Sun Belt to welcome Southern Miss

A joint news conference between the Sun Belt and Southern Mississippi is set for 3:30 p.m. today as the Sun Belt Conference will announce the Golden Eagles as its newest member. The news conference will feature Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill, Southern Miss President Rodney Bennett and the school’s athletic director, Jeremy McClain, per a league release.

Southern Miss was a founding member of Conference USA, but it will depart the league it’s been a part of since 1995 as part of a mass exodus. Last week, the American Athletic Conference announced that it was adding Alabama-Birmingham, UNC-Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Rice and Texas-San Antonio — all current Conference USA members.

The Golden Eagles are not the only program on the verge of joining the Sun Belt, of which Arkansas State and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock are members. Multiple outlets, including ESPN, Yahoo and The Athletic, have indicated that James Madison, Old Dominion and Marshall could soon receive invitations to the Sun Belt, which would give the conference 14 football-playing members.