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 (c-usa). 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 c-usa 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, will feature austin peay, the three 2021 arrivals, kennesaw state, and north alabama. three other asun schools sponsor football but will not play that sport in the asun. stetson plays in the pioneer football league, whose members do not award football scholarships; liberty plays as an independent in the top level of d-i football, the football bowl subdivision; and bellarmine began play in sprint football, a weight-restricted form of the sport not run by the ncaa, in 2022.