The trophy FBS teams will be playing for including 18 whose moves to new conferences became offical today.

BY ROCK HOFFMAN

It’s moving day in college football and while teams won’t need the Mayflower moving truck that the Baltimore Colts used on a snowy night in 1984, 18 teams are affiliated differently today than when the season ended.

 The ACC raided the erstwhile Big East for Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Now, 14 teams call the ACC home with another American Athletic Conference (the Big East’s new name) refugee – Louisville – set to replace Big Ten bound Maryland in 2014.

The American (which is how the American Athletic Conference prefers its name be shortened) will have ten teams in 2013 with Houston, Memphis, SMU and UCF all checking in from Conference USA. Obviously with a pair of Texas schools, Big East didn’t fit anymore even before the basketball schools split and took the name as a parting gift. Still to come are East Carolina, Tulsa, Tulane (all next year) and Navy but Rutgers exits with Louisville in 2014 so by the time the Midshipmen drop anchor in 2015 the American will be at 12 teams (enough for a conference title game).

The Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and the MAC are all standing pat for 2013 with the Big Ten set to welcome Maryland and Rutgers in 2014. The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) has ceased operating a football league and the seven teams that called it home in its final season will scatter far and wide.

New Mexico State and Idaho will play as Independents in 2013 before joining the Sun Belt in 2014. When they get there they will find former WAC mate Texas State, who joins the Sun Belt this season along with Georgia State which completes the transition from FCS to FBS and is now a full member of the conference. However, they won’t find Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Middle Tennessee, North Texas who move en masse to Conference USA.

Next year is just as tumultuous a season for the Sun Belt, in addition to New Mexico State and Idaho joining. Appalachian State and Georgia Southern move up from the FCS level while Western Kentucky jumps to Conference USA. The SBC will have eight teams this year and 11 in 2014.

By adding San Jose State and Utah State from the WAC, the Mountain West will have 12 teams this season and conference championship game on December 7.

Conference USA loses four teams this year (all to the American) but gains six. UTSA and Louisiana Tech come from the WAC to join the four schools moving over from the Sun Belt. Over the next two years, they lose three more teams to the American but gain three others in Western Kentucky and Old Dominion, which moves up from FCS, in 2014 and Charlotte which elevates from the FCS level in 2015. So the league will have 14 teams in 2015 just as it does today.

E-mail Rock Hoffman at Rock@footballstories.com