate it be Alcorn, though a Jackson State move would keep the BoomBox classic divisional.
Down to six football playing members after the moves, the MEAC is feeling mighty Big Eastish. The remaining schools have to be looking for the exits; it has already been a reported conversation among Delaware State's Board of Trustees, and any other school would be shortsighted not to be having the same conversations. For schools wishing to remain Division I, the Big South, which will already be home to two HBCUs may be the best fit for many as nearly all of the remaining conference falls within or only slightly extends the Big South's footprint. All or parts of the league also share geographical ties with the Southern Conference, Patriot League, Colonial Athletic Association, and Northeast Conference. If schools see fit to end their run at the Division I level, most of the conference is former members of the Divisions II CIAA. The folks at HBCU Gameday also floated the emergence of a new conference.
A loss of the MEAC would also mean the end of the Celebration Bowl, unless they re-evaluated selection. Currently, the game pits the champions of the MEAC and SWAC against one another to determine Black college football's champion. If the MEAC were to continue, four time champion North Carolina A&T would no longer be in the running. The bowl could continue as a SWAC vs. Everybody competition - a move that puts Tennessee State, previously the only Division I HBCU not in an all HBCU conference, in the running for the first time - or take the overall best two records, which could result in either a SWAC rematch or the conference's exclusion. To lose the bowl altogether would destage a major HBCU presence during college football's postseason. But I would imagine there's no determination to be made there until all of the realignment dust settles.
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