Yeah, ideally Army, Navy, AF would be together.

But for that to really work, it means having a conference that covers the whole country. It got close, but never happened.

Maybe in the future it could. It would take things like B10 and SEC going to 16 or 18 to get the trickle down of 4-8 new Big East openings. Same with ACC and/or Big 12. Only scenario I could see would be something where you had a handful of FBS schools like UConn, Army, Temple, Navy and others on 1 side and AF and some MWC schools on the other side.

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I just dislike a lot of the ambiguity that comes form hybrid and independent arrangements.

Army has a bad situation on their hands.
They want to be FBS in terms of athletic profile, but they have a really hard time competing, due to the type of recruits they are able to attract (4 yr. military commitment).
If Army really can't compete at FBS level, should htey drop down ?
Why do Navy and Air Force fare better when put into the same situation ?

So of the independents / hybrids:
UMass - might wind up in all-sports with BE FB schools
ECU - same
Notre Dame - eventually play an 8-game ACC FB schedule ?
SDSU - back to MWC for all sports ?
BYU - eventually to MWC for all sports ?
Hawaii - to MWC for all sports ? (their hybrid arrangement actually makes a lot of sense for them in terms of travel times).
Idaho - think they will drop to FCS and play FB in Big Sky
NMSU - might get into CUSA or Sun-Belt as everything trickles down.
Army / Navy - I can see them staying in Patriot (fon non-FB) for the sake of travel. It'd be nice if they could be in the same FB conference, since they are "sister-schools".

So Army went 0-4 this year vs. MAC, however they nearly beat Northern Illinois (who wound up in a BCS Bowl (Orange)) !
They went 1-1 vs. ACC, losing to Wake, but beating BC.
They split 1-1 with the service academies, whupping AF, but losing a close one to Navy.
They went 0-4 in their remainig games, losing soundly to SDSU, Stony Brook (FCS), Rutgers, and Temple.
2-10 overall, certainly not good, but I would NOT say they embarrassed themselves....

Perhaps the best situation for Army / Navy would be to play FB in the MAC East.
They would each have 7 MAC opponents, and the Army-Navy game would be the 8th conference game; then they would each have 4 OOC games to play Air Force and 3 others.
The MAC might be best for them in terms of travel and level of competition.

Agreed Tute, Always felt like the MAC was perfect for Army (Navy too). The MAC could do for those 2 what it did for Temple and Marshall.

To us alignment junkies Army and Navy to the MAC has always seemed a natural evolution but I doubt we will ever see that happen. MAC membership would regionalize the service academies and I doubt that is something that the academies want to do. I think for the health of those two programs they need to be able to play a national schedule and have exposure to service men/women and veterans across the country. As long as BE, MWC, SBC, MAC, and C-USA schools are willing to accommodate the academies and schedule them for dates in October and November they should stay indy. When it looked as if the BE was going to be a national conference with teams in nearly every region of the US Navy to the BE made sense---they'd get exposure, television money, assurances that they'd never have trouble filling a schedule, and they could be competitive with the schools they were slated to be with. Now Navy in the BE doesn't make quite as much sense b/c it interferes with the national schedule and the ability to create a competitive schedule as after commitments to play Army/AFA/ND out of conference Navy would be stuck choosing between scheduling a west coast school or an FCS opponent that would help them get to bowl eligibility.

A good point, Muskie.

Indeed, the services academies do seek a national projection that does favor armed services recruiting and institutional recruiting. They also like to be present for games in cities near bases with expectations that reach beyond attendance.

The level of competition wise, the MAC makes certain sense. But with 6 schools in Ohio and 3 in Michigan, all being state colleges with modest venues and attendance figures, the MAC does not offer much diversity for meeting the service academies desires.

Notre Dame uses the "national scope" argument, in part, to remain independent. But Notre Dame could still largely meet that objective in one of the power-conferences. Even in the east coast/mid-Atlantic based ACC, ND shall be just three conference games short of a full conference slate.

I suppose, for Army and Navy, it shall come down to the late season scheduling factors as you noted. Army and Navy have been the unique types many notable schools have wanted to play; they (Army, Navy) carry prominent and pride names with most (scheduling opponents) believing they are not signing onto a sured loss.

Mark Blaudschun blog article reporting that BE/SDSU are working on a joint release announcing dissolution of prior membership agreement.Expected to be finalized within the next few days.Link at http://ajerseyguy.com/?p=4783

With the MWC and nBE changes, it really is a shame that the MWC/BE merge idea discussed here a year or so ago never came to be. Would think at this point, it would be the best TV contract with a real national conference.

EAST:
Pod A:
UConn
Temple
Cincinnati
ECU
USF
UCF

Pod B:
Memphis
Tulane
Houston
SMU
New Mexico

WEST:
Pod C:
UNLV
Nevada
SDSU
SJSU
Fresno St.

Pod D:
Utah St.
Boise St.
Wyoming
Colorado St.
Air Force
* Hawaii

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This is the same issue that prevented the Big East and ACC from merging into a super conference.

One group believe they can have their cake and eat it too. Basic rule of thumb, conference realignment is always based simply on greed.

The Big East wanted a merger and the ACC thought they simple could just take what they wanted and did.

