(05-27-2012 07:50 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(05-27-2012 06:57 PM)attackfrog Wrote:  

(05-27-2012 04:10 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  I doubt the WAC will try to rebuild with more Southland schools. There are too few with the facilities or attendance to play at the FBS level. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Southland's reestablishment of a Texas presence west of Houston is part of an effort to make the conference a reasonable landing spot for NMSU. Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word would both help bridge the geographic gap from the current Southland member schools to Las Cruces.

The WAC will take a shot at rebuilding football. The reality is the "WAC" is the same as saying "New Mexico and Idaho". Do you really believe those two schools are not going to try to rebuild the WAC? Of course they are--other than independence---a rebuilt WAC is thier only FBS option. I doubt they will be successful, but to say they wont try to rebuild is to ignore thier dire situation.

I said I didn't think the WAC would try to rebuild "with more Southland schools" (which is the subject of this thread). I have every expectation it will try to save football by establishing a new eastern wing with FCS schools that want to move up now, including the four that Karl Benson mentioned earlier this week. News of contacts between the WAC and those schools has already trickled out.

Regardless of if it is possible or not, I still can't decide if this is the right or wrong thing to do. I'm a WAC homer and desperately want the conference to survive. This type of conference could give CSUB a good stable conference for years. It also would make it possible for Poly, SAC, and Davis to move up to FBS down the road. JSU and the others will be blocked from joining the Belt because of recruiting, so even though that would be their natural conference, it isn't likely to ever happen. Some of these FCS schools draw better and have bigger budgets than MWC schools, so they deserve a chance.

But moving up 6 FCS schools at once is a recipe for disaster, especially with how fluid everything is.

(05-27-2012 04:10 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  I doubt the WAC will try to rebuild with more Southland schools. There are too few with the facilities or attendance to play at the FBS level. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Southland's reestablishment of a Texas presence west of Houston is part of an effort to make the conference a reasonable landing spot for NMSU. Abilene Christian and Incarnate Word would both help bridge the geographic gap from the current Southland member schools to Las Cruces.

NMSU would rather drop athletics than associate with the Southland, especially considering how it is rapidly degrading into a DII move up conference.

Adding West Texas A&M in Canyon (NMSU and WTAMU used to be in the MVC together) would be a sign that the Southland and NMSU have a mutual interest. Even that is a stretch.

What's most surprising about the Southland moves is that it will lose all presence in the Metroplex. Tarleton St or Dallas Baptist would be good moves.

(05-27-2012 08:20 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  Regardless of if it is possible or not, I still can't decide if this is the right or wrong thing to do. I'm a WAC homer and desperately want the conference to survive. This type of conference could give CSUB a good stable conference for years. It also would make it possible for Poly, SAC, and Davis to move up to FBS down the road. JSU and the others will be blocked from joining the Belt because of recruiting, so even though that would be their natural conference, it isn't likely to ever happen. Some of these FCS schools draw better and have bigger budgets than MWC schools, so they deserve a chance.

But moving up 6 FCS schools at once is a recipe for disaster, especially with how fluid everything is.

It could actually be more than six:

Ga Southern
Appy St
Liberty
Jacksonville St
Alabama St
Jackson St
McNeese St
Sam Houston St
SF Austin
Lamar

Only the Southland schools would seek full WAC membership, as they would be expelled.

(05-27-2012 08:46 PM)NoDak Wrote:  

(05-27-2012 08:20 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  Regardless of if it is possible or not, I still can't decide if this is the right or wrong thing to do. I'm a WAC homer and desperately want the conference to survive. This type of conference could give CSUB a good stable conference for years. It also would make it possible for Poly, SAC, and Davis to move up to FBS down the road. JSU and the others will be blocked from joining the Belt because of recruiting, so even though that would be their natural conference, it isn't likely to ever happen. Some of these FCS schools draw better and have bigger budgets than MWC schools, so they deserve a chance.

But moving up 6 FCS schools at once is a recipe for disaster, especially with how fluid everything is.

It could actually be more than six:

Ga Southern
Appy St
Liberty
Jacksonville St
Alabama St
Jackson St
McNeese St
Sam Houston St
SF Austin
Lamar

Only the Southland schools would seek full WAC membership, as they would be expelled.

