This article is entirely satire. All information and interviews below are fictional and for entertainment purposes only.

In a shocking turn of events, Tulane President Mike Feetz announced that the Green Wave will abandon the collapsing American Athletic Conference and join the newly created Southern Nerd Conference. He stated that the Green Wave wanted to avoid facing the basketball powerhouses joining the AAC, such as Florida Atlantic and College Basketball Invitational champions Charlotte. Feetz claims that the team will have a better chance to compete with struggling teams with little recent success, such as Duke and North Carolina.

The SNC’s chartering members are expected to be the Tulane Green Wave, Duke Blue Devils, North Carolina Tar Heels, Virginia Cavaliers, Rice Owls, Vanderbilt Commodores, Emory Eagles, Georgia Bulldogs, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Wake Forest Demon Deacons, Southern Methodist Mustangs, Texas Longhorns, Mississippi State Bulldogs and Auburn Tigers.

While each of these schools have accomplished great things in their previous conferences, they have always felt that they weren’t challenged intellectually by their peers. 

SMU and Duke put out an official joint statement stating, “We felt that in our respective conferences, there was not the intellectual rigor that stimulated our minds. We are trying to refocus the student-athlete into being that first word — students — and keeping our minds as sharp as possible.”

Mississippi State President Mack Keller said, “We are so excited to join this new conference. We want to reshape our identity from being a football school to being a smart school, and this is a fantastic way to do this.”

Keller continued, “To further increase our academic image, our Bulldog mascot will be wearing glasses to appear smarter in all future university branding. Other traditions, like our cowbells, will stay, but we have exploratory committees researching how we can make them more intellectual.”

Critics of the new conference have claimed that the SNC is nothing but a pointless and elitist move to put themselves on a pedestal. However, this is an excellent way for the South’s best schools to compete with those Ivy League pricks up North. They have had it too good for too long. With Tulane emerging as a football dynasty after the Cotton Bowl victory, the SNC can overthrow the Ivy League as the winningest NCAA football conference.

Auburn head football coach Lou Breeze said, “I am not sure what exactly we signed up for but instead of losing to Alabama and LSU every year, we have the great opportunity to lose to great football powerhouses at Rice and Duke!”

Some fans have felt betrayed and hurt by the sudden announcement of the new conference. They do not approve of abandoning tradition and legacies of success for an experimental conference. However, they are vastly outnumbered by the thousands of nerds across these 14 schools who finally feel represented by their athletic departments.

On social media, alumni are buzzing with at least one former Texas quarterback tweeting, “We’re baaaaaaaaaaaaack!”

The conference football schedule will be announced later this week. Tulane will open the season at home against the William and Mary Tribe, whose entire roster is composed of people named William and Mary.