As Conference USA struggles for survival, the WAC is proposing to bring schools from the FCS level to restore football at the FBS level. Weber State may be one of those schools.
In terms of facilities and sports success, no one doubts that Weber State can compete at the FBS level. The question is if Northern Utah has the population to support 2 FBS programs, with Utah State and Weber State.
In my research, I found it takes a population of 1 million to support an FBS program. Even if you are in the shadow of a power-5 program, having a population of 1 million is usually enough to have the local recruiting base to support your program. If we exclude Salt Lake County and Utah County, let's look at the projected growth from Utah State's and Weber State's area for the next 40 years, then the state of Utah as a whole. Here is my source for Utah. Here is my source for Idaho.
Utah State's area is Box Elder, Cache and Rich Counties in Utah with Bear Lake, Franklin and Oneida Counties in Idaho
The 2020 population for these counties is:
Box Elder--58,000
Cache--133,000
Rich--2,500
Bear Lake--6,300
Franklin--14,000
Oneida--4,500
Currently, the population in this area is 218,300. You will notice that if you compare my source for Utah with the 2020 Census listed in Wikipedia that the population is Cache county is already much higher than originally projected in 2017. This is not just a serious underestimate, but likely the effect of pandemic and people working at home who can live where they want. (Why not Logan?) But that is not quite 1 million. Projects in the next 50 years show this area growing by over 120%. That is mostly in
Ogden's area is Davis, Weber and Morgan Counties. The 2020 population for these areas are:
Davis: 363,000
Morgan: 12,000
Weber: 262,000
Currently, the population is 637,000. It is projected to surpass 1 million after 2070. However, again, given the date of my source, it may happen sooner. There is plenty of room for growth in Weber County. It's growth rate will be about half of the Utah State University area. That is because there are people already there.
I have said that it takes about 1 million to make a successful FBS program, neither area has or will have 1,000,000 in the near future. There are some unique things about the State of Utah to mention. First, let's consider BYU's recruiting area.
BYU recruits mostly among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which has about 7 million members in the United States. They do not exclusively recruit in their own back yard. Nor does every Latter-day Saint community consider themselves primary BYU fans in the way that Roman Catholic communities would consider themselves Notre Dame fans. In Utah Valley, however, BYU has plenty of young men that they can't recruit because they don't have the room for them. In fact, many in the PAC-12 have taken advantage of this. BYU has and uses a recruiting reach that the other schools in the state do not have. Being a member of the Big 12 will give BYU access to a pool of recruits in Texas, with only a fraction of those who are members of the Church.
Utah County currently has a population of 659,000 and is expected to catch Salt Lake County by the 2050s. Not quite a million there, but they will add 1 million in the future.
Salt Lake County is the only county in Utah that has a population over 1 million. Currently it is 1,183,000. It is projected to reach 1.6 million by 2050. As a member of the PAC 12, Utah has access to recruiting on the West Coast and in Arizona and in Colorado. Other PAC 12 schools come to Utah to recruit. Highly touted recruits in the Salt Lake area have ended up at Oregon, Stanford and USC.
Utah State has thrived, and Weber State has thrived at the FCS level on recruits in the state of Utah that BYU and Utah have passed over. Utah's overall population is currently just above 3,000,000. It is projected to hit 4,000,000 by the end of this decade. The growth may slow after Utah hits 4,000,000 as by then the Wasatch Front may be full, building up instead of out. Then the growth will go to the ring counties: Box Elder, Cache, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch, Sanpete, Juab and Tooele counties. Utah may not hit 5,000,000 until the 2050s. There will also be serious water, pollution and transportation issues to address before Utah hits 4,000,000 so that there will be a quality of life in the state by the time the population reaches 5,000,000. Utah should do what it can to avoid being another California, but that discussion, in detail, does not belong here.
Certainly, in the 2030s Weber State should be able to succeed as a FBS level. But if they make the move now, they may struggle for a few years to find that success. But they likely would not transition until the middle of the decade. That may be just enough time for the program to prepare. Jay Hill is certainly the right man at the helm right now to accomplish that feat, if Weber State can hold on to him. If Weber State moves to the FBS in 2024, I would expect a bowl game 6-7 years later, in 2031. But that would be under normal circumstances. If they end up being part of a conference with mostly transitioning programs, they would likely find success sooner rather than later. In other words, lose four non-conference games but possibly win a conference championship.
If Weber State fans see WSU make the move, patience would be the key. The years after Ron McBride retired were trying for WSU fans. It certainly will not be THAT bad. (Five consecutive 2-win seasons).
The knee-jerk reaction to a Weber State transition is that Utah does not have the population for another FBS school. The real counter argument is that Utah does not have the population for another FBS school, yet. But they will sooner rather than later. Now may be Weber State's time to move.
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