Hey 89rabbit ... thanks for the info on Northern Colorado. I had no idea they were so against the Big Sky and so for the Mid-Con. Your scenario would still work out fine, though.

Sacramento State to the Big West / Great West ... leaving the Big Sky with 7 teams ... so NDSU, SDSU, and SUU are added as replacements to get to 10.

Northern Colorado replaces Southern Utah in the Mid-Con ... while Denver is added as a travel partner and 10th team.

That would leave the Great West with only 4 teams - Sacramento State, Cal Poly, UC Davis, and Northern Colorado - however. Even if San Diego could be talked into leaving the Pioneer to become the Great West's non-scholarship whipping boys, that's only five teams. Maybe Sacramento State realizes this and stays in the Big Sky?

In addition, if Northern Colorado joined the Mid-Con and the Dakota schools joined the Big Sky alongside Southern Utah, it would make more sense for Northern Colorado to try to become the 9th member of the football-only Gateway Conference, where it could be with current Mid-Con member Western Illinois.

The Great West would then be reduced to three (Cal Poly, UC Davis, Sacramento State) or possibly four (San Diego) members. The only resort might then be to dissolve the Great West and form some sort of east-west alliance with the Big South.

Non-football schools Utah Valley, Texas-Pan American, TAMU-Corpus Christi, and IPFW ... meanwhile ... would still be homeless.

Lurker Down South ... Idaho is in the Big West / Sun Belt, not the Big Sky. Its future move to the WAC has no impact on the Big Sky. Only the possibility Sacramento State leaving can cause the Big Sky to make any moves.

In addition, the Great West does not have an automatic bid and will not be reviewed for an automatic bid for a couple of years. The Big South, which just added football a couple of years ago, is in a similar situation. The two leagues have to wait their turn. By the time that turn comes up, they might out of necessity be one league.

Idaho had a prayer answered when UTEP left for ConfUSA. If LaTech had gone to ConfUSA, Idaho would have been stuck in the Sunbelt, and the Idaho politcos would have been steamed because of all the money they would have spent on travel, with few local games. Barring a WAC invite, the only other option for the Idaho administration was to swallow their pride and drop back to I-AA. The Big Sky would surely have accepted them in a minute.

Northern Colorado does place a high emphasis on baseball, but that does not preclude the possibility of them joining the Big Sky, as they can obtain baseball affiliate membership with another conference. For example the WAC will be down to five baseball teams and would almost certainly be interested in asking UNC for that sport.

Expect a Big Sky invite to be issued soon, maybe even this month, to Southern Utah. Montana had been stonewalling SUU's invitation, but that may have changed now. Weber St., UNA, Sac St., and Idaho State are all believed to be firmly in SUU's camp.

IF SUU leaves the MidCon, expect invites to go to TxAM-Corpus Christi and UTPA. Corpus Christi's AD and President expected the last MidCon invite to go to them, but were surprised when it went to Centenary instead. Oral Roberts and Centenary are now believed to be strongly in favor of the Texas schools, especially now that Corpus has a brand new arena. The Denver/UNC combination is possible, but Denver would have to voluntarily leave the Sunbelt and go to a weaker conference. Denver's best bet will be to bide their time and wait for a better offer. NDSU and SDSU main problems are that they have no natural advocates in the MidCon. If the midwestern schools wanted another school, they would chose IPFW.