3 plans to save the WAC...Plan C...Big Sky Merger.
This plan is to save the WAC by a merger with the Big Sky Conference under the Big Sky banner. In a nutshell, here is the plan.
1. Assumes that Utah State will leave the WAC for the hyper-conference which I have dubbed MWCUSA.
2. Utah Valley is given a conditional invite...provided begin football in 2 years. Obviously, they will not be competitive in 2 years...gives some of the better Big Sky programs another team to beat up on and have a chance at bowl eligibility early on.
3. The Big Sky would merge with the WAC and have two divisions for football, sans Cal Poly and UC Davis. One for the FBS teams and one for the FCS teams.
The divisions would probably look like so at first...
FBS division...playing for a bowl game invite...
San Jose State
Idaho
New Mexico State
Texas State
UTSA
La Tech
Montana*
Eastern Washington*
Weber State*
FCS Division...playing for an NCAA FCS playoff invite
Northern Arizona
North Dakota
Northern Colorado
Idaho State
Montana State
Utah Valley
Sacramento State
Southern Utah
Portland State
It would then be understood that the FCS schools would build toward an FBS jump at any time...as there is no time limit to execute the move.
*Based upon market size, number of sports sponsored, attendance, facilities and student body.
The problem with this proposal is that there are at least three schools, Idaho State, Southern Utah and North Dakota that will never be able to make the jump to the FBS. At this point, you eventually need to decide on a size limit...perhaps 16 teams in 2 FCS divisions before the FCS division is spun off into a new conference.
Then what would you have?
FBS Big Sky
Western Division
San Jose State
Idaho
Montana
Eastern Washington
Montana
Montana State
Sacramento State
Portland State
Eastern Division
New Mexico State
Louisiana Tech
Texas State
UTSA
Northern Arizona
Northern Colorado
Sacramento State
Utah Valley
Weber State
And then you are left with
FCS Big Sky
Idaho State
Southern Utah
North Dakota
And then, you would need to add...assuming that these DII schools want to be part of the madness.
Central Washington
Dixie State
Adams State
Chadron State
Nebraska Kearney
Pittsburgh State
Why it will not work? It spreads the conference expansion insanity down to Division II.
It is not bad for the Big Sky and WAC to merge, but leave enough schools at the FCS level to keep the Big Sky what it is...one of the better FCS-level conferences in the nation.
2 comments:
This could be a 14 team conference with 7 smaller schools remaining in the FCS. The reason I left it 14 was to allow the possibility of adding UC Davis, Cal Poly, or another pair of emerging teams to the mix of 16. I'm also trying to create decent regional rivalry games that allow fans to easily travel to. Creating this would be more difficult on the west end because of the population to school location ratios of the conference.
I think you forgot about UT-Arlington. Although they don't have a football team right now they have expressed interest in renewing the program. It would be Texas heavy but I'd also consider adding Lamar and Sam Houston St to the mix. Both schools would like to make the jump to FBS and it allows for regional travel for all schools involved on the east end of it. Rivalry's could continue to grow and these fan bases could easily travel to other games.
FBS East
UT-Arlington
UTSA
Texas St
Sam Houston St.
N. Mexico St.
La Tech
Lamar
FBS West
Idaho
San Jose St.
Weber St
Montana
Montana State
Sacramento State
Portland State
The remaining schools
Idaho St
N. Arizona
Southern Utah
Utah Valley
N. Colorado
E. Washington
N. Dakota ** May move to MVC renew rivarly with N.D. St.
*** UC Davis
*** Cal Poly
BTW you also have Sac. St and Montana listed twice under your FBS Sky conference.
What makes you think Conference USA/ Mountain West will take Utah State over Louisiana Tech University? Tech beat Utah State this last year and almost every year previous?
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