ECU football leaving conference before ODU joins

[Harry]

Old Dominion is losing its closest Conference USA football rival two years before the Monarchs join the league.

East Carolina University will leave C-USA to play Big East football in 2014, officials announced on Tuesday. Tulane is also jumping to the Big East in all sports, leaving C-USA with 12 teams.

ODU announced in May that it is leaving the Colonial Athletic Association for C-USA and in the process, would jump from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Officials touted

ECU’s proximity to Norfolk, and its long football tradition, as one of the attractions of moving up.

ODU athletic director Wood Selig acknowledged that losing ECU is a blow, but said school officials would make the same decision again.

He said ODU’s decision to become the state’s third FBS program, joining Virginia Tech and Virginia, and to join a conference located in many of the South’s largest markets, was a sound move.

“The move to elevate our program was never driven by a desire to be affiliated with one or two institutions,” he said.

“We remain very pleased with our decision to elevate football to FBS. We’ve elevated the profile of our entire sports program by joining Conference USA.

“We’ll be competing on national TV at a much higher frequency on ESPN, Fox Sports and CBS Sports. Our television package will be much more lucrative from a financial standpoint.”

ODU coach Bobby Wilder said “regardless of what ECU and Tulane just did, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re about to become the third FBS program in Virginia.

“We didn’t make this move to C-USA with East Carolina as the primary reason. It certainly could have developed into a football rivalry, but we have no football history with ECU.

“I believe the positives of this step still far outweigh the negatives.”

Read more: http://hamptonroads.com/2012/11/ecu-football-leaving-conference-odu-joins