That wouldn't get the WAC to eight all-sports members playing football. Football-only members don't count toward the NCAA minimum.

Jackson State and Alabama State would probably join for all sports given that there could be a division with a nearly identical footprint to the SWAC:

Jackson State
Alabama State
McNeese State
Sam Houston State
Stephen F. Austin State
Lamar

New Mexico State
Denver
Utah Valley
Boise State
Idaho
Seattle

This is all going to be a disaster. The WAC needed to be focusing all their energy on getting Montana, Montana State, North Dakota, and Portland State to leave the lesser Big Sky schools behind. At the same time grab North Dakota State, South Dakota, and South Dakota State, and stretch mostly across the top of the country. This would leave the WAC with a 9/3 set-up.

RECONFIGURED WAC
Seattle \ Idaho
Portland State \ Utah Valley (assuming Boise State departs)
Montana \ Montana State
North Dakota \ North Dakota State
South Dakota \ South Dakota State
Denver \ New Mexico State

The Big Sky would be left with all the smaller schools out West plus the broke trio from California. They could add Central Washington and Colorado State Pueblo to rebuild their basketball numbers back to 9 and just go with 11 in football until further notice.

RECONFIGURED BSC
Central Washington \ Eastern Washington
Idaho State \ Weber State
Northern Colorado \ CSU Pueblo
Southern Utah \ Northern Arizona
Sacramento State
UC Davis (FB-Only) \ Cal Poly (FB-Only)

This would put all of these schools at a more proper level. The WAC would be all of the big public schools in the northwestern part of the country plus the best private schools from that region. Utah Valley would be the only oddball but someone has to take the spot Boise State is vacating. It is a shame that the Montana and Dakota schools have no vision toward the future.

Lolipop wrote:
This is all going to be a disaster. The WAC needed to be focusing all their energy on getting Montana, Montana State, North Dakota, and Portland State to leave the lesser Big Sky schools behind. At the same time grab North Dakota State, South Dakota, and South Dakota State, and stretch mostly across the top of the country. This would leave the WAC with a 9/3 set-up.



What do you think the WAC has been trying to do the past two years?

(05-27-2012 10:00 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  What do you think they've been trying to do the past two years?

Exactly. From the time "the project" fell apart, Benson was working continuously to pick off Big Sky schools. None of them would budge.

(05-27-2012 10:08 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(05-27-2012 10:00 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  What do you think they've been trying to do the past two years?

Exactly. From the time "the project" fell apart, Benson was working continuously to pick off Big Sky schools. None of them would budge.

Yup. There are not many options and the Big Sky schools are not coming. If they can get another group together and stabilize the WAC, maybe in a few years a small select group of Big Sky schools might be willing to take the leap. But right now, its not going to happen.

Jackson State is a HBCU. I don't know if they would want to leave the SWAC, a conference with all of their fellow peers.

I don't understand why though. Montana has nothing left to prove. They have like eight national championships, it's time to move on.

Why are you guys posting Alabama St. and Jackson St. as options. The SWAC schools aren't leaving they don't have the money or competitive teams to be all sports members. They may have the stadiums but not the $$$ most important, not the want to leave the SWAC.

The NCAA rule is that the fbs conf must have 8 fbs all sports schools. So it would look something like this

WAC-E
Liberty
App St.
Georgia So.
Jacksonville St.
Lamar
SHSU
WAC-W
Idaho
NMSU
Denver*
Seattle*
CSUB*
UVU*

asking for more to make the jump is going to be a hard sell. Illinois St., JMU, Delaware are the only others I've heard considering FBS sometime in the future.

After the 6 eastern schools become full FBS members they could break away and form their own eastern conf. and pick up 2 or 3 more FCS move ups(if there is no moratorium. If there is, then they'll have to stick w/ the WAC for 10 years.

The Southland moves are all within their footprint. Texas and Louisiana. These moves make sense for them to solidify their presence and coverage in their area. UNO is a pretty good "get" if UNO adds FCS football. Houston Baptist was taken with the stipulation they'd add FCS football-I doubt they would've taken them without HBU adding football.

The WAC could jump on more Southland schools but most don't have FBS facilities and would need to spend a fortune to make the jump to a very unstable home. Lamar football failed a while back so taking them to FBS is a larger risk. I think the Southland is worried about the Sun Belt and, to a lesser degree, Conference USA.

