(01-25-2017 12:20 PM)LatahCounty Wrote:  

(01-25-2017 11:40 AM)bullet Wrote:  There was a 2 year window. There is no WAC loophole anymore. It was discussed pretty thoroughly on various WAC and MWC boards at the time. It ties in to the 2 year grace period if you fall below 6 continuing members.

Can you produce the rule that negates the rule on conferences that formerly qualified as FBS issuing invites? Nobody has in the 9 months I've been asking for it. At this point I don't believe it exists.

But it probably doesn't matter, since this appears to be a rule that could be changed unilaterally by the existing FBS conferences if anyone tried to exploit it.

You know, I had thought that these "WAC could go back to FBS" proposals were wacky, but I did pull up the football operations study report from Collegiate Consulting that Idaho commissioned and was delivered in May 2016 (less than a year ago). The link to the PDF is on the Idaho web page that announced their move from FBS to FCS:

http://www.uidaho.edu/president/communic...nouncement

Here's the relevant quote on page 61 of the Study (shows up as page 62 in the PDF file):

Quote:Collegiate Consulting has had multiple discussions with the WAC regarding its grandfathered status as a FBS conference, despite not offering football as a sport for two plus years. Marlon Edge, the WAC’s compliance officer, confirmed with the NCAA that the WAC does meet the criteria.

NCAA Bylaw 20.02.6
Football Bowl Subdivision Conference - A conference classified as a Football Bowl
Subdivision conference shall be comprised of at least eight full Football Bowl
Subdivision members that satisfy all bowl subdivision requirements.

NCAA Bylaw 20.4.2.1.1
Eligibility for Reclassification - Before a Football Championship Subdivision
institution may apply for reclassification to the Football Bowl Subdivision, the
institution must receive a bona fide invitation for membership from a Football Bowl
Subdivision conference or a conference that previously met the definition of a
Football Bowl Subdivision conference.

If the WAC were to reinstate football, it would need eight football-playing members. There could be an opportunity with Idaho and New Mexico State. The University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley has recently released an RFP to conduct a football feasibility study. If these three institutions were to have an interest in WAC football, the conference would need to bring in five additional institutions.

So, there's at least one confirmed report within the past year that the WAC has grandfathered FBS status.

The report also goes further on to confirm that the WAC and Big Sky had discussions circa 2013 about having a combined conference with one portion being FBS and the other portion being FCS. So, that gives some credence to NoDak's theories over the years. Now, it doesn't look like those discussions went anywhere - it seemed like that this was mostly blue sky thinking.