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).

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. 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  JoinedASUN Austin Peay State University  Clarksville, Tennessee  1927  Public  Governors  2022 Bellarmine University  Louisville, Kentucky  1950  Private  Knights  2020   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   Florence, Alabama  1830  Public  Lions  2018   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   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. 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. 

The next membership change came in July 2022 with the arrival of football-sponsoring Austin Peay State University from the OVC and non-football Queens University of Charlotte from the Division II South Atlantic Conference. 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. 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. 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.

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) after having been shut down when the ASUN began a lacrosse partnership with the Southern Conference (SoCon). 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, 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. Lindenwood also joined the ASUN in women's lacrosse, also not sponsored by the OVC, at that time.

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)  Mainconference  (Air Force)  USAF Academy, Colorado  1954  Federal  Falcons  2021    Mountain West Conference Coastal Carolina University  Conway, South Carolina  1954  Public  Chanticleers  2021    Sun Belt Conference   Newark, Delaware  1743  Public  Blue Hens  2025    Conference USA  Florida Atlantic University  Boca Raton, Florida  1961  Public  Owls  2023    American Conference Gardner–Webb University  Boiling Springs, North Carolina  1905  Private  Runnin' Bulldogs  2023    Big South Conference Georgia Southern University  Statesboro, Georgia  1906  Public  Eagles  2025    Sun Belt Conference Kennesaw State University  Kennesaw, Georgia  1963  Public  Owls  2024    Conference USA Liberty University  Lynchburg, Virginia  1971  Private  Lady Flames  2023    Conference USA Lindenwood University    1827  Private  Lions  2022  Men's and women's lacrosse  Ohio Valley Conference Mercer University  Macon, Georgia  1833  Private  Bears  2022    Southern Conference Old Dominion University  Norfolk, Virginia  1930  Public  Monarchs  2023    Sun Belt Conference 2025    (UNC Asheville)  Asheville, North Carolina  1927  Public  Bulldogs  2023    Big South Conference   Salt Lake City, Utah  1850  Public  Utes  2021    Big 12 Conference

References


Category:NCAA Division I athletics conferences
Category:1978 establishments in the United States