C-USA confident in its stability

[Harry]

Conference USA endured more than its fair share of changes to arrive at the lineup commissioner Britton Banowsky spent a lot of time talking about during the league’s media day last week.

SMU and Houston led a league exodus before North Texas joined along with former Sun Belt Conference members Middle Tennessee, Florida International and Florida Atlantic, not to mention Texas-San Antonio.

Tulsa and Tulane will depart after one more year, leaving a void that Western Kentucky — another Sun Belt school — will help fill.

Banowsky helped guide C-USA through those changes and said he couldn’t be happier with the result or more confident in the stability of the league going forward. UNT officials have echoed that sentiment, despite recent talk of some elite college football programs moving into a separate division.

“I am delighted,” Banowsky said. “I think we are very well positioned. We have a lot of new energy and a new excitement. You want to avoid becoming stale. We are staying fresh.”

A host of schools benefited from the latest round of conference realignment. There is little doubt that UNT was among them after landing in a league with three other Texas schools — Rice, UTEP and UTSA.

UNT spent 12 years as the only Texas school in the Sun Belt.

“It’s a phenomenal opportunity,” UNT football coach Dan McCarney said. “This league has great respect from around the country because of what teams in the league have done in recent years. There have been some real tremendous seasons, in conference wins, out-of-conference wins, bowl wins. When you put it together with the leadership of Britton Banowsky, you can see why this league is respected around the country.”

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