Check the thread on Expansion News. TAM-CC is in. This gives them 11 schools, now, which could mean that Central Arkansas, Centenary, and Texas-Pan American are probably candidates for expansion to 12, though I'm sure they'd prefer a football school in there.

Read the article about 4 posts above.
It would seem that negotiations / announcement regarding Central Arkansas would be imminent.

Central Arkansas is a football school, Centenary and UT-Pan Am are not.

If Central Arkansas comes aboard, that will mean 8 / 12 football schools. TA&M-CC noted that they would be willing to consider FB in the future. UT-Arlinton, UT-San Antonio, and Lamar appear to be considering FB, perhaps under pressure from the conference leadership.

Now they have Texas A&M at Corpus Christi they now need a school that has football so they can get to 8 in football and 12 in basketball.

David. That school should be Central Arkansas. And to the rest of the members of this thread. I apologize and it was a mistake of mine of giving my opinion in my previous post.

_________________
Florida State Seminole fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)!

No you shouldn't apologize. I mean that's nice and friendly and everything, but you should feel free here to state your opinion. Some may not agree with you, but that shouldn't stop from you saying what you think.

UCA would also give the Southland recognition outside Texas and Louisiana-while TV isn't as critical to the Southland as it was to the Southwest Conference, it would pay not to isolate the conference too much.

By the way, which conference will the Louisiana-Monroe Indians (for all sports) head to after this season?

_________________
Florida State Seminole fan for life (mostly on football, basketball and baseball)!

Louisiana - Monroe is headed to the Div 1-A Sun-Belt Conference for All-Sports.

La-Monroe already was a football member of the conference (but kind of provisional, at that) .

The all-sports invitation was announced almost a year ago.

Here's what happened. The WAC lost it's Texas component to C-USA, and re-stocked with the western Sun-Belt schools (NM State, Utah State, and Idaho).

The Sun-Belt looked at it's alignment, and figured that Denver was rather isolated, and would be looking to depart whenever an invitation from a western conference arrived. So the Sun-Belt decided to re-stock with Southeastern schools that play football. This meant shopping for 1-AA to 1-A upgrades. Troy (Alabama) was already in the works, FAU and FIU were added next. So if you subtract Denver, they had 11 members (7 played football), plus a FB only member in La-Monroe.

The Sun-Belt wanted to add a #12 that played football.

The WAC's realignment left Louisiana Tech stranded as the only school east of Las Cruces, NM, and they desperately wanted to be CUSA's replacement for TCU. UTEP got the invite, so the Sun-Belt invited La Tech to be Sun-Belt #12. Some time earlier, La Tech had left the Sun-Belt for the greener grass of the (then 16-team) WAC, so they felt returning would have been a "step down" and I suppose humiliating, even though geographically it would make a lot of sense.

Apparently, La Tech's strategy is to be positioned to join CUSA, if and when they lose teams again (perhaps if the Big East splits, and the BE FB 8 expand by adding Memphis and/or Marshall and/or ECU and/or UCF).

So the Sun Belt, spurned by La Tech, said "OK, LA-Monroe, you wanna join us for all-sports ?" They accepted, and announced their departure from the Southland.

So the Southland is now sitting pretty at 12 members. Great help in scheduling. They also improved the quality and footprint of the conference.

So what is next for the Southland over the next couple of years?

My only question in all this is a 9th football playing school. UTA, UTSA, and TAMU-CC have all talked about adding football. A lot of talk and posturing, but nothing substantial. More talk from high rollers in San Antonio than action at UTSA. Does the Southland wait?

What is going to happen to Nicholls State? Only sustained by their want to have football, every other sport suffers. Does Nicholls State fade in the next couple of years, possibly moving down? Then the Southland brings in another. Though they would still be at only 8 football schools.

Nicholls won the football title last season. I don't see them giving up football any time soon.

I think UTSA will be the 1st of those 3 to add football.

I don't think they will give up football as I said. But as an athletic department as a whole with regard to money and budget they are in dire straits. What they call sports (ie cross country and track & field) is a single person running to represent the team because they don't have a recruiting budget for those sports and they need to meet NCAA DI regs.

But in the end, money could force an issue and it doesn't seem to be improving even with a co-championship in football last season.

If Nicholls has to drop to Division II or Division III, would the Southland invite Tarleton State up from Division II?

My hope would be that they'd invite Centenary. But that's my wet dream to get them out of the Mid Con.

Tarleton Had their name in the pot during this round of expansion to get a look. Guess the Southland didn't like what they saw and so Tarleton said they were happy in DII. I think they are best suited for DII and probably could not carry a DI budget being in Stephenville, TX and all.

I think Centenary still has too many sport problems to match the Southland, they would have to drop a couple and add new sports or face trying to find affiliate status in another conference.

In my opinion I think they should shoot for an Oklahoma school to compliment the Arkansas school.

Hmm...any hope that Centenary would drop down to DII?

I don't see any other DI conference taking them and they're really a pain as far as travel goes for the Mid Con.