Atlantic Sun Conference

The Atlantic Sun Conference, also known as the ASUN Conference, is a NCAA conference whose members play in NCAA Division I. The conference is headquartered in Atlanta and mostly features universities and colleges from the southeastern United States. The ASUN did not play football until 2022, when it began play in the second level of Division I football, the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).[1]

The ASUN began in 1978 as the Trans America Athletic Conference (TAAC). It became the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2001 and rebranded itself as the ASUN Conference in 2016.[2] The conference returned to the "Atlantic Sun" name in 2023. It still uses "ASUN" as its official abbreviation.

Members

As of the 2025–26 school year, the ASUN has 12 full members, or schools that play almost all of their sports in the conference. Five of these schools, highlighted in pink, will leave in July 2026. All are current members of the United Athletic Conference (UAC), a football-only alliance between the ASUN and the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). After the 2025–26 school year, the WAC will rebrand as the UAC and become a multi-sports league.

School Location Founded Type Nickname Joined
ASUN
Austin Peay State University Clarksville, Tennessee 1927 Public Governors 2022
Bellarmine University Louisville, Kentucky 1950 Private Knights 2020
University of Central Arkansas Conway, Arkansas 1907 Public Bears & Sugar Bears 2021
Eastern Kentucky University Richmond, Kentucky 1874 Public Colonels 2021
Florida Gulf Coast University Fort Myers, Florida 1991 Public Eagles 2007
Jacksonville University Jacksonville, Florida 1934 Private Dolphins 1998
Lipscomb University Nashville, Tennessee 1891 Private Bisons 2003
University of North Alabama Florence, Alabama 1830 Public Lions 2018
University of North Florida Jacksonville, Florida 1969 Public Ospreys 2005
Queens University of Charlotte Charlotte, North Carolina 1857 Private Royals 2022
Stetson University DeLand, Florida 1883 Private Hatters 1985
University of West Georgia Carrollton, Georgia 1830 Public Wolves 2024

The ASUN added five members in the 2020s. First, three schools, one a returning member, joined in 2021. The first-time members were the University of Central Arkansas and Eastern Kentucky University, which respectively arrived from the Southland Conference and Ohio Valley Conference (OVC). Jacksonville State University, which had been an ASUN member from 1995 to 2003, returned after spending 18 years in the OVC.[1] At that time, the ASUN technically began sponsoring football, but did not start conference play. It partnered with the Western Athletic Conference, which was launching an FCS football league in the fall 2021 season. Under the agreement, the three newest members, all of which play FCS football, became de facto WAC football members for that season only.[3]

The next membership change came in July 2022 with the arrival of football-sponsoring Austin Peay State University from the OVC[4] and non-football Queens University of Charlotte from the Division II South Atlantic Conference.[5] When Peay was announced as an incoming ASUN member, it gave the conference six members that play FCS football and award scholarships for that sport, which is the number of teams needed for a conference to receive an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. However, the ASUN would lose one of those six members when Jacksonville State announced a 2023 move to Conference USA (CUSA). JSU began a transition to FBS in 2022, making it ineligible for the FCS playoffs. The WAC lost two of its planned six playoff-eligible members in 2022, with Sam Houston starting an FBS transition ahead of its 2023 move to CUSA and Incarnate Word backing out of a planned move to the WAC and remaining in the Southland Conference.[6] This led the ASUN and WAC to renew their football partnership for 2022. Both conferences will play separate league schedules, with officials from each conference choosing their one automatic playoff team.[7] The new ASUN football league, launching in 2022, featured Austin Peay, the three 2021 arrivals, Kennesaw State, and North Alabama. Three other ASUN schools sponsor football but did not play that sport in the ASUN. Stetson plays in the Pioneer Football League, whose members do not award football scholarships; Liberty played as an independent in the top level of D-I football, the Football Bowl Subdivision, before joining CUSA in 2023; and Bellarmine began play in sprint football, a weight-restricted form of the sport not run by the NCAA, in 2022.

In June 2025, the ASUN and WAC announced a major reorganization, which the conferences framed as a "strategic alliance". The WAC will rebrand as the United Athletic Conference, which will expand from a football-only league into a multi-sports league. Of the eight confirmed members of the post-2026 UAC, five will come from the ASUN. Going forward, the ASUN membership will consist entirely of schools that do not play scholarship FCS football. Five do not play football at all. Stetson plays non-scholarship FCS football in the Pioneer Football League. Bellarmine plays the weight-restricted and non-NCAA variant of sprint football.[8]

Associate members

The ASUN also has 13 "associate members" that play one or two sports in the conference while being full members of another conference. Seven of these schools, plus full members Bellarmine and Jacksonville, make up the ASUN men's lacrosse league, restarted in the 2021–22 school year (2022 season)[9] after having been shut down when the ASUN began a lacrosse partnership with the Southern Conference (SoCon).[10] Four more schools joined in July 2021. Two returned women's lacrosse to the ASUN after the SoCon shut down its women's lacrosse league, and three joined in beach volleyball.

