MWC still waiting

Right now, the MWC is still waiting for the PAC-10 and Big-10 to finish their expansion moves before proceeding.  If Missouri is still on the outside, the MWC can go to 14; the limit of their size, according to commissioner Craig Thompson who says that 16 is too big.

How will a 14 team conference work for football?  It's not that hard with a 12 game schedule.  There are two ways to do this.  I have blogged about it before, but here are the options.

1.  Work on a six-year cycle.  On four of the six years, and it will be different for each conference member which years they will be, a conference team will play eight conference games.  The other two years, a the team will play nine.  There will be six games against the other teams in the division.  The other two or three games will be against teams from the other division.  One year out of the six, a team will play 5 home conference games and 4 road conference games and in another season out of the six, there will be 4 home games and 5 road games.  The schedule will balance in the six-year cycle.

2.  Work on a six year cycle, but play nine conference games every season.  Six of those games will be against teams in the division.  Three will be against teams from the other division.  Each team will play one team from the other division every season for six years, and and to others from the other division and rotate over the six-year cycle.

For example, if the MWC adds Missouri, Kansas, K-State and Iowa State, here is how the divisions will shake up.

Mountain Division:
Air Force
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
New Mexico
TCU

West Division
Boise State
Brigham Young
Colorado State
UNLV
Utah
San Diego State
Wyoming

In Scenario 1, using Boise State as an example, their inter-division schedule would be:
2011: @ Air Force, Iowa State
2012: @ Kansas, Kansas State
2013: @ Missouri, New Mexico, @ TCU
2014: Air Force, @Iowa State
2015: Kansas, @ Kansas State
2016: Missouri, @New Mexico, TCU

The scheduling in scenario 1 would be a little bit more difficult to work out and would be a little bit more difficult for conference members to schedule non-conference games, as some years teams would have 3 games to schedule and some years they would have 4.

In Scenario 2, Boise State Plays TCU every year in the six-year cycle.  Here is how the pairings would match up, attempting to keep some long-time rivals together:
Boise State--TCU
BYU--Air Force
Colorado State--Kansas State
UNLV--Iowa State
Utah--New Mexico
San Diego State--Missouri
Wyoming--Kansas

And then, using Boise State as an example, their inter-conference schedule would be
2011: Air Force, @Iowa State, TCU
2012: Iowa State, @Kansas, @TCU
2013: Kansas, @Kansas State, TCU
2014: Kansas State, @Missouri, @TCU
2015: Missouri, @New Mexico, TCU
2014: New Mexico, @Air Force, @TCU

Scenario 2 is a little bit easier as teams only have 3 non-conference games to schedule and that would be consistent.

Air Force would need an NCAA exemption similar to Hawaii where they and their opponents would be allowed to play 13 regular season games.  Air Force is still obligated to play their sister academies every season.  This scenario would leave them with only one non-conference game to schedule.