The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, or MEAC, continues to shrink.

North Carolina A&T State University, Bethune-Cookman University and Florida A&M University have announced they will be leaving the historically black athletic conference.

The Greensboro-based Aggies at North Carolina A&T will play MEAC schedules for 2020-21 before taking on a full Big South schedule.

Bethune-Cookman and Florida A&M are leaving MEAC to join the only other historically black NCAA Division I confer- ence, the Southwestern Athletic Conference, or SWAC.

This has become a trend. Two years ago, Hampton University left MEAC for the Big South.

Savannah State University left MEAC to return to the SIAC, or Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, last year. In 2010, Winston-Salem State departed MEAC to return to the CIAA.

MEAC was formed in 1970 as a NCAA Division I spinoff to the CIAA. Schools remaining in MEAC are Delaware State, Morgan State, Howard, Norfolk State, North

Carolina Central and South Carolina State universities and non-football playing members University of Maryland-Eastern Shore and Coppin State University.

In its new conference, North Carolina A&T will have in-state rivalries with Campbell, Gardner-Webb and High Point universities and the University of North Carolina-Asheville, and will renew its long-standing relationship with Hampton University.

SWAC schools include Grambling State, Southern, Texas Southern, Mississippi Valley State, Prairie View A&M, Jackson State, Alabama A&M, Alcorn State and Alabama State universi- ties and University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff.