It’s a new year and Chicago State could soon find itself a new home conference – possibly an HBCU conference.
HBCU Gameday first reported last May that Chicago State had expressed interest in joining the MEAC. College AD reported on January 7 that representatives from both the MEAC were set to make a visit to the campus this week. The report also states that Ohio Valley Conference officials are expected to visit them as well.
Chicago State is looking for a new home once it leaves the Western Athletic Conference following the spring season.
A source familiar with the situation says that CSU is weighing its options and that the MEAC has not made a decision either way, however, it will be doing its due diligence.
Chicago State is a predominantly black, public university whose origins go back to 1867. It is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
The potential addition of CSU to the MEAC has three big question marks – location, football and location.
Okay, so that’s really only two, but those are two big issues. Although one may soon be rectified.
Chicago State doesn’t have a football program. It never has. But what it does have is a feasibility study that illuminates a potential path to fielding a football program. If it were to do so and join the MEAC, that would give the league seven teams – and an added flight for pretty much any school with a football program.
This brings us to possibly an even bigger issue of travel. Traveling up and down the East Coast has been a burden on the budgets of league ADs for decades, and several schools have cited those issues as to why they left for other conferences. Perhaps the biggest question is whether or not the conference’s presidents and chancellors will buy in and pull the trigger if everything falls into place?
That’s the million dollar question. Only time will tell.
HBCU Gameday has reached out to Chicago State for comment on this story.