Idaho gets the boot from the Sun Belt

MOSCOW — The University of Idaho’s two-decades-long foray into Division I football could be coming to an end.

The Sun Belt Conference announced Tuesday that, effective at the end of the 2017 football season, Idaho (and New Mexico State) will no longer be members of the conference.

Idaho has been a football-playing member of NCAA Division I (now called FBS) since 1996.

Idaho president Chuck Staben said Tuesday the Vandals were “disappointed by the Sun Belt’s decision.”

He said Idaho’s “two primary options” are to become FBS independent, which the Vandals did for one season in 2013 after the Western Athletic Conference dissolved and Idaho returned to the Sun Belt in football, or go back to the FCS-level Big Sky Conference, in which Idaho was a member up until 1995, and enjoyed great success in the 1980s and early ’90s.

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