Fifty years after leaving the CIAA to help start the MEAC, North Carolina A&T appears ready to switch conferences again.
A&T has decided it will move to The Big South, according to the Greensboro News and Record. The report states that A&T’s board of trustees will vote Friday to finalize the move.
This comes less than three years after the MEAC lost another team to the Big South. Hampton decided to break away from the MEAC after twenty-two years in 2017.
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Although always a competitive program, A&T’s athletic profile has skyrocketed over the last half decade. The school has produced NFL Draft picks in three consecutive years, won at least a share of the conference football title in four of the last five years and won the Celebration Bowl four out of the last five as well.
If approved, A&T would become a full Big South member on July 1, 2021.
This move could be disastrous for the MEAC, which has seen four programs leave in the last ten years: Winston-Salem State, Hampton and Savannah State. None of those schools had been in the league as long as A&T, who helped establish it back in 1971.
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