According to a report from Newsday:

Stony Brook University will leave the Big South Conference in football after the 2012 season and join the Colonial Athletic Association, according to two people familiar with the move.

Albany, Stony Brook’s longtime rival in the America East Conference for all other sports, also is headed to the CAA for football, the sources confirmed.

To be clear, nothing official has been announced, this news site is quoting 2 unnamed sources.

But it’s been commonly known that Stony Brook & Albany were being courted by the CAA. What comes as a surprise from this report is that both schools will supposedly will be making the move for football only. I’m not really sure why that is. Stony Brook’s baseball team is their greatest asset right now, why just take their football team? Or is it Stony Brook that doesn’t want to make the complete move?

This relates to App State in that SoCon members Davidson and College of Charleston have both been invited to the CAA as well. According this Charleston Post & Courier reporter, the question of “Who else is going?” is a pretty important one:

Main thing #CofC committee chair wants to know: “Who else would be moving with us” to #CAA? #SoCon

August 2, 2012 6:14 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Jeff_fromthePC

Jeff Hartsell

No formal action on #CofC to #CAA, but committee chair says school can handle travel costs, wants to know who else is going. #Socon

August 2, 2012 6:31 pm via FacebookReplyRetweetFavorite

@Jeff_fromthePC

Jeff Hartsell

Davidson has been pretty quiet so far on their potential move. But the College of Charleston Board of Trustees has been discussing it in meetings that took place today and yesterday.

I think geographically, the additions of Albany and Stony Brook make sense. However, they don’t really move the needle in the quality department. Even if CoC and Davidson do leave, the SoCon could actually dethrone the CAA and become the best FCS football conference in the country. Basketball would be a completely different story. The SoCon needs to seal the deal and add someone like Coastal Carolina and 1 other football school. Then they should add 2 basketball schools to up the ante in that department. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.