Delaware, Missouri State Join Conference USA: Inside Their FCS-to-FBS Transition

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Delaware, Missouri State Join Conference USA: Inside Their FCS-to-FBS Transition

Kyle Wood · Athlon Sports

Mon, Jun 30, 2025 ·

11 min read

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Delaware, Missouri State Join Conference USA: Inside Their FCS-to-FBS Transition originally appeared on Athlon Sports .

The entrance fee had recently jumped from $5,000 to $5 million, but Delaware and Missouri State were not deterred. That was now the cost of admission to join the highest tier of Division I college football, and they were willing to play ball.

The NCAA D-I Council increased the fee to transition from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision in October 2023 by a factor of one thousand. Nevertheless, a little more than a month later, Delaware announced it would be joining the FBS as a member of Conference USA. Missouri State followed suit in the spring.

Ten programs had preceded them in joining the FBS since 2014 in hopes of raising their national profile and earning additional revenue. Success varied given the high degree of competition, but media rights deals are more lucrative in the FBS, making $5,000 a small price to pay to transition under the old model. On the other hand, $5 million was nothing to sneeze at.

Donors stepped up to cover the new fee at Delaware and Missouri State, the first programs to transition to the FBS under the more prohibitive fee. They are now preparing for a new wave of challenges — steeper competition, increased travel and still more costs — that come with playing in the big leagues.

"This moving from FCS to FBS is not for the faint of heart," said Missouri State athletic director Patrick Ransdell. "It is going to be an investment that's going to take years of investing before you really feel like you're on solid ground with everybody else who's been doing this for decades."

The FBS membership will increase to 136 when the Delaware Blue Hens and Missouri State Bears become members of Conference USA on July 1. That same day, revenue sharing is coming to college athletics. As a result of the landmark House settlement , schools will be permitted to pay athletes directly. The projected salary cap for the 2025-26 academic year is $20.5 million, the lion's share of which will go toward football and men's basketball.

This is the latest in a long line of marked shifts across college sports since the start of the decade — among them the introduction of NIL, loosening of transfer restrictions and several waves of conference realignment.

"We really viewed this as a moment to align our athletic ambitions with our academic success," said Delaware interim athletic director Jordan Skolnick. "And it came at a moment where the college athletic landscape has really changed."

Delaware defensive coordinator Manny Rojas will help the Blue Hens make the jump to the FBS in 2025.Mikey Reeves / Delaware athletics

Skolnick said the Blue Hens believe the foundation they've built will allow them to be competitive right away. Recent renovations to Delaware's athletic facilities, including the construction of the Whitney Athletic Center in 2021, have put the Blue Hens on par with other FBS programs in that regard.

Similar upgrades are coming to Missouri State. The field at Robert W. Plaster Stadium got a makeover this summer with new turf, and Ransdell said between $8 million and $10 million of new lights and other facilities upgrades are in progress ahead of the Bears' FBS home debut against SMU in September.

Missouri State is holding out hope for a rare sellout at its 17,500-seat venue. Ransdell added that a stadium feasibility study could be on the way in the near future, noting the need to further upgrade the Bears' facilities over the next five years.

Frills only go so far, though. It's important to look the part in the ongoing facilities arms race as college football programs vie to acquire — and retain — top talent on the field and fill their stadiums with fans. But the more pressing gap is on the field in the form of talent, size and speed.

No team in Conference USA finished the 2024 season ranked in the AP Top 25, but it's still a higher level of competition than the Coastal Athletic Association and Missouri Valley Football Conference, where Delaware and Missouri State, respectively, previously called home.

"One of the hardest things to do in college sports is to make that transition," Ransdell said. "And it takes a while. The good news is I think Springfield is going to be patient and understand that things are not going to happen overnight. James Madison might have ruined it for the rest of us, but normally it does not go off that smoothly."

The Dukes were immediately competitive with an 8-3 record in their Sun Belt Conference debut after they made the FCS-to-FBS transition in 2022. JMU followed with an 11-2 mark in 2023 and a 9-4 season in 2024. Only 10 FBS teams have a better winning percentage than the Dukes over that span.

James Madison seamlessly transitioned from the FCS to the FBS with three consecutive winning seasons. Delaware is also an old rival of the Dukes.Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

"The process of developing a team and a culture and an attitude that you're going to be successful is really the driving factor," said James Madison assistant athletic director Matt Transue. "If you do those things, and then use a common sense approach of figuring out the best way to work at your institution, you're more often than not going to be successful on the field. The talent level is all going to vary, so you've gotta be able to maximize what you have at your disposal."

Other Conference USA members have transitioned to the FBS in recent years, and results have varied. Kennesaw State went 2-10 in 2024. Sam Houston went 3-9 in 2023. Jacksonville State, on the other hand, went 9-4 that same season.

Being competitive right away might be the goal for the Blue Hens and Bears, but it's not a given. The two-year transition period also deems FBS newcomers ineligible for the postseason while they are transitioning.

JMU ran into that rule in 2022 when it won the Sun Belt East but was barred from competing in the conference championship or a bowl game. The Dukes' waiver to shorten their transition period was denied, though they ended up in a bowl game in 2023 anyway due to a lack of bowl-eligible teams.

