Appalachian St. has been the subject of many FBS upgrade rumors over the past decade due to it’s success at the FCS level of football.

Over the past year, Appalachian St. has seen other FCS schools such as UMass, Texas St. and FCS newcomer UTSA make the leap to FBS. Meanwhile, other schools such as Montana have flirted with the idea of upgrading to an FBS conference and Villanova has been working with the Big East over the past year to explore an upgrade. Other schools such as Georgia Southern, Jacksonville St., Charlotte, Georgia St. and even JMU have either  publicly stated some desire to upgrade or are rumored to be potential FBS upgrade candidates.

With the changing landscape in college sports, it appears that Appalachian St. does not want to risk being left behind. Even with the hypothetical risk of the top BCS schools leaving the NCAA, such a move would send FCS football down another rung.

The issue Appalachian St. would face with an upgrade would be an NCAA rule requiring that an existing FBS conference must extend an invitation to an upgrade candidate in order for that school to transition to FBS.

In other words, just because a school wants to upgrade, does not mean that they CAN upgrade. Schools like Texas St. and UTSA have been fortunate that the WAC needed schools and gladly invited both. Others like Montana, Sacramento St., Portland St., Cal Poly and Montana St. have similar chances as 1-2 of those schools could still join the WAC. UMass has hoped to join the Big East but gladly accepted the MAC invite as it was their only way to upgrade.

But in the south, it is more complicated.

You have Appalachian St. who would ideally like to join CUSA, the same conference that Charlotte would one day hope to rejoin once it is active in football sponsorship. But CUSA has not yet offered ASU the type of deal that the WAC did for it’s newest Texas members.

So for Appalachian St. the first move would be to court a conference.

CUSA will be the top option.

If rejected, which at this time is very likely, Appalachian St. would likely approach the Sun Belt. Geographically, the Sun Belt would be a good fit. But if the Sun Belt rejects them, ASU would need to hope the WAC would be interested in adding them, and extend their footprint from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean.

Per a source speaking with the Miami Herald, the Sun Belt is only considering established FBS football schools, and schools from within the current footprint. You can read between the lines what that means:

This would exclude the newest FBS upgrades UTSA and Texas St., which as slated to join the WAC. It would also exclude Appalachian St., Charlotte, Georgia St., ODU and JMU, schools that are considering upgrading to FBS at some level, or JMU, which has been less public about upgrading but has the best infrastructure to upgrade.

If “warm weather” meaning the current Sun Belt footprint is the desired location, then we can exclude a school like Temple which has been rumored to be considering leaving the MAC football-only alliance is a better opportunity arose.

We can rule out any CUSA schools at this time as that conference is light years ahead of the Sun Belt. And while there has been some tension between the few eastern schools (ECU, UCF, Marshall) about being in a predominantly western conference, it’s doubtful that any of those schools would downgrade their revenue by joining the Sun Belt.

So that leaves only schools in the WAC.

And only one fits what the Sun Belt is considering: LA Tech.

The Sun Belt has long wanted LA Tech, as the conference already hosts Louisiana schools ULL and ULM. But LA Tech has been hesitant to join as the WAC was a superior conference and grossing BCS revenue thanks to Boise St. But with Fresno St., Nevada, Boise St. and Hawaii all leaving, the WAC has been in trouble. They’d brought in UTSA and Texas St. for football, had their eyes on Lamar, and brought in Denver for non-football sports.

So perhaps it’s time for LA Tech to consider the Sun Belt as a CUSA invite does not seem to be on the horizon.

The only other school that fits into the Sun Belt expansion wishlist would be New Mexico St. A bit west of the current footprint, NMSU would fit in nicely with North Texas already a member. But it would seem that LA Tech would be the primary target.

If the Sun Belt has ideas other than LA Tech, it would mean they would have to either consider an FCS upgrade such as Charlotte, Georgia St. or Appalachian St. Or perhaps they would think outside the current footprint and look north at a football-only option like Temple. Marshall in CUSA would be a nice fit with WKU and MTSU, but leaving CUSA would be unlikely. The MAC has a number of schools the Sun Belt might like, but it would be difficult for a MAC team to justify leaving the comfy confines of their tight knit regional conference.

