(03-15-2013 10:09 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  The problem is, no conference can survive in D1A with four or more private schools. We've seen it before. Those conferences get torn apart by the big state schools.

SWC: Baylor, Rice, SMU, TCU
WAC: BYU, Rice, SMU, TCU, Tulsa
CUSA: Rice, SMU, Tulane, Tulsa
ACC: Boston College, Duke, Miami, Syracuse, Wake Forest

If you include the service academies there are enough strong private schools to form a fairly strong conference of their own. Since most of the realignment has been selectively cutting the private schools out of their expansion plans this may be a way to have a fourth viable conference. If the ACC goes then the strength of the Big 10 and SEC will outgrow the Big 12 (with no network) significantly and I believe we are headed to three large conferences with a vast majority of their 60+ schools being state schools, if for no other reason than those schools are looking for cash now that most state education budgets are being cut. A Private School conference would at least give those universities more leverage.