Again eyeing a move to the FBS, EKU aims ‘to compete at the highest level we can’
The immediate future of the Eastern Kentucky Colonels football program got a major boost Thursday when record-setting Colonels quarterback Parker McKinney announced he would stay in Richmond to play as a “super-senior” in 2023.
At a news conference on the EKU campus, McKinney noted that Eastern was the only school that offered him a scholarship when he emerged from Tennessee’s tiny Coalfield High School in 2018. “I’m glad to call this place home. It means the world to me,” McKinney said of EKU. “I’m excited to see what next season holds.”
EKU Coach Walt Wells said there were multiple FBS programs who would have gladly poached a QB who threw for 3,956 yards and 33 touchdowns in 2022 while leading the Colonels to their first appearance in the FCS playoffs since 2014.
“There were some really big brands that came after him,” Wells said. “Both (Group of Five) and Power Five brands. … Even after he started school (this semester at EKU), some (FBS schools) were contacting him because they are on (the quarter system). He just said, ‘I’m not going to do it. I am going to stay here.’”
The return of the 6-foot-3, 218-pound McKinney only adds to the excitement for an EKU 2023 season that will start with back-to-back games at Cincinnati (Sept. 2) and at Kentucky (Sept. 9).
Yet it is the long-range intrigue surrounding Eastern Kentucky University football that will ultimately prove of the most significance. Eastern is playing a leadership role as the football-playing members of the ASUN and the Western Athletic conferences are trying to take the unprecedented step of joining together to form a football-only union that would then move to the FBS.
In a boost to the credibility of those efforts, the alliance last month announced the hiring of former NCAA executive and West Virginia University athletics director Oliver Luck as executive director of the ASUN-WAC partnership. Within the college sports industry, Luck is considered a heavy hitter.
To get off the ground, the yet-to-be-named new league might require all the influence Luck can bring to bear. There is presently a NCAA moratorium on the formation of new single-sport conferences in Division I. Also, there is not an existing process for an entire league to move from the FCS to the FBS.
Eastern Kentucky Athletics Director Matt Roan said Luck was present two Thursdays ago as the ADs from the schools aspiring to form the new FBS conference met for the first time in person in Dallas.
Roan said he is optimistic that the proposed new football-only association can find a way around the current moratorium on one-sport leagues. The hope, Roan said, is for the new league to earn official recognition maybe even as early as 2023 as a FCS conference with the ultimate aim of moving up to college football’s highest level, the FBS.
“We’re in the process of trying to get all the approvals, the requisite approvals, necessary to become a single-sport football conference,” Roan said Thursday.
The schools seeking to form the new football-only league are EKU, Austin Peay, Central Arkansas and North Alabama from the ASUN and Stephen F. Austin, Abilene Christian, Utah Tech, Southern Utah and Tarleton State from the WAC. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, which is starting a football program, plans to join the proposed league in 2025.
The obvious benefits to joining the FBS include the potential to enhance revenue from a future TV contract to broadcast the new conference’s games. Also, financial guarantees the new league members would receive for playing “buy games” against teams from Power Five leagues would go up substantially.
In EKU’s case, Roan said the major benefit for the Colonels’ fans if the Eastern program moves to the FBS could come from the quality of games that could then be scheduled in Richmond.
“Some of our regional rivals, historic rivals, who have since made the move (from FCS to FBS),” Roan said. “Being able to get them here is something that, I think, would be very attractive.”
Of course, Eastern’s greatest historic and regional rival — Western Kentucky — is one of the teams that has already made the transition from FCS to FBS. As a result, the Hilltoppers have not visited Roy Kidd Stadium since 2008.
“We would hope that Western would be one of (the teams EKU could schedule),” Roan said.
The Eastern AD then listed Marshall, Middle Tennessee State, Appalachian State, Miami (Ohio) and Ball State as other current FBS programs with which EKU shares historical and/or geographical connections that the Colonels would hope to bring to Richmond.
Wells said even the possibility that the Colonels could soon move up a level is already impacting how Eastern recruits. “I tell our coaches if we are not (recruiting) against (Group of Five schools) for players, then don’t bring them in here,” Wells said.
Eastern Kentucky has been seeking a route into the FBS since at least the middle of the prior decade. In 2015, the Sun Belt Conference chose Coastal Carolina over EKU to join its league.
Roan said Eastern is hopeful the current attempt will at last get Eastern Kentucky to college football’s top level.
“EKU wants to compete at the highest level we possibly can,” Roan said. “The things we are doing are designed to ensure that.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