In a recent interview, Arkasas-Little Rock AD Chris Peterson revealed that UALR has had discussions with the Summit League about joining should they leave the Sunbelt.

Peterson said that the Trojans have had talks with the conference about potential membership given that the Sun Belt has toyed with the idea of wanting every member to field a football team, something UALR lacks.

“We’ve had discussions, but at this point we’re pretty committed to being in the Sun Belt,” said Peterson, whose dad, Gil, formerly served as the athletic director at Huron College. “We feel we’ve got a home as long as we want. There’s times you think about dealing with institutions that are more like you, that don’t have football. But at times, there are benefits to being involved in a league that has (Football Championship Subdivision) football.”

It’s a sound move by the school. It makes you wonder is schools like New Orleans had been in more appropriate conferences (like a non-FBS football conference as the Sunbelt is), if they’d still be able to participate in D1.

The move leaves Arkansas-Little Rock and Denver as the only schools left without football. Denver would like to be in a more regionally fit conference like the WCC, WAC or Mountain West, but those conferences have not extended an invite. The WCC, a collection of western private schools like Denver seems to be their top choice. But the Summit League is the only regional conference that might consider Denver, however Denver considers the move a step down in conference affiliation.

Arkansas-Little Rock could oen day be a Southland Conference target is the Sunbelt makes a stronger push to oust the non-football members.

Here’s some helpful information from Jason Plotkin from Nola.com that I got via email:

Your post incorrectly states that the LSU Board of Supervisors has approved a move of the University of New Orleans to Division III. This is incorrect.

The board voted 11-1 at their December meeting to have the UNO Chancellor move forward with a move out of the Sun Belt Conference. The board will meet again in February at their meeting to revisit the athletic situation at UNO and in all likelihood, the Division III subject will be on the table. At the February meeting, UNO Chancellor Tim Ryan has been asked by the Board of Supervisors to present a five-year plan for athletics.

“We had to reduce funding for athletics in the previous round of budget cuts, and since then the financial picture of the university and the athletics program has not improved,” said Chancellor Tim Ryan.

More from NCAA.org…

More…

From Freaked….
“Looks like UNO will be severely cutting its budget for FY10 with legislative negotiations starting in late April.The UNO chancellor promises that the athletic department will be self sufficient but with BB attendance of less than 1,000 per game and no FB revenue it is likely that the school will need to drop from the SBC and likely D-1 since they currently support only 9 sports teams which is less than the 14 for D-1 and 15 for SBC requirements.The NCAA and SBC waivers expire after next year.
Does UNO bite the bullet this year or wait until next year?
Which D-2 conference would make a better fit for UNO if they had to drop a division?
This should be an interesting story to follow.

I previously posted these three articles in the SBC realignment section of this board but they also fit in here.
Links at http://www.nola.com

at http://www.boston.com/sports/other_spor … uno_sports

and at http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/v … ecID=32706“

In a letter to LSU System President John Lombardi dated Dec. 16, Ryan said cutting athletics was a possibility for the 2009-10 school year.

Ryan’s letter also outlined $5.4 million worth of proposed mid-year cuts for this school year, but athletics was not included in the list. UNO’s athletic budget is $4.5 million for this school year.”

UNO athletics among possible cuts in 2009-10 – NOLA.com

But before we go jumping into the deep end without taking swimming lessons we need to take a look at where we currently stand in comparison to current FBS institutions, and also we we currently compare against other leading FCS schools. I’ve put together comparisons of athletic department budgets, football budgets, school enrollments and football home game attendance.

What would it take to financially compete in the Sunbelt? at SouthernFACTS.org:
I think you’ll see we have the undergraduate size to move up and we are well on our way to having the attendance. Attendance should not be a problem if we build more seats in Paulson and field teams that put butts in seats every Saturday afternoon.”