Conference realignment continues to shift the landscape of Division I athletics and the Sun Belt Conference this morning when it was announced that Appalachian State and Georgia Southern will be the newest members of the SBC.

Both institutions will announce today that they will join the league for the 2014 season – save for football, which will begin conference play in 2015. The conference itself will hold a teleconference at 6 p.m.

The Daily News has also learned that Idaho and New Mexico State will join the Sun Belt Conference soon, but as football-only members and only if their boards of regents approve the move. No timetable is set for that decision.

Whether Western Kentucky will ever compete against any of those programs in league play remains to be seen.

It has been widely rumored that WKU will be the next institution invited to join Conference USA.

The school’s main geographical rival, Middle Tennessee, announced its move out of the Sun Belt and into CUSA in November.

As of today, Western Kentucky does not have an official invitation to join Conference USA. But CUSA member Tulsa is rumored to be moving to the conference formerly known as the Big East, for which a name has not yet been determined.

Should Tulsa be invited to that league, an opening becomes available in CUSA – which could then be filled by the Hilltoppers.

As for the Sun Belt, Appalachian State and Georgia Southern fill voids left by MTSU and Florida Atlantic. Georgia State and Texas State are scheduled to join the league this summer after the departures of Florida International and North Texas.

Appalachian State is a school of roughly 18,000 students in Boone, N.C. The Mountaineers have won three national championships at the Football Champion Subdivision level and play in Kidd Brewer Stadium, a 23,150-seat facility where ASU played in front of an average of 26,358 fans last season.

The men’s basketball team last made the NCAA tournament in 2000.

Georgia Southern, a school with an enrollment of more than 20,000 in Statesboro, Ga., has won six FCS national titles, the last in 2000.

The men’s basketball team last played in the NCAA tournament in 1992, while the baseball program is currently ranked 22nd by Baseball America.

Appalachian State and Georgia Southern will join Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, South Alabama and Troy, along with nonfootball members Arkansas-Little Rock and Texas-Arlington.

Should WKU be invited and move to Conference USA, it would join Alabama-Birmingham, Charlotte, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, North Texas, Old Dominion, Rice, Southern Mississippi, Texas-El Paso and Texas-San Antonio.