Wheeling Jesuit announced Tuesday that it will add football as the school's 21st varsity sport.
The team will begin playing a full schedule in 2019 and will be allowed to use the 2018 season to play exhibition games. Wheeling Jesuit is the only school that is a member of the Mountain East Conference and does not field a football team.
"The addition of football at WJU further stabilizes the MEC's role as a premier all-sports conference in NCAA Division II," MEC commissioner Reid Amos said in a release. "The MEC's identity from the start has been an alignment of schools of similar sizes, budgets and sports offerings, and it is gratifying that our league will have all 12 members playing football."
According to the MEC, a couple of different options will be discussed in terms of scheduling when Wheeling Jesuit begins a full schedule in 2019, and a bye week will no longer be forced into the schedule.
"That's going to be good for the conference to keep every game against someone from within the league," Charleston coach Pat Kirkland said. "It's going to keep being a situation where there isn't much room for error. It's an exciting time for them and for this conference."
With another school added into the mix, coaches in the conference are excited to see where this can take the competition among the teams in the league once the Cardinals are added.
In the past two years, Wheeling Jesuit has won eight conference championships and six MEC tournament championships in other sports.
"When you look at how far this conference has come and look at how well the Mountain East has done in all sports since it began, it's impressive and it's nice to see that we're still committed to growing and improving as a league," West Virginia State coach John Pennington said. "Wheeling Jesuit has done a lot of great things in all of their sports and to add them in football and to see them start their program is an excellent move for our conference."
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.