It is now official!! ;D ;D
Today, chancellor Jack Hawkins accepted an invitation to join the SunBelt conference from UNT president Norvahl Pohl. Way to go Trojans!!! Yessss!!! ;D ;D ;D

On a related note of SunBelt expansion, the University of Idaho accepted an all-sports invitation to the SunBelt conference. ;D

This is great news. With nine teams, each Sunbelt team will have a guaranteed four home games each year. They just have to get some non-BCS conference teams to agree to home-and-homes with them. It will help them with the new NCAA regulations.

Congrats to Idaho and Troy State for becoming the 7th and 8th football playing full member of the Sun Belt.

Arkansas State
Idaho
Louisiana-Monroe
Louisiana-Lafayette
Middle Tennessee State
New Mexico State
North Texas
Troy State
Utah State

The SBC now has the number of teams they need to stay above the 8 team all member needs of new regulations as well as 9 teams for a 4 and 4 home and away series each year. It shouldn't be difficult to get 1 more D1 home game a year for these schools. The concern for some of the schools will be the attendance requirements.

I almost wouldn't mind if the state legislatures force the BCS conference schools to setup home-and-home series with different state schools every 2 years. Same would go for the MWC, CUSA and WAC if they don't schedule them. Normally I'd prefer the hands off approach but the BCS might be getting out of hand. Some of these schools could use some help.

Arkansas State - Arkansas
Idaho - Boise State
Louisiana-Monroe - LSU
Louisiana-Lafayette - LSU
Middle Tennessee State - Tennessee, Vanderbilt possibly
New Mexico State - NMU
North Texas - Texas, possibly others
Troy State - UAB, Bama
Utah State - Utah

pipe dream though.

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KingCal, you have an interesting commentary.

I believe the NC legislature forced NC and NCSU play ECU fairly regularly.
I remember the SC legislature being involved in the USC/Clemson basketball series.
Joe Paterno protested and stopped the PA legislature from forcing a Pitt/PSU series.
There are rivalries, but efforts, and some quite successfully, in keeping nearby campuses out of a particular conference or not rendering them games. Interesting postering in varying ways among the following:
Va Tech vs centrally located ACC schools
UTEP and NMSU
NTSU and SMU and TCU (Dallas/Ft. Worth area)
Villanova and Temple
WVU and Marshall
Southern Miss and MSU/Ole Miss
Houston and Rice (renewed)

Tidbits:

Arkansas State's program would be greatly helped by the razorbacks giving them a game. If not 'Bama, Auburn could help UAB (they did play before).

In recent years, it has been nice to see Ohio State play Cincinnati and some Ohio MAC schools. LSU had agreed to rotate games with other Louisiana schools.

Hey! Maryland could play Navy too! (If travel costs were really valued.

Washington State and Idaho are like seven miles apart, and do play each other.

Yeah here in Arkansas, we stAte fans have been complaining a lot (I know the Hog fans hate that) about the fact that the Razorbacks will play North Texas, UL-Lafayette and New Mexico State. Even though they are home games for the Hogs, it would generate more interest in our program if they would give us a game. A home and home would be great. We do have Memphis coming to Jonesboro in 2004 for sure and Ole Miss coming to Jonesboro a few years later. We are in the works with OK State to come to Little Rock for an off-campus home game. Our new AD Dean Lee (OK ST) and new Head Football Coach, Steve Roberts have worked hard with our President Les Wyatt to put us in a good position to maintain D1A status. We are adding a women's sport next year and will meet every requirement and put all of our attention toward the attendance stipulation.

Navy and Maryland will be playing September 3, 2005 in Baltimore. It will be their first meeting in 40 years.

This would be a workable thing in some places - but in others, it would tie up the BCS schools' schedules too much. Also a lot of non-BCS schools (11) don't have in-state BCS schools to turn to anyway.

Imagine OhioSt (the only BCS school in Ohio) trying to fit Cincinnati, Miami(OH), Toledo, BGSU, OhioU, Akron and KentSt on their schedule. At one a year, it wouldn't really help anybody (14 year cycle) and at more than one a year, it would hurt the OhioSt TV attractiveness.

Louisiana would have the same problem - where LSU (the lone BCS member in the state) would have to divide time between Tulane, La-Mon, La-Laf and La-Tech. That's an 8 year cycle for the non-BCS teams to get one visit from LSU. At that point - does it really help?

Other states would be easy - with either only one or two non-BCS schools or several BCS schools but many of these schools already play their in-state BCS or non-BCS rivals.

A run down (# BCS schools - # non-BCS schools), I let Temple be considered non-BCS already.....

