Jacksonville State is in a great college football tv market, Birmingham. Bad is its a UAT market with a little bit of Auburn just like the entire state. Good, it would atleast get the SB on the Birmingham news. Currently the SB isnt covered in north Alabama unless theyre playing UAB, JSU, Samford, UAT or Auburn.

Maybe the SBC honestly should just sit where they are at 11 members. Look at the options we've covered for months:

James Madison--really far north, prefers C-USA or MAC
Liberty--also really far north, SBC members don't wan associated with a faith-based institution
Delaware--really far north, won't come w/o JMU
Lamar--doesn't fit into the eastern division where the SBC has a need
Missouri St and UT Chattanooga--not ready or interested.
Jacksonville St--a third Alabama doesn't do a whole lot for the league in terms of revenue
HBCU's--don't have the money, won't break with tradition
Schools in Florida who don't have football programs yet--self explanatory--they don't have the money or facilities and would take 3-4 yrs to be anywhere close to ready
UT-A and UALR--have the facilities but lack institutional support for FBS football

I think the best plan is to be an 11-member all-sports league for now and either stick with 11 in football or lure UMass from MACfb. These might no be a hard thing to do since the MAC is reportedly trying to push them into full members or making them leave. The SBC could get UMass easily by simply not asking for any OOC basketball games in exchange for membership. The SBC also offers UMass the chance to recruit in the talent rich deep south. Something the SBC could do to minimize travel for the full-time members is make UMass a permanent cross-division rival. This would give Arkansas St and the ULs more games against the truly Southeastern Sunbelt teams.

The age old debate against holding in that 11 members are that its a pain to schedule in bb and olympic sports but today schedules are made by computers and with the current line up in the east those 5 schools could easily interchange travel partners when needed. Sticking with 11 would give everyone a slightly higher payout for NCAA MBT money than with 12 and increases everyone's chances of a tourney berth.

Wrote a similar thing on the last page...

UMass is the no brainer option if the MAC is putting them in a tight spot then the Sun Belt is their only option out there other than independence (assuming AAC/CUSA don't come calling). Being in the A10 with SBC fb is better than MAC all sports in most people's minds.

Assuming UMass passes or the MAC backs off pushing for full membership, Army should be the next target. With more teams going to 9 game conference schedules, Army may have to join a conference soon and there is not an easier FBS conference out there so this may be the best fit they could hope for.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

The two conferences that Army may enter are #1 Mac #AAC.

I really don't see the impetus for either Army or Navy to join a conference. What I think they ought to do is make contracts with non-Power 5 conferences for 2 OOC games per year (1 Home & 1 Away) and rotate opponents within each conference so that over the length of the contract they face every member of that league. Doing something like this would give the service academies national exposure and ensure that they would still be able to put together competitive schedules. Here's an example for a 12-game Army schedule under this premise:

Navy, Air Force, 2 MWC teams, 2 SBC teams, 2 MAC teams, 2 C-USA teams, and 2 AAC teams

Air Force is a full member of the MWC
Navy will be a member of the AAC for football and a member of the Patriot for other sports.
Army is an independent for football with a heavy schedule of MAC schools for football a member of the Patriot for other sports.
It is likely that Army could easily get an invitation to the MAC and a deal like Navy has with AAC for football.

True point, but only if these same enrollments of students and the staff members of both institutions would work out a petition to gain that fan support, along with negotiations within their government stuff. Look what UNC-Charlotte had planned to get football, and originally a non-football institution.



If the Sun Belt (as for July 1, 2014) plans to have an all-sports conference with 11 members (Idaho & New Mexico St. as the football-only schools; and UALR & UT-Arlington as the non-football ones), I still believe that it might plan to have an East/West division alignment format for conference play.

I sincerely don't think that UMass would be a great associate football member for the conference. It's within the Northeast. The Minutemen should plan to join either the MAC, the AAC (I mean, The American), or the ACC as a full all-sports member.

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Florida State Seminoles fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)! 2013 ACC football Atlantic Division champions; 2013 ACC football regular season champions; 2013 ACC football conference bowl tournament champions; 2014 NCAA D-I FBS BCS national champions!

I don't see UMass is any worse to have an associate member than Idaho. There's just not a whole lot of sense in having a geographic outlier as the conference's 11th football member if you aren't going to grab a 12th for a title game. If the SBC can't find a suitable 12th then they ought to just dump Idaho and have 10 members--maybe New Mexico St too and just have 9 and a full round-robin fb schedule.