The Big East tried the same thing by taking a few teams and keeping the hybrid and imploded in the process.

This time around the MWC believe they now have the upper hand (greed) and can consistently get the contact access bowl bid and the revenue that comes along with that bid.

If there were not for greed, would college sports be a much better place. Or for that matter, the entire world.

Maybe the BE and MWC will wind up on the same network.

The leagues don't need to merge, there's too many teams to come close to playing everyone else, but it's looking like:

BE-East
UConn
Temple
ECU
UCF
USF
One other ****

BE-Central
Cincy
Memphis
Tulane
Houston
SMU
Tulsa ??**

MWC-Mountain
New Mexico
Air Force.
Colorado St.
Wyoming
Utah St.
Boise St.

MWC-Pacific
UNLV
Nevada-Reno
Fresno St.
SJ St.
SD St.
Hawaii

This is predicated on SDSU completing it's "non-move" back to the MWC.
Actually a pretty decent line-up, considering all the crazy shifting that's transpired.
Hopefully NMSU can latch on with CUSA or Sun-Belt.
Idaho is rather low-budget, tiny market, isolated. I think their new home in Big Sky will work well for them.

No merger! Let the MWC rest with 12 and the BE with 12 (incl Navy and Army or Umass). Here's to the continued existence of at least a few manageable, regional conferences where you know and get to play your opponents.

CBSSports blog article(previously posted in another thread)with comments from BE Commish regardng post SDSU BE situation at http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... -to-future

The first time this idea came up I said the only way it would work is if several schools were football only members. 24 will be way too big and will end up splitting. However, if you could work it down to say 18 full members it could be workable and some rumors (mainly UConn and Cincy to the C7) indicate to me this could be what is happening.

Candidate football only schools:
UConn - C7
Cincy - C7
Temple - A10
ECU - Colonial
Navy - Patriot
Hawaii - Big West
BYU - WCC

The first time this idea came up I thought it best for the western schools to join together in the Big West as it appeared the Big East had the power (after snatching SDSU and BSU). Now that has changed and it should be the eastern schools that have to find non football homes. You'd like it if USF and UCF could find non football homes but I don't think they would. But if the furthest east school was Memphis and there were 16-18 schools, then maybe it could work.

It would be great to see the 12 MWC schools + 10 BE schools + Army and Navy team up as a 24 team mega-conference or at least a loose confederation that teams up for bowl games, negotiates media contracts together, and shares revenue to some degree but I'm guessing that since the BE went after the MWC teams (Boise, SDSU, AFA, Fresno) and then the MWC went after the BE's teams (Boise, SDSU, Houston, SMU) we're not going to see any sort of amity between Providence and Colorado Springs.

But since we're considering a somewhat hypothetical national conference:

I'd do 6 Pods of 4--each school plays the 3 schools in their pod annually and 1 school from each of the other 5 (3+5=8 conference games) Pods could be done as so:

Pod 1--UConn, Temple, Army, Navy
Pod 2--Cincinnati, ECU, UCF, USF
Pod 3--Memphis, Tulane, SMU, Houston
Pod 4--Wyoming, Colorado St, Air Force, New Mexico
Pod 5--Utah St, Boise St, Nevada, UNLV
Pod 6--San Diego St, Fresno St, San Jose St, Hawaii

There would have to be certain caveats--AFA always gets Navy or Army out of Pod 1 (and play the other as an OOC game) I also think the league should encourage teams to schedule OOC games with members in the league who aren't part of their regular schedule. This sort of model would give everyone involved truly national exposure.

A conference title game would get a little tricky--you could either treat Pods 1,2,& 3 as a "conference" and 4,5, & 6 as a "conference" and have a Mega Conference East Champ and Mega Conference West Champ or simply have the top two teams in the computer rankings square off.

I'd rather the MWC go to 18.

Pod 1--SMU, Houston, Memphis/Tulsa
Pod 2--New Mexico, UTEP, UTSA

Pod 3--Wyoming, Colorado St, Air Force
Pod 4--BYU, Utah St, Boise St,

Pod 5--Fresno St, San Jose St, Nevada
Pod 6--UNLV,San Diego St, Hawaii

Pods 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 always play each other. Pod 3 would play one of pod 1 or 2 (forming an east division) while 4 plays one of 5 or 6 (forming a west division) Pods 3 and 4 switch divisions every year. The pods that don't play a pod from the central play each other.

At this point everyone would have played 8 conference games. Some would have played 5 of their 8 games against their division while others would have played all 8 division members. So I would suggest a 9th rotating game so that those with only 5 divisional games get a 6th and those that haven't played outside their division get a game against someone they don't usually play.

For basketball, you play everyone once and one rival a second time for 18.

SMU, Memphis/Tulsa
Houston, UTSA
New Mexico, UTEP
Colorado St, Air Force
BYU, Utah St
Boise St, Wyoming
Fresno St, San Jose St
UNLV, Nevada
San Diego St, Hawaii

Agree. Didn't Marinatto have the same strategic concept, using the BE, and it got demolished with further extractions from within and disruption elsewhere? Those factors have not gone away permanently and can re-emerge anytime. Because it could be two conferences this time doesn't necessarily make it easier.

Protection, stability, and a lucrative TV deal for all involved? None assured.