RE: Tarleton St creates DI task force for DI move up
It looks like UIW and ACU are coming off the transitional dole. Could the Southland split into two FCS-centric leagues? This could guarantee the WAC's (or Summit's) survival, and allow quite a few schools to get out of their current situation.
In the worst case for the Summit, it can take several Southland schools and form a stable FCS conference apart from the MVFC:
North - UND, NDSU, USD, SDSU, Denver, Omaha
South - ORU, SHSU, SFA, UCA, Lamar, A&M-CC
This yields an 8/12 setup (no football at Denver, Omaha, Corpus Christi, and Oral Roberts). The Southland then gets left with this lineup:
ACU, UIW, HBU, Nicholas St, McNesse St, Northwestern St, New Orleans, SE Louisiana, Tarleton St
If the Southland wants to go to 10 members, it can bail UTRGV out of the WAC.
The WAC would really need the Southland to get to 12 in football (with Tarleton fully transitioned) before splitting, but UTRGV has talked about adding football as well. Of course if the intent is not FCS, but FBS, then there is no need to add a set number of schools at any particular time.
The only drawback to blowing up the WAC is that schools like Utah Valley and Cal Baptist only have so many options for changing conferences. The Southland and WAC also need at least eight schools apiece, so right now there would need to be at least four non-FCS schools involved:
WAC - UMKC*, NMSU*, UTRGV*, UCA, SFA, Lamar, SHSU, ACU, Tarleton
SