(04-22-2012 01:02 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(04-21-2012 02:25 AM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  The WAC is on the verge of becoming a non-football conference. I anticipate it becoming a home for Western schools playing football in the Big East (Boise State / Air Force / BYU / San Diego State / Fresno State), along with Western schools that do not sponsor football (Seattle / Denver / Utah Valley), and the lone Western football school left behind by MWCUSA (New Mexico State).

Idaho?

Idaho is most likely headed to the Big Sky

(04-22-2012 02:37 PM)techdawg88 Wrote:  

(04-22-2012 01:02 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(04-21-2012 02:25 AM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  The WAC is on the verge of becoming a non-football conference. I anticipate it becoming a home for Western schools playing football in the Big East (Boise State / Air Force / BYU / San Diego State / Fresno State), along with Western schools that do not sponsor football (Seattle / Denver / Utah Valley), and the lone Western football school left behind by MWCUSA (New Mexico State).

Idaho?

Idaho is most likely headed to the Big Sky

You may or may not be correct, but when he says the "lone western school left behind by MWCUSA" that to me implies Idaho will be taken, which I don't expect to happen.

(04-23-2012 01:30 AM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(04-22-2012 02:37 PM)techdawg88 Wrote:  Idaho is most likely headed to the Big Sky

You may or may not be correct, but when he says the "lone western school left behind by MWCUSA" that to me implies Idaho will be taken, which I don't expect to happen.

I expect the MWC to hold their noses and backfill with Idaho after the Big East takes either Air Force or Fresno State. There won't be any better option, and Idaho will face less opposition than New Mexico State, who will start begging Benson every day for a football-only Sun Belt deal to balance UALR.

(04-20-2012 04:32 PM)puck swami Wrote:  Speaking as a Denver fan, everyone here was surprised that Denver lasted 12 years in the Sun Belt. We know we are soemthing of an odd duck, not only among geographically-distant SBC schools but among western schools, too. We're small to mid side (5K undergrad, 6K grads), private, no football, big hockey/lacrosse/skiing school with an emerging basketball program that has to fly to 80% of our away games in all sports. There really isn't any school that athletically looks us anywhere in the country. The WCC schools look like us from a smaller private school standpoint, but don't share our region or sports menu. WAC schools are at least in the same region as us, but they are mostly larger football schools. I don't know if more people here care about schools like Sacramento State or Idaho, but at least there is some geographic tie more so than SBC schools here.

I think the WAC is certainly more tenuous now than when we joined it, but the fact remains that our location and sports menu make us a hard fit for any conference.

There was a different vision for the Sun Belt in the Thompson era. That vision was for all new members to be institutions located in large metro areas with no regard to whether they played football. Insiders at the time spoke of eventually adding schools like Oral Roberts, Georgia State, UTSA, and UMKC. Remember when FIU was added there were no firm plans to add football, that came a year after joining.

It was after Waters was hired that the league began pursuing football.