After the Atlantic 10 Conference started a men's lacrosse league for the 2023 season, taking away two of the SoCon's six men's lacrosse members,[11] the SoCon shut down its men's lacrosse league. Jacksonville, which had played in SoCon men's lacrosse in the 2022 season by agreement between the ASUN and SoCon, returned that sport to the ASUN. It was joined in ASUN men's lacrosse by Mercer, a full SoCon member that was already an ASUN beach volleyball member, and Lindenwood, which started a transition to D-I in 2022 as a new member of the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC), which does not sponsor the sport.[12] Lindenwood also joined the ASUN in women's lacrosse, also not sponsored by the OVC, at that time.[13]

The "Joined" column shows the year in which a school joined the ASUN. Since all ASUN sports that have associate members (beach volleyball and men's and women's lacrosse) are spring sports, this means the year of joining is the calendar year before the first season of ASUN play.

School Location Founded Type Nickname Joined ASUN sport(s) Main
conference
United States Air Force Academy (Air Force) USAF Academy, Colorado 1954 Federal Falcons 2021 Men's lacrosse Mountain West Conference
Coastal Carolina University Conway, South Carolina 1954 Public Chanticleers 2021[a] Women's lacrosse Sun Belt Conference
University of Delaware Newark, Delaware 1743 Public[b] Blue Hens 2025 Women's lacrosse Conference USA
Men's and women's swimming & diving
Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida 1961 Public Owls 2023 Men's swimming & diving American Conference
Gardner–Webb University Boiling Springs, North Carolina 1905 Private Runnin' Bulldogs 2023 Men's and women's swimming & diving Big South Conference
Georgia Southern University Statesboro, Georgia 1906 Public Eagles 2025 Women's swimming & diving Sun Belt Conference
Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, Georgia[c] 1963 Public Owls 2024 Women's lacrosse Conference USA
Liberty University Lynchburg, Virginia 1971 Private Lady Flames 2023 Women's lacrosse Conference USA
Lindenwood University St. Charles, Missouri 1827 Private Lions 2022 Men's and women's lacrosse Ohio Valley Conference
Mercer University Macon, Georgia 1833 Private Bears 2022 Men's lacrosse Southern Conference
Old Dominion University Norfolk, Virginia 1930 Public Monarchs 2023 Men's swimming & diving Sun Belt Conference
2025 Women's swimming & diving
University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNC Asheville) Asheville, North Carolina 1927 Public Bulldogs 2023 Women's swimming & diving Big South Conference
University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 1850 Public Utes 2021 Men's lacrosse Big 12 Conference
  1. ↑ Coastal Carolina had been an ASUN member in women's lacrosse from 2016 to 2020 (2017–2020 seasons).
  2. ↑ Delaware is officially chartered as a "privately-governed, state-assisted" institution. This status is similar to that of New York State's statutory colleges, most of which are housed at Cornell University, or schools in Pennsylvania's Commonwealth System of Higher Education.
  3. ↑ The campus has a Kennesaw mailing address, but is located in unincorporated Cobb County.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Atlantic Sun Conference.
  • "ASUN Conference". asunsports.org. Retrieved 2022-07-09.
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "ASUN Conference Announces Three New Institutions; Adds Football as 20th Sport" (Press release). ASUN Conference. January 29, 2021. Archived from the original on January 29, 2021. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Conference Student-Athletes Unveil New ASUN Brand Identity" (Press release). ASUN Conference. April 28, 2016.
  3. ↑ "ASUN, WAC Conferences Announce Football Partnership for 2021" (Press release). ASUN Conference. February 23, 2021. Archived from the original on February 23, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  4. ↑ "ASUN Conference Welcomes Austin Peay State University as its Newest Member" (Press release). ASUN Conference. September 17, 2021. Archived from the original on November 15, 2022. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
  5. ↑ "ASUN Conference Welcomes Queens University of Charlotte as Its Newest Member" (Press release). ASUN Conference. May 10, 2022. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  6. ↑ "University of the Incarnate Word Staying in the Southland Conference" (Press release). Southland Conference. June 24, 2022. Retrieved June 24, 2022.
  7. ↑ "ASUN and WAC Renew Football Alliance" (Press release). ASUN Conference. May 18, 2022. Archived from the original on May 18, 2022. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  8. ↑ "Atlantic Sun Conference and Western Athletic Conference to Forge Strategic Alliance" (Press release). Atlantic Sun Conference. June 26, 2025. Retrieved June 26, 2025.
  9. ↑ "ASUN Conference Announces Formation of Men's Lacrosse League" (Press release). ASUN Conference. February 5, 2021. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 6, 2021.
  10. ↑ "SoCon, ASUN Partner to Enhance Lacrosse" (Press release). Southern Conference. January 9, 2014. Archived from the original on April 7, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Atlantic 10 Conference Adds Men's Lacrosse as 22nd Championship Sport" (Press release). Atlantic 10 Conference !date=May 23, 2022. Retrieved May 23, 2022.
  12. ↑ "Jacksonville, Lindenwood & Mercer Joining #ASUNMLAX for 2023 Season" (Press release). ASUN Conference. March 30, 2022. Archived from the original on March 31, 2022. Retrieved May 11, 2022.
  13. ↑ "#ASUNWLAX Announces Addition of Lindenwood for 2023 Season" (Press release). ASUN Conference. May 2, 2022. Archived from the original on May 2, 2022. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
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