As reported on Twitter earlier today, the WAC is bringing back football. Members Dixie State and Tarleton State, who play football will be joined by Southern Utah, Sam Houston State, Lamar, Abilene Christian and Stephen F. Austin. This should be final and official in the next couple of weeks.
It is unclear whether or not the four new schools from Texas will compete in the WAC for all sports or just football. Currently, the WAC is at 9 members. The addition will make the conference at 14 with 7 who play football. (Technically 8, with New Mexico State competing as a FBS Independent.)
This may sound like a bad move for the Big Sky Conference, at first. The loss of SUU will put the Big Sky at 10 for all sports and 12 for football with Cal Poly and UC Davis as non-football program. It will put the Southland Conference from 13 members to 9, 7 who play football with 2 non-football schools. Both the Big Sky Conference and Southland Conference have had to allow members to schedule conference opponents as non-conference games to save on travel costs. This will help provide some non-conference scheduling opportunities for both. Dixie and Tarleton State will compete as FCS independents for 2021 in football. Currently, the Big Sky Conference is the only FCS conference with a footprint west of the Rockies.
Some other issues that these conference have run into is that only one schools gets and automatic bid to the NCAA FCS playoff. At the FCS level, they do not have conference championship games like you see at the FBS level. Therefore, conferences do not break into divisions. Because of the cost of travel, some schools in both conferences have scheduled two games against FBS competition while others have scheduled two games against Division II (or lower as in Division II or NAIA) opponents.
For Dixie and Southern Utah, a new rivalry will form as the two schools are about 55 miles apart and are in neighboring counties. Southwestern Utah is one of the fastest growing regions in the United States. It would be hard to imagine Southern Utah not continuing their rivalry with Weber State and Northern Arizona, even though they will not be in the same conference.
All things considered, this is a win/win for all parties involved.
(After realignment)
Big Sky Conference
Eastern Washington (Cheney, WA)
Idaho (Moscow, ID)
Idaho State (Pocatello, ID)
Montana (Missoula, MT)
Montana State (Bozeman, MT)
Northern Arizona (Flagstaff, AZ)
Northern Colorado (Geeley, CO)
Portland State (Portland, OR)
Sacramento State (Sacramento, CA)
Weber State (Ogden, UT)
Football Only
California Davis (Davis, CA)
California Polytechnic (San Louis Obispo, CA)
UC Davis and Cal Poly compete in the Big West Conference in Basketball and Olympic sports. The only other Big West Conference school that plays football is Hawaii, whose football program competes in the Mountain West Conference.
Southland Conference
Central Arkansas (Conway, AR)
McNeese State (Lake Charles, LA)
Nichols State (Thibodaux, LA)
University of New Orleans (New Orleans, LA)
Northwestern State (Natchitoches, LA)
Southeastern Louisiana (Hammond, LA)
Texas A&M Corpus Christi (Corpus Christi, TX)
Non Football Schools
Houston Baptist (Houston, TX)
Incarnate Word (San Antonio, TX)
Western Athletic Conference
Abilene Christian (Abilene, TX)
Dixie State (St. George, UT)
Lamar (Beaumont, TX)
Sam Houston State (Huntsville, TX)
Stephen F. Austin State (Nacadoches, TX)
Southern Utah (Cedar City, UT)
Tarleton State (Tarleton, TX)
Football School, but competes as an FBS Independent
New Mexico State (Las Cruces, NM)
Non Football Schools
California Baptist (Riverside, CA)
Chicago State (Chicago, IL)
Grand Canyon (Phoenix, AZ)
Seattle (Seattle, WA)
Texas Rio Grand Valley (Edinburg, TX)
Utah Valley (Orem, UT)
Twitter Report:
https://twitter.com/MattBrownEP/status/1336069811437268993
