After years of discussing the possibility, Delaware is finally moving up to the Football Bowl Subdivision, set to join Conference USA as a full member, beginning in the 2025-26 academic year.
The two sides announced the move on Tuesday. Delaware will become the 11th member of Conference USA and the 135th member of FBS, after Kennesaw State joins next year. The alma mater of Joe Flacco and Joe Biden is making the jump.
“We’re ready for a relentless pursuit of excellence,” athletic director Chrissi Rawak told The Athletic. “We are feisty here. Newark is a college town incredibly proud of our university. Our fans travel. They’re committed. We don’t quit.”
Momentum for a move had built in recent years amid changes within the Coastal Athletic Association, including the loss of James Madison and additions of Hampton, Monmouth, North Carolina A&T, Stony Brook and Campbell. Delaware found itself looking to follow in the footsteps of several other Football Championship Subdivision schools that made the move up. Its athletic budget, around $48 million, is more in line with Group of 5 schools than FCS.
“They bring a really comprehensive package and a high level of preparedness and readiness to take this step,” CUSA commissioner Judy MacLeod said. “They have high expectations and a lot of achievement.”
Rawak said Delaware had seriously looked into the move for more than a year, working with various consultants and looking at the cost and at different conferences. Independence was considered as well.
“What became really clear as we narrowed in on opportunities was that Conference USA is a terrific option for us,” she said. “For three decades, the league has had an incredible amount of success.”
Rawak pointed to Delaware’s investments and the visibility gains by moving to FBS and playing on ESPN, while also acknowledging continued changes within college sports, as reasons to do this now.
“We’ve had great success over my seven years, coupled with the changing landscape of college athletics, and football created a moment to study the opportunity to transition,” she said.
Located in Newark, Del., less than an hour from Philadelphia, the school was officially chartered in the mid-1700s, before the United States became a country, and it became a college in 1833. It’s an R1 research university, a high designation.
Delaware has played in the FCS (formerly I-AA) since 1980, one year after it won a Division II national championship. The Blue Hens won an FCS national championship in 2003 and claim six football national titles total across various divisions.
Under current coach Ryan Carty, Delaware football is 17-8, posting an 8-5 season last year and defeating Lafayette 36-34 on Saturday to advance to the second round of the FCS playoffs. It most recently won a conference championship in 2020.
Notable football alumni from Delaware include Flacco, who was a first-round NFL Draft pick and Super Bowl champion, quarterback Rich Gannon and 2019 second-round pick Nasir Adderly. Its Michigan-like blue and yellow winged helmet design was brought in by head coach David Nelson, a former Michigan fullback who did the same thing at several other coaching stops. (Coincidentally, Rawak was a Michigan swimmer and spent more than a decade there as an administrator.)
Delaware also won a field hockey national championship in 2016, and Elena Delle Donne led the Blue Hens women’s basketball team to the Sweet 16 in 2013. Several Delaware sports teams will need to find a new conference in the sports that CUSA does not sponsor. The school will also add a women’s sport for scholarship equity as FBS uses more football scholarships.
The move will also be more costly after the NCAA Division I Council voted in October to increase the FBS membership cost from $5,000 to $5 million, along with stricter scholarship requirements, as a way to deter FCS teams that aren’t as invested from making the move.
“We are in the process right now of fundraising for that, along with our exit and entrance fees,” Rawak said. “It’s certainly not ideal, but this is about the long-term play for us.”
The school opened the Whitney Athletic Center in 2020, a 90,000 square-foot building. There is also an indoor athletics facility for all sports and tentative plans for a new football indoor facility. Former Chicago Bears coach Matt Nagy, a program alum, has donated money toward facilities upgrades. Delaware football averaged 16,902 fans per game in 2022, which was more than 24 FBS schools that year and above the old 15,000 FBS requirement that has been rescinded.
“What makes this the right time and right decision is all the investments we’ve made since I’ve been here, all the infrastructure we have, including one of the best sport performance programs in the country,” Rawak said. “There’s a lot that we’ve already done. We’re going to continue to do what we’ve been doing.”
The addition of Delaware continues CUSA’s rebuild. The league lost nine schools to the American and Sun Belt conferences over the past two years. It replaced them with FBS independents Liberty and New Mexico State, plus Jacksonville State and Sam Houston from the FCS ranks. Liberty and New Mexico State will play for the CUSA championship this week. The Flames are currently 12-0 and ranked in the Top 25, and NMSU is 10-3 with a recent win against Auburn. The view of the league has shifted dramatically this fall.
While CUSA has looked at numerous FCS schools, Delaware’s athletic budget, historic success and readiness made it an ideal fit, MacLeod said. Jax State in CUSA and James Madison in the Sun Belt are both heading to bowl games and found immediate success upon moving up.
“The plans are there,” MacLeod said of Delaware. “The understanding is there, what it takes to compete at our level. That’s extremely important.”
As for potential future additions, MacLeod told The Athletic in July that an ideal number for CUSA is 12 full members. Following the Delaware move, she declined to list any specific schools for a potential No. 12, but FBS independent UMass could be a fit now, with Delaware in the northeast. With Army joining the AAC next year and Notre Dame still having an ACC partnership, UMass and UConn are the only true remaining FBS independents, UConn having done so willingly as it rejoined the Big East. UMass is a founding member of the Atlantic 10 Conference, but it may soon be time to reconsider. Other schools that have been in the mix with CUSA at some point include Tarleton State, Missouri State, Stephen F. Austin and Central Arkansas.
That’s the future. For now, CUSA will prepare for its 10th member next year and the 11th with Delaware in 2025.
“We’re taking the same process we have the entire time,” MacLeod said. “If there’s another school that fits, we’ll examine that. That doesn’t mean tomorrow we’re going to 12, or within the next few months. Our presidents and board have been thorough and measured. They want to make sure we get it right.”
(Photo of Delaware player Kyron Cumby: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
