ASU’s FBS decision
Appalachian State’s decision whether to move from the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision will most likely be delayed, but work toward a decision will continue.
ASU officials have said the timing for a decision of a possible move isn’t the best because of state budget concerns, even though state money isn’t involved in athletic funding or the possible football move.
They said that a target date of May for a recommendation was just that, a target, and that it is not essential for a decision to be made right away. The NCAA’s moratorium that has precluded teams from moving to the FBS will be lifted in August, but there is no deadline for programs to declare their intention to move.
An essential component to the question of whether ASU will move to the FBS has to do with where it would go, in regard to affiliation with an FBS conference. An invitation would have to be extended to ASU, and the possibility of that depends on an opening and subsequent invitation – whether it be as result of a conference’s vacancy, expansion or restructuring, which has yet to unfold.
“There doesn’t seem to be the mass movement within conferences that there was last year at this time,” Charlie Cobb, ASU’s athletics director, said. “That’s a part we can’t control. As much as anything, our work is about being prepared for what could occur.”
It is possible that ASU, if it decides to move, could declare its intention to do so even if a conference opportunity isn’t in place. But an invitation to join an FBS conference must be in place for the Mountaineers to actually make the move. There is not an option to do so as an Independent, even if there was interest in that, which there isn’t. The NCAA requires that programs moving to the FBS must do so as part of an FBS conference.