Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo sports threw it out there in his ranking of BYU destinations. But in all seriousness, could that happen in the next few years? It's not like BYU hasn't done it before... they were leading the charge out of the 16-team WAC.

If the goal is to come up with a better TV deal that the MTN Network, and chase BCS status, and be the "best-of" conference of MWC, C-USA, WAC, etc... you'd end up with:

BYU
Fresno St
Boise St
San Diego St
UNLV
Colorado St
UTEP
New Mexico
TCU
Houston
Memphis
Tulsa or SMU

All top 100 markets (4, 6, 17, 30, 41, 53, 54, 57, 68, 83, 85, 91). Best possible football programs with BYU, TCU, Boise State and pretty good in hoops (33 NCAA bids since 2000).

What kind of TV deal could they get?

(And the fall out would be....

C-USA would add: Charlotte, Temple, North Texas and Texas St.
EAST: UCF/UAB, East Carolina/Charlotte, Temple/Marshall,
WEST: Southern Miss/Tulane, Rice/Texas St, SMU/North Texas

Mountain West/WAC remnants combine for a nine-team conference:
Air Force, Wyoming, San Jose St, Hawai'i, Nevada, New Mexico St, Louisiana Tech, Utah St, Idaho.

Sun Belt at eight (loses UNT).

_________________
1897-1898 | 1900-06 | 1926-27 | 1929-30 | 1939 | 1942

The concept of this idea is decent...

...but the premise of BYU is flawed. They know where they want to go, and it'll probably be the Texas legislature that stops them.

The #1 school that needs to create a football conference RIGHT NOW:

Hawai'i.

They need the Big West for other sports, badly. I wonder if the BW will listen, however.

If BYU wanted to create a "Best of" conference that is capable of landing a better television deal than the Mtn. and chasing BCS status then they should take the following:

BYU (of course)
TCU
Boise St.
Nevada
Fresno State
Air Force
Houston
Tulsa
SMU

Nine team conference, three elite schools, the other six are all solid programs that are capable of being competitive in any given year.