Boston would get to the Patriot much sooner with football.

It's hard to imagine a future for Pacific (they really wanted back in with the WCC and weren't going to let football fraction those chances), since it seems they really cut down their spending out there, but the Cal State's...that tosses a possibility Big West could have survived as a FBS football conference.

Long Beach
Fullerton
NMSU
Idaho
North Texas
Arkansas State
Boise
Utah State

Even with the cutting between MWC, WAC, and Sun Belt, the top five stay put and probably keep one of the others around to stay at the minimum level. Maybe Hawaii comes over? They stay alive a bit longer. Maybe you get an entry point for the other FCS schools to field FBS football on the cheap this way...the Montana's, NDSU, Cal Poly, some of the other Big Sky football schools...now you have more FBS teams in the west.

The WAC couldn't kill that. Still too many Cal State teams getting the benefit of Big West affiliation that wouldn't get attention to a WAC with Fresno and San Jose probably stuffing the others?