Conference USA (C-USA) is a college athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are located in the Las Colinas business district of the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.
C-USA was founded in 1995 by the merger of the Metro Conference and Great Midwest Conference, two Division I conferences that did not sponsor football. To even out at 12 members (because Dayton, VCU, and Virginia Tech were left out of the merger) the conference invited the University of Houston, but UH could not start C-USA play for a year due to committing to being in the Southwest Conference in its final year. The conference immediately started competition in all sports, except football which started in 1996.
In 2011, Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference announced a plan for a football only alliance. Then on February 12, 2012, the league announced that it would dissolve in order to form an new legal entity merging its remaining members, the Mountain West and two to eight more schools. However, because of financial issues related to NCAA rules, both conferences backed away from a full merger; as of April 2012, the likeliest scenario is now an all-sports alliance in which both conferences retain their separate identities.
Read more about Conference USA: History, Commissioners, Sports, Facilities, Media
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