The Sun Belt Conference has "downsized" this season from 12 teams to 10 in football, but commissioner Karl Benson said Monday the league is comfortable with that number.
The Sun Belt added Idaho and New Mexico State as football-only members in 2014, then Coastal Carolina as an all-sports member in 2016, in an effort to get to 12 teams for football. At the time, the NCAA mandated that leagues have 12 teams in order to hold conference championship games, but has since abolished that rule.
No longer needing 12 teams, the Sun Belt two years ago declined to renew membership agreements with Idaho and New Mexico State, which were a bad fit geographically with the rest of the conference, which extends from Texas to North Carolina.