It may well have been covered before, but I can't find the reference, so help me out a bit.

I understand why a team like Middle Tennessee will need to wait unti 2014 to join C-USA, with conference obligations, but for scheduling purposes why does that apply to ODU?

Why, for example, couldn't ODU be fully scheduled into next years' season, while continuing their intelligibility for championship play or bowl games until 2015. Scheduling them in to a full series of conference games, and perhaps even making those games "count" in the standings doesnt seem to rest on whether they are a full memeber or not.

For a team like Marshall, it would mean dropping the one FCS game to replace with a conference game, but that seems like a more than good trade. But it sure would be nice to get them in earlier and start developing some future rivalries. Plus, I'd personally like to see more of that QB of theirs (Heinecke, I think). He seems to be something pretty special, and I'd like to see him up against some better defenses like Tulsa to see how good the kid really is.