Would help the non-BCS schools to force the BCS school to play them: (16-12)
========================================
Penn (2-1 - Pitt and PennSt could help Temple)
NewYork (1-2 - Syracuse could help Buffalo, but Army does not need gate help)
WestVirginia (1-1 - WestVirginia refuses to play Marshall, but most Marshall games are near capacity anyway)
Indiana (3-1 - not sure if BallSt plays any of them, they could use the help)
Arkansas (1-1 - Ark does not currently play ArkSt)
California (4-3 - SJSU could use all the help it can get, but they do play Stanford and Cal regularly, SDSU could use the help, FresnoSt does all right on their own)
Alabama (2-2 - Alabama and Auburn could help UAB and TroySt - though TroySt has to expand first anyway)
Mississippi (2-1 - SoMiss could use the help getting home BCS games)

States where the BCS and Non-BCS schools already play each other - or plan to (but forcing them to play home-and-home series might be beneficial): (21-19)
========================================
NorthCarloina (4-1 - UNC and NCSt already are forced to play ECU)
Tennessee (2-2 - Tenn plays Memphis and Vandy plays MTSU - at least occasionally)
Kentucky (1-1 - Kentucky does play Louisville)
Michigan (2-3 - MichState has played one of the 3 (WMU, CMU, EMU) almost every year for the last 20 years - UMich does occasionally play one of them)
Illinois (2-1 - NoIll has played Illinois, but they could use a home-and-home series)
Florida (3-2 - Miami has a series with UCF staring soon)
Oklahoma (2-1 - I think Tulsa plays the other 2 occasionally)
Texas (4-6 - UNT plays TexTech and Baylor on occasion, Houston has played Texas recently, not sure about TCU, UTEP, SMU or Rice. It may be difficult to get the state to be interested in forcing the state BCS schools to play private schools like TCU, SMU and Rice).
Colorado (1-2 - Col does play ColState, but neither ColState nor AirForce really need attendence help)

Wouldn't help - unworkable: (2-11)
Ohio (1-7)
Louisiana (1-4)

23 BCS schools (if you count UConn as BCS) are located in states that have no non-BCS schools: BC, UConn, Rutgers, Virginia, Va-Tech, SouthCarolina, Clemson, Georgia, Ga-Tech, Wisconisin, Minnesota, Iowa, IowaState, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, KansasState, Oregon, OregonState, Washington, WashingtonState, Arizona, ArizState.

11 non-BCS schools are located in states without BCS schools to play: Hawaii, BYU, Utah, UtahSt, BoiseSt, Idaho, Wyoming, NewMex, NMSU, Nevada, UNLV. In most cases, in the states with multiple non-BCS schools, the schools do already play each other.

Maryland has 1 BCS and 1 non-BCS schools but Navy doesn't need attendence help from Maryland.

How could you force Syracuse to play Buffalo or Vanderbilt to play Middle Tennessee State?

You can't - I was just pointing out that Vandy does play MTSU and if Syracuse played Buffalo that it would help Buffalo (Heck, Army playing at Buffalo would help Buffalo too - but Army isn't a "state" school either). You can't force NotreDame to play BallSt, OhioSt to play Miami(OH) nor Stanford to play SJSU either - so there another couple of cases. I only mentioned the private/public issue in reference to Texas because of the number of private schools that are non-BCS there (3). State action in Texas would primaraly focus on helping the public non-BCS schools.

The post was more about limiting the range to the states where such action was workable at all - and to point out how many schools don't have an in-state BCS school to turn to anyway. It also pointed out the few cases where state action has already caused the teams to play each other - or where the teams do anyway.

Miami of Ohio is perhaps one of the more "private" public schools in the country, but a public school nonetheless. If someone could explain the attraction to me, please let me know...

Have any private schools upgraded to I-A since the creation of the I-A and I-AA classifications in 1978? I can think of multiple incidences of private schools leaving I-A (Villanova, Drake, Richmond, Colgate, the Ivy League, Furman, Pacific), but what about private schools joining I-A since 1978?

That's alot of typing you could have saved...same goes to Wun.

[b]My comment was aimed at the Sunbelt schools as this is a Sunblet thread. The examples I gave were for SunBelt schools and the STATE schools. Vandy was mentioned, but not in the same category as the state schools were. In each example, there would be little fret. Texas could play NTSU once in awhile. Arkansas could play ASU. We're talking 1 game a year. For LSU, we're talking 1 game against ULL or ULM once a year. Not a big deal at all.

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I am still generally curious as to why lots of out-of-state rich kids attend Miami of Ohio...