There's an ongoing debate at the Group of 5 level whether those conferences should embrace the inevitable and celebrate their brand of football, or whether by doing so they make the Power 4's argument for them that there is a meaningful difference in the type of football played at the top and bottom of FBS.
If the latter is correct, it's still not stopping teams from moving up to FCS.
Missouri State and Conference USA jointly announced Friday that the Bears will join the league effective July 1, 2025.
The move continues to backfill C-USA's membership after losing a handful of schools to the American in 2021. At one point down to five members, Missouri State's addition will bring the conference back to 12: Jacksonville State, Liberty and Sam Houston joined last football season; Kennesaw State comes aboard this coming season; and Delaware is also slated to join July 1, 2025.
“We are extremely excited to welcome Missouri State University as the 12th member of Conference USA,” C-USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod said Friday. “The institution boasts a great tradition in athletics and academics that will strengthen and further position our membership for long-term success in the national landscape.”
The move, a state with 6.178 million people and two major metro areas, its second FBS school.
Football Bowl Subdivision will swell to 136 schools by 2025.
To finance the move, Missouri State will accept a $5 million donation from a "private individual" and forgo $2.5 million in media rights fees from the conference over a 4-year period. The school has raised $1 million toward a $4.2 million effort to upgrade the football team's locker room and weight room, and a push to upgrade Plaster Stadium is underway.
Missouri State leadership expects the move to be "budget neutral" with the addition of 22 football scholarships and the creation of women's STUNT and acrobatics and tumbling teams to comply with Title IX.
“It’s an opportunity to improve our football program and that’s what we have to invest in,” Moats told the Springfield Daily Citizen. “Those teams in Conference USA are good, but I don’t know if they’re that much better than North Dakota State and South Dakota State. I would argue that we’re playing against that competition already.
“By upping our game with scholarships and improving what we’re doing, we give our team a better chance to compete.”
Under first-year head coach Ryan Beard, the Bears went 4-7 in 2023.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.