OK, after a few days to internalize this past week's developments I believe this is what we are looking at from the MWCUSA Alliance/Merger ...
The Conference USA & Mountain West come to an agreement whereby they have 24 schools between the two of them divided into four 6-school divisions under the banners of the two existing conference names That could involve one division under the MWC and three under C-USA or it could be split two-two. That way they could form a new football-only (or possibly even football & mens hoops only) league under ether a completely new name or one of the existing monikers. That way the schools could pool their strength for television contracts where it matters most. But the rest of the sports could stay in somewhat regionalized leagues ... for a period of time. There have been a number of nuggets dropped by school presidents the past few days that indicate that by going to four 6-school divisions, they could potentially make each of those divisions eligible for their own conference status down the road. In other words, you could make all the non-revenue sports into small regional conferences while keeping football together where the maximum collective bargaining could occur with TV networks. Confused yet? Essentially the 24 schools would create a pool from which four conferences would emerge for every sport outside of football. That would allow more auto bids and lower travel costs while still enjoying the benefit of the national television contracts and scheduling options. This idea was floated by me a few months ago somewhere in this thread but I honestly didn't see it as a realistic option at that point. The more I read between the lines of the public statements of university presidents & ADs, the more plausible it becomes. And it would placate schools like ECU & Fresno State who have major misgivings with a combined league for all sports.
Here's a potential lineup with scant thought given to membership:
C-USA East
- ECU
FCS Move-up
Florida International
Marshall
Southern Miss
UAB
C-USA Southwest
- Louisiana Tech
Rice
North Texas
Texas State
Tulane
UTSA
Mountain West Mountain Division
- Air Force
Colorado State
New Mexico
Tulsa
UTEP
Wyoming
Mountain West Pacific Division
- Nevada
Fresno State
Hawaii
San Jose State
UNLV
Utah State
A few schools would have to slide around including Tulsa & UTEP. But based on this alignment, I think they'd probably both be good with the possibility. If the group decided that Utah State & San Jose State didn't bring enough to the table, the MWC could actually shed New Mexico to C-USA and just have Hawaii as a 7th football (25th overall!) school. Then C-USA would be left to deal with the other three divisions enabling them to add a couple more eastern options (increasing our possibilities in the process).
Under such a scenario, here is what would be left of the Sun Belt for football:
- Arkansas State
Florida Atlantic
Louisiana-Lafayette
Louisiana-Monroe
Middle Tennessee State
South Alabama
Troy
Western Kentucky
Theoretically they could choose to stand pat and hope for a disenchanted C-USA school to come there way down the line. Realistically they would prefer to get to 12 schools for divisional play. Here would be their likely leading expansion candidates since La Tech and the Texas schools would be off the table:
- Appalachian State
Charlotte
Georgia State
Georgia Southern
Jacksonville State
Liberty
We would be a top 4 pick in that group regardless of variables. That is why the Sun belt finds us intriguing and vice versa especially if we didn't make the 24-team cut.
Then of course, you would have the leftover schools of the WAC left out in the cold for football. While they would be fine for non-football purposes in the short term as their are plenty of non-football options to keep them afloat, they would need football partners in a hurry or have to go independent which would likely lead to dropping their football programs. Unless of course they choose to continue to sponsor a WAC football league by inviting up some eastern FCS schools looking to move up together. In order for that to occur, it would need to be all-sport and there would have to be at least six WAC schools together out west to form a division and six eastern schools to form another division to keep costs down. This would buy the WAC football schools a few years to either sneak into the MWC or CUSA or drop down to FCS. It would also be a vehicle whereby the eastern schools could transition up before breaking off to form their own regional FBS league.
And finally, the buzz coming from around the eats Coast of a new league forming either with CAA sponsorship or otherwise also seems to be gaining validity. Once the C-USA folks work out whatever they are doing and Sun Belt starts handing out invitations, these last two options become much clearer.
- By LU Armchair coach
- By Humble_Opinion
- By PAmedic