Transue said having coaching continuity with Curt Cignetti, who's now the head coach at Indiana , in place to oversee the transition was hugely helpful.

Missouri State's Ryan Beard has been with the program since 2020, originally as the defensive coordinator and safeties coach. The Bears are 12-11 since Beard took over as head coach in 2023.

Missouri State head coach Ryan Beard, 36, will be one of the youngest coaches in the FBS.Nathan Papes / Springfield News-Leader / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Ryan Carty has held the head coaching job in Newark, Delaware, since the 2022 season. The Blue Hens are 26-11 under Carty with a pair of FCS playoff appearances.

"We have a terrific amount of belief in our coaches and their ability to develop our student-athletes into the best versions of themselves," Skolnick said. "So if we can retain the talent that we have, I think it puts us in a really good position to be successful as we move forward. And so that's been our priority as we think about all the changing landscape that's around us."

Blue Hens athletes and coaches have been outspoken in their support of the FBS move, Skolnick said. At a Board of Trustees meeting, lacrosse player and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee president McKenzie Didio shared her excitement over the increased visibility afforded to Delaware athletics because of the move.

"They're excited about the teams we're going to play, the places we're going to travel, the amount we're going to be on TV," Skolnick said.

Conference USA's media rights deal with ESPN and CBS will put the Blue Hens and Bears in front of national audiences often. Missouri State's last nationally televised game was in 2018. Delaware's? 1982. They'll each have five such games in 2025.

The Blue Hens are set to play UConn in September in the first leg of a home-and-home agreement — the two schools have not played since the Huskies made the jump to the FBS in 2000. Delaware also has four future games scheduled against James Madison, renewing a longstanding CAA rivalry.

(Delaware and Delaware State — now coached by former Philadelphia Eagles great DeSean Jackson — will meet in the Route 1 rivalry for the 12th time in the season opener. The Blue Hens athletic department said the Hornets will " continue to be an opponent ," though they do not have any future games scheduled.)

The Blue Hens are set to become the first FBS team in Delaware. They open their season against rival Delaware State, an FCS program.William Bretzger-Delaware News Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Missouri State, which has lost its only two matchups with Missouri, has future games against the Tigers in Columbia in 2029 and 2032.

"Now that there's two FBS teams in the state of Missouri, I think it allows your alumni to kind of take some ownership and puff your chest out a little bit," Ransdell said.

The Bears also have trips to USC, Texas A&M and Auburn scheduled over the next few years.

"The exposure is going to be great," Ransdell said. "We have not traditionally been a football school that we've really leaned on in the past, even at the FCS level in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, but I think that the community has been itching for that. I think they're excited to see a program on the field that's going to allow us to compete at the highest level."

Transue said travel was one of the biggest changes for JMU amid its transition. Missouri State's farthest conference game last season was almost 800 miles away at South Dakota State. Conference games against Liberty and New Mexico State this fall will take the Bears more than 900 miles from campus.

"Travel costs are going to be significant across the board," Ransdell said. "So one of the ways to combat that is to do some regional scheduling in your non-conference. There's no reason our teams should be getting on a plane playing non-conference, outside of obviously football."

Missouri State's move to the FBS means more nationally televised games for the Bears — and longer road trips.Missouri State athletics

Delaware is in the same boat. The Blue Hens' farthest conference game in 2024 took them a little more than 400 miles to North Carolina A&T. In 2025, they have conference games at Sam Houston and Florida International, which are each more than 1,100 miles away.

The House settlement opened the door for further costs for the FBS newcomers beyond revenue sharing and increased travel with the introduction of roster limits and elimination of scholarship caps. Football rosters will be capped at 105 players, but entire teams can now be on scholarship.

Offering dozens more scholarships is not only costly — there are Title IX stipulations, too. The increase in football scholarships at Delaware necessitated the introduction of a new women's varsity sport to be Title IX compliant, which led the Blue Hens to add a women's hockey team starting in 2025-26.

Skolnick said the NHL paid for the school to conduct a feasibility study before adding the sport. That relationship with the league turned into a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Philadelphia Flyers , who will support the Blue Hens with career and professional development.

Missouri State added women's teams in STUNT and acrobatics and tumbling to remain Title IX compliant in the 2024-25 school year ahead of its FBS transition.

Given the new hurdles and costs associated with the transition from the FCS to FBS, it may be some time before another school follows suit. Sacramento State made a push, but the NCAA Division I Council denied the Hornets' recent waiver request to transition as an independent without a conference invite.

Delaware and Missouri State see an opportunity to build brand awareness and set themselves up for success in the FBS. But these are uncharted waters for the Blue Hens and Bears as the revenue-sharing era begins.

Transue, the James Madison assistant AD, offered an optimistic outlook as those schools embark on the transition: "At the end of the day, it's football. It changes every so often, but if you take care of preparation, the Xs and Os and develop good student-athletes, you're going to end up pretty successful relatively quickly."

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 30, 2025, where it first appeared.

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