As far as UMass goes, its not necessarily about what UMass wants but what UMass can get. The ACC is an unattainable goal--simply not going to happen. Membership in the American is stymied by UConn and if you consider the American's expansion needs they are much more likely to add in the West. An invite to the American is not going to materialize until UConn leaves the conference. As for the MAC, its a weak basketball league--far weaker than even the A-10 is with the Temple, Xavier, Butler, and Charlotte losses. It would be far better for them to stay where they are in Olympic sports than join he MAC on a full time basis.

Until UConn's got their P5 ticket punched, they need UMass more than UMass needs them. UMass has options that seem more horizontal a leap now than vertical (up or down).

CUSA puts them back into a conference with ODU and maybe James Madison. Sun Belt gives them virtually three time zones for a foot print in football, still with the A10 for hoops. MAC's a straight-up academic and athletic fit, even with the perceived conference weakness.

Let UConn get a taste of its own medicine when its athletic department can't support sports at the top level because it can't play well with its neighbors and peers. They've made a lot of trouble up there in Storrs...it's time they stop being such a pain to schools like UMass and see the parallels between them and UMass and them and BC.

I think UMass-SBC could work...but all-in with the MAC plus some football arrangement with Army and Navy would be better. Or ODU/JMU.

THIS. Idaho and NMSU were a means to an END namely a CCG.

Once WKU left they NEED another to replace then to get that CCG which will add about 1 million to the conference coffers.

Taking UMass is the same logic as taking Idaho/NMSU, they get to have a CCG w/o adding more FCS upgrades and w/o adding more mouths to feed in there mediocre bball conference.

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Fan of the Big 12 Conference, the Mountain West Conference and...

I believe that the Sun Belt would be the next in line (in case they can't find a proper 12th member, and a geographic-related/specific one) to have issues with football, since the WAC this past season because most of the members would wind up to either C-USA or The American.

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Florida State Seminoles fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)! 2013 ACC football Atlantic Division champions; 2013 ACC football regular season champions; 2013 ACC football conference bowl tournament champions; 2014 NCAA D-I FBS BCS national champions!

That may happen. Competition wise, the MAC may work better for them. The MAC does this fb only stuff & seems to have no issue with uneven numbers. But, they may ultimately want to follow Navy into the AAC. Wherever they go, they would need to have Navy and the AFA as in-conference or out-of-conference opponents each season.

Army may have jitters about all this due to their fb-only C-USA experience. Doubt they would have fared significantly better as an independent during that period.

If Army feels it cannot handle extended MAC-level competition in fb, maybe FBS status is not the best division for them. Sure as an independent they have a measure of freedom to pick and choose, but there are real limits to it, particularly for late season scheduling whereby many opponents may see it as scheduling a "give-me" with a prominent name.

I respect Army and wish them the best. Whatever direction they go, including remaining fb independent if that is the decision, hopefully it goes well.

The SBC will be next to grab a school as soon as they James Madison report becomes public. I am also willing to bet that they told the other top contenders for that spot that if they are not ready this year, there may be an open spot next year, so that leaves a 1 year time frame to prepare for a possible invite. This gives the presidents enough time to mull over possible scenarios on who to invite when James Madison says no, and for possible invitees the time to better prepare for such an invitation.

The real questions are - Will the B12 cause another major shift in realignment by trying to get to 12? Will the B1G and SEC be so unhappy with the 14 team scenario that they start a new round of shifts by going to 16 respectively? Will the PAC12 begin a new round by going to 16?

Anything can happen if the big boys decide to add to their existing conference members. If what I am hearing is right about a new major shift coming in 2014, then things are going to get interesting. My guess is the 4 team playoff will not be enough to satisfy everyone and that they will have to add to the playoff system to make everyone (or at least the ones with votes that matter) happy! My guess will be that they try to stop at 8, but the best case would be for 16.

Does anyone know if the SBC put any stipulations on NMSU and Idaho's football membership? Is it a contract for a certain number of years? can the SBC kick them out at their discretion? Are there travel subsidies involved?

Muskie,
I can't answer your question. Let me ask this though; how has the shift affected the Sun Belt? I keep hearing that with the additions for 2014 that they have surpassed the CUSA in power for football. If this is the case, what about the MAC, the AAC, and the MWC? What I am trying to ask here is where would you rank these conferences and why?
If this falls in another thread Quinn, could you move it for me?