(05-27-2012 10:08 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(05-27-2012 10:00 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  What do you think they've been trying to do the past two years?

Exactly. From the time "the project" fell apart, Benson was working continuously to pick off Big Sky schools. None of them would budge.

The problem with the WAC plan is they were trying to add Big Sky schools while Texas teams and Louisiana Tech were still in the conference. That is a non-starter for Montana and Montana State. My plan is different. It targets the six Montana and Dakota schools together as a group, plus Portland State, and creates a sensible league the stretches across the northwest quadrant of the country.

RECONFIGURED WAC
Seattle \ Idaho
Portland State \ Utah Valley (assuming Boise State departs)
Montana \ Montana State
North Dakota \ North Dakota State
South Dakota \ South Dakota State
Denver \ New Mexico State

This is not the same thing Benson was trying to do. The only outlier in my plan is New Mexico State, by necessity, and the only oddball is Utah Valley. It allows Montana and Montana State to finally escape the small regional schools in the Big Sky which are not their peers and unites them, instead, with the Dakota schools and Idaho. This would be one of the 100% most sensible conferences in FBS.

Posted this on another line but it makes sense here also.

All of this WAC expanding with FCS schools is only message board chatter. Mathematicaly it does not work. In the first year of transition, the school moving up has to play 8 games with already existing FBS schools. In addition, there has to be five home games with four of those being FBS schools. The WAC only has two existing FBS schools left. The games with other transitioning schools do not count. If the conference took 6 FCS schools to get to 8, how does each transition school get to the 8 game limit?

(05-28-2012 09:30 AM)Kwisatz100 Wrote:  Posted this on another line but it makes sense here also.

All of this WAC expanding with FCS schools is only message board chatter. Mathematicaly it does not work. In the first year of transition, the school moving up has to play 8 games with already existing FBS schools. In addition, there has to be five home games with four of those being FBS schools. The WAC only has two existing FBS schools left. The games with other transitioning schools do not count. If the conference took 6 FCS schools to get to 8, how does each transition school get to the 8 game limit?

It isn't just message board chatter. Comments from Hurd, Benson, and various AD's and Presidents involved indicate that it is being explored. But I think it is unlikely to happen for a lot of reasons, one being the scheduling and compliance issues you pointed out.

The scheduling won't be an issue. The NCAA would almost surely grant a waiver allowing it to happen.

(05-28-2012 11:01 AM)stever20 Wrote:  The scheduling won't be an issue. The NCAA would almost surely grant a waiver allowing it to happen.

Agree. I dont think the NCAA wants to see the WAC implode and will want to avoid bad situations for Idaho and Mew Mexico. Conference deaths are a bad thing and the results for some schools are long lasting. There are teams that are still recovering from the death of the Southwest Conference.

(05-28-2012 11:12 AM)attackfrog Wrote:  

(05-28-2012 11:01 AM)stever20 Wrote:  The scheduling won't be an issue. The NCAA would almost surely grant a waiver allowing it to happen.

Agree. I dont think the NCAA wants to see the WAC implode and will want to avoid bad situations for Idaho and Mew Mexico. Conference deaths are a bad thing and the results for some schools are long lasting. There are teams that are still recovering from the death of the Southwest Conference.

Just like that granted a waiver to CUSA & MWC to have there plus 1 conference championship?

(05-28-2012 11:15 AM)Kwisatz100 Wrote:  

(05-28-2012 11:12 AM)attackfrog Wrote:  

(05-28-2012 11:01 AM)stever20 Wrote:  The scheduling won't be an issue. The NCAA would almost surely grant a waiver allowing it to happen.

Agree. I dont think the NCAA wants to see the WAC implode and will want to avoid bad situations for Idaho and Mew Mexico. Conference deaths are a bad thing and the results for some schools are long lasting. There are teams that are still recovering from the death of the Southwest Conference.

Just like that granted a waiver to CUSA & MWC to have there plus 1 conference championship?

Totally different animal. A Plus 1 conference championship would have sparked a LOT more realignment- something the NCAA doesn't want. The WAC's waiver would be for survival. So not in the same ball park at all....