Three conferences: Big Sky, Great West, and Southland.

Big Sky:

I see them adding Southern Utah and I see Sac State leaving for the WAC and DI-A to be travel partners with SJSU.

Then I see the BSC adding Denver as a non football member. That makes travel partners of PSU/EWU, ISU/WSU, UM/MSU, UNC/DU, and SUU/NAU.


Great West:

I see them adding up to 4 more schools after losing SUU.

Probably UND and USD when they move up to complement NDSU and SDSU.

Also probably 2 more Calif. schools. Perhaps San Diego, UCI, or UCSB if the last 2 add football.


Southland:

I see Texas State and UTSA going DI-A. That opens the door for Centenary and UTPA.

Denver's a tough call. Quinn's probably right to nix part of my non-FB proposal since Denver would want to improve their prestige, but somehow I don't see the Big Sky adding a non-FB school.

If you find yourself saying "if school X adds football," check your sources. If you find yourself saying that for a California school, check YOURSELF. The recent history out of California is that schools in all divisions seem to find themselves out of football, with the exception of BCS schools and a few bare select others. I'm just highly advising against breath-holding in regards to the Golden State. Texas is another matter.

Not to mention that the California schools in the Big West LIKE the Big West. There is little chance that a Big West school would leave, they would just look to join a football only conference. similar mentality in the WCC.

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yes, add San Diego because they're non scholarship. And the only way the big west schools would bring back football is if there were a non scholarship conference. The NCAA should make a 1-aaa for non scholarship football then some 1-aa schools could move down and some non football schools could bring it back. I think it could restore football in the west.

I want the Big West schools to stay in the Big West.

Joining the Great West would have nothing to do with that. Note that Poly and Davis are both members of both the Big West and the Great West.


And, again, the GW wouldn't be interested in adding teams that weren't committed to 57 scholarships.

Texas State will not leave the playoff classification unless it has a commitment from a conference that is not named the Sun Belt. I think realistically they would want to join the western division of CUSA. The WAC is too much travel for them to afford and the Sun Belt would afford them less recruiting opportunities than the Southland does right now.

UTSA is still 5 years out from adding football. They would have to play in the playoff classification for 5 years past that to get their feet on the ground. But yes, once they have those in place and if they have the support of the city at that time, you could see them moving into the bowl classification.

Overall I see this less about where they want their football to play and more what conference they want to play in.

I see Texas State and North Texas as 2 pretty compatible programs. So I don't see any reason why TX St would turn its nose up at the SB.

how about an mostly texas 1a conference from c-usa west, and other sources. texas state, north texas, utep, smu, rice, houston, tulsa, utsa, maybe tcu, nmsu, tulane, and louisiana tech

The Sun Belt is a bad conference with bad teams. There are better teams and better competition in the Southland which allow Southland teams to out recruit the Sun Belt teams. That is why they do not want to be in the Sun Belt. That and the Sun Belt has stretched itself quite a bit from Denver to Florida now with no natural rivalries outside of North Texas makes it quite unattractive. That is why western CUSA is better, with instate rivalries waiting.

Academically the two schools are similar, even athletically, but the rest of the Sun Belt isn't all that similar to Texas State.

So Texas State out recruits North Texas?

Come on now. Keep it consistant.

Go take a look at the recruiting classes and tell me that North Texas is a step beyond Texas State. Just because they are in the playoff classification does not mean they don't have talent. Maybe five years ago North Texas recruiting was blowing the Southland away, but not any longer. Same with Northwestern and McNeese State, they consistently bring in the higher rated player over Sunbelt teams. It is amazing what 22 extra full scholarships will do for a program when it comes to depth and why bowl classification teams who are in the bottom feeder bowl conferences would have the edge over playoff classification.

Heck, Louisiana-Monroe can't even beat Southland teams and the rest of the SunBelt won't play playoff classification teams for that reason.

I don't buy anything you're saying. Not one bit.

You obviously believe the Southland teams are better than the Sun Belt teams without anything to show it or any logic as to why they would be.

Go check recruiting class grades and talent grades at places like Scout and Rivals. You will see that upper echelon playoff classification conferences like the Southland and A-10 routinely score higher than the Sun Belt. Look at the Sagarin ratings (not recruiting, but performance/competition based) and you will see those same bowl classification teams and conferences rated higher that the Sun Belt.

Just because you are bowl classification, that does not mean you are automatically better than playoff classification. Just look at what New Hampshire and Montana State have done this year already.

Another scenario for you. Mid-Con expands itself too much and it needs to unload after a couple of years...

North Dakota
South Dakota
North Dakota State
South Dakota State
Southern Utah
Utah Valley State
Denver

Does something like that have a chance to pull at Northern Colorado then? Probably not without automatic bids.

But that is seven. Not sure who else might tag along, but it is a strong regional conference. But they really don't have anything to tie them together outside of that.

Would it even appeal to a Weber State or a Montana or Montana State?

No way would Denver be a part of that.

And without them that's only 6 members.


That would make a fine western division of the Mid Con.

The East Division could be:

West Illinois
IPFW
IUPUI
Oakland
ORU
UMKC

So basically all I did there was kick Centenary out and add UND, USD, and UVSC which could indeed be the next round of expansion if SUU isn't taken by the Big Sky.

The only problem would be getting Centenary to leave. There really is no other place for them other than the Southland or Sun Belt, neither of which I believe would take them. Maybe the Atlantic Sun? Who knows.


I don't think any current Big Sky members would leave for anything less than the WAC or MWC.