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IRVING, Texas Payback can be hell. A week after Old Dominion cancelled a football game at UNC Charlotte slated for 2014, the 49ers retaliated by cancelling a game at ODU scheduled in less than four months. Charlotte officials called off a Nov. 16 game at ODU on Monday, said sources who attended Wednesday’s Conference USA football media day in suburban Dallas. Adding insult to injury, Charlotte replaced ODU on its schedule with James Madison, the Monarchs’ archrival the last two seasons in the Colonial Athletic Association. Charlotte and JMU will play on Sept. 21 in Harrisonburg and then in Charlotte in 2014, reported the Harrisonburg News Record. Meanwhile, Eastern Michigan and ODU have apparently agreed to a 2-game series. Eastern Michigan’s press guide indicates ODU will host the Mid-American Conference team on Sept. 13, 2014, then travel to Eastern Michigan on Sept. 5, 2015. ODU now has three of four non-conference games scheduled for both 2014 and 2015, including a home and home series with North Carolina State. ODU athletic director Wood Selig and coach Bobby Wilder declined comment on the Charlotte game. Charlotte coach Brad Lambert said he had no information on the 2013 game. However, the football press guide ODU distributed to the media Wednesday morning listed the opponent for Nov. 16 as “TBA” and did not list Charlotte among ODU’s opponents. The cancellation leaves ODU with the difficult task of finding a team to play on short notice. No Division I teams appear to have an open date on Nov. 16, so ODU may be forced to schedule a Division II or NAIA school. Read more: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/07/unc-charlotte-pulls-out-nov-game-against-odu

Old Dominion is celebrating its ascent into Conference USA today by blasting e-mails to 50,000 alumni and fans, distributing cookies to the media and unveiling a new website. Men's basketball coach Jeff Jones will make rounds to local radio and television stations beginning at 6:30 this morning to promote ODU's new conference. He and senior associate athletic director Debbie White will also deliver cookies to area TV and radio stations and newspapers. At 12:01 this morning, e-mails were to be sent to 50,000 people who have purchased tickets to ODU events, alerting them to the conference change. Conference USA, meanwhile, has spent $7,350 to rent three billboards in Hampton Roads to welcome the Monarchs - on Interstate 64 in Hampton near the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, on I-64 in Chesapeake near in the intersection with I-464 and on Monticello Avenue near downtown Norfolk. The video board at Nauticus has been welcoming Conference USA to Norfolk for nearly a week. Read more: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/06/odu-making-sure-its-move-cusa-gets-noticed

From its founding in 1995, Conference USA has been a home for the upwardly mobile. Created by a merger of the Metro Conference and Great Midwest, it immediately became one of the nation's best college basketball leagues with national powers Louisville, DePaul, Marquette, Cincinnati and Memphis as charter members. Eventually, Houston, East Carolina, SMU and Texas Christian would join, making the conference something of a national player in not only basketball, but football. Monday morning, Old Dominion officially departs the Colonial Athletic Association to became a member of Conference USA, a league that has seen radical change in its 18 years. Many members have moved on to bigger and better things. Louisville landed in the Big East and is headed to the ACC in 2014. Texas Christian moved to the Big 12. Houston, Cincinnati and Memphis are all in the newly formed American Athletic Conference, a spinoff of the Big East. Britt Banowsky, who has been the C-USA commissioner since 2002, said change is a good thing. "I embrace change because I think it's the opportunity to reinvent and keep us fresh," he said. He's certainly seen plenty of it. Since 2005, 15 members have either left the league or announced they will leave in the near future. The Big East/AAC has absorbed nine schools since then. Three more depart in 2014. Seven others join C-USA today: Florida International, Florida Atlantic, Middle Tennessee and North Texas from the Sun Belt; Louisiana Tech and Texas-San Antonio (Western Athletic Conference) and UNC Charlotte (Atlantic 10). Western Kentucky also leaves the Sun Belt for C-USA in 2014. By 2014, only five schools will remain from the 14 that were members in 2012 - Southern Miss, Rice, Texas-El Paso, Alabama-Birmingham and Marshall. The league retains TV contracts with Fox College Sports, Fox Sports 1 and the CBS Sports Network, and, according to tax returns available online, a healthy bottom line. Conference USA's latest returns, filed in 2011, show it had $58 million in revenue and $48 million in expenses. Its $32 million in assets include $15 million in cash. Read more: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/06/cusa-no-stranger-conference-realignment