UAB, currently a Conference USA member, looks like will be the first FBS school to drop football since Pacific in the early 1990s. I feel bad for UAB as they just overcame a number of losing seasons and finished .500 at 6-6 to be bowl eligiable this year.
Here is a link to a Sports Illustrated story on this: http://www.si.com/college-football/2...letic-director
For those asking about what is the membership like in CUSA, this year with UAB included, they had 13 schools. Charlotte was to join next year to be their 14th school for football (as well as all-other sports).
Here is a link to a map of the current conference layout:
http://www.conferenceusa.com/ot/c-usa-members.html
The football divisions are the East & West. Here are the current layouts of those divisions:
East Division
Florida Atlantic
Owls
Florida International
Golden Panthers
Marshall
Thundering Herd
Middle Tennessee
Blue Raiders
Old Dominion
Monarchs
UAB
Blazers
Western Kentucky
Hilltoppers
West Division
Louisiana Tech
Bulldogs
North Texas
Mean Green
Rice
Owls
Southern Miss
Golden Eagles
UTEP
Miners
UTSA
Roadrunners
Just looking at the conference make-up, this is becoming a conference requiring football so I would imagine that the remainder of the conference will drop UAB and likely look to the Sun Belt to get another full member to get to 14 football playing schools. I would imagine New Mexico State might be the pick as the need a West Division team (as Las Cruces is just 30-40 miles from El Paso) with Charlotte being added to the East.
I would think the Sun Belt would lose that member due to this and then would need to add another school.