With pieces still shifting during conference realignment, Georgia Southern has now publicly acknowledged that it will be staying put, according to the Statesboro Herald.
Though GSU athletic director said that the school had talked to the Sun Belt Conference, they have not been in contact with any other conferences. As usual, the discussion of a move was centered around football.
“We reached out to (Sun Belt) Commissioner (Karl) Benson just to touch base with him just to see what the conference thinking was, and if he had any insights as we go forward,” Baker told the Statesboro Herald. “With them bringing on Texas State and Georgia State into the conference they now have 10 football-playing institutions, and then they added Texas-Arlington. So now there are 12 overall. They feel very comfortable with that.
“They just said that right now they’re at the number (of schools) that they’re interested in, and certainly they would keep us in mind as they would a lot of different institutions.”
The Sun Belt has a number of defections, including Denver leaving for the WAC this season and North Texas and Florida International to Conference USA next season.
Georgia Southern finished last season with a 15-15 record, including 12-6 in the conference. Leading scorer and rebounder Eric Ferguson will return to the Eagles for his junior in 2012-13, coming off a year in which he averaged 15.4 points and 7.2 rebounds.
They will add two players to the roster from the Class of 2012: guard Cleon Roberts and Brian Holmes.
Daniel Martin is a writer and editor at JohnnyJungle.com, covering St. John’s. You can find him on Twitter:@DanielJMartin_