The Missouri State Bears will spend their final year in the Missouri Valley Conference with a new athletic director.

Missouri State announced Monday morning that current AD Kyle Moats will leave Springfield to assume a similar role at Eastern Kentucky University. Moats has been MSU’s athletic director since 2009 and worked at the school since 2005. Just last month, Moats announced that Missouri State would leave the Missouri Valley Conference for Conference USA, in the process making the Bears’ football team the second in the state to compete in the bowl subdivision.

Moats will start at Eastern Kentucky on July 1st. Missouri State will announce an interim AD and the process for hiring a permanent replacement at a later date.