The ASUN Conference has accepted Austin Peay State University’s athletics program as a full member starting in July 2022, as confirmed by ESPN Saturday.
Known as the Governors, Austin Peay sponsors six men’s sports and nine women’s sports, including football and men’s and women’s basketball.
The new addition from Clarksville, Tennessee will give Lipscomb an in-state conference rival for the first time since East Tennessee State left to join the Southern Conference in 2014. Austin Peay will also be Lipscomb’s closest ASUN opponent geographically; the two campuses are separated by just over an hour by car.
The Bisons have played the Governors in men’s basketball nine times, winning eight of those games.
With the addition, the ASUN adds its 13th full-time member school and its fourth in two years. Austin Peay will be the third program to leave the Ohio Valley Conference for the ASUN in that same span, joining Jacksonville State and Eastern Kentucky.
Austin Peay’s membership will begin on July 1, 2022, in time for the 2022-2023 athletics calendar in all sports.