About a year ago or so I started a thread where I suggested the idea that the Rice Owls might be a uniquely good candidate to make it as an independent in football, with non-football sports joining either the Missouri Valley, Southland, or Sun Belt.

My argument was that, compared with many other schools, Rice could fill up a 12-game schedule every year with programs their alumni would like to see them play more than the Conference USA lineup. Roughly half the schedule would consist of "like-minded" private and/or highly-regarded academic universities (Tulane, Tulsa, Duke, Wake Forest, Boston College, Vanderbilt, Army, Air Force, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Stanford, Cal) and the other half would consist of former Southwest Conference opponents and other schools in Texas (UT, A&M, TCU, SMU, Baylor, Houston, Arkansas, Texas Tech, UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, Texas State). Any other holes in the schedule could be filled with other independents (UMass, Liberty, BYU, NMSU, and the aforementioned Notre Dame and Army). Plus of course one game a year could be filled by an FCS school.

My point of this new thread isn't to break down whether independence could work for Rice, but whether it could work for any other G5's.

Obviously, the "con" argument, aside from much more complicated scheduling, is that getting a media deal as an independent not named Notre Dame, BYU, or Army could be very difficult. Just ask UMass and New Mexico State. The other big factor is about bowl games: (1) How do independents get access to bowl games without the help of a conference? and (2) What about access to CFP revenue, and to the New Year's Six bowls, as an independent rather than as a member of a G5 league?

That said, here are my ideas of who might be able to survive and even thrive as an independent in football, specifically among G5 schools.

(1) UConn - Their dream conference would be the ACC or the Big Ten, but short of that, their fans simply are not happy with the American, especially for basketball. This has been beaten to death, but they do have a non-football conference that would be ideal for them: the Big East. Sure, there's no more Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, or Notre Dame, but UConn fans would be excited by home games against Villanova, Providence, Seton Hall, Marquette, Georgetown, and Xavier.

But this is more about football independence. UConn's schedule as an independent would need to consist of some payday games. They'd need one or two road games against Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, and others with no return. They'd also need a home-only game against an FCS school. To complete a compelling schedule, UConn would have to work hard to fill up with northeastern opponents (BC, UMass, Temple, Navy, Army, Syracuse, Pittsburgh) for about three games of their schedule. Another three games would need to be home-and-home games against P5's. I'm thinking the Duke's and Wake Forest's and Virginia's rather than the Clemson's and Florida State's. Finally, another three or four games would need to be against G5 schools.

Sample UConn football schedule:

Home vs. Stony Brook
At Ohio State
Home vs. Boston College
At UMass
At Syracuse
Home vs. Iowa State
Home vs. Liberty
At Georgia Tech
Home vs. Ohio
At Georgia Southern
Home vs. Purdue
At BYU

(2) Appalachian State - Total homer argument to follow, but I do think much of what I would have to say about App could be said about many southern schools. There is an abundance of regional opponents in the South which many schools could fill up their schedules with which may be better than what can be offered by a conference schedule. Appalachian could fill out its schedule with 12 games among the 11 southern ACC schools, 8 southern AAC schools, 14 SEC schools, 9 other Sun Belt schools, and 14 C-USA schools without ever leaving the South. Non-football sports could return to the Southern Conference.

Sample schedule:

At Clemson
Home vs. ETSU
At Charlotte
Home vs. Ga. Southern
At Marshall
Home vs. Coastal Carolina
At ECU
Home vs. Wake Forest
At UNC
Home vs. Liberty
At New Mexico State
Home vs. South Carolina



What other schools, if any, could you argue would make good candidates among the G5 to make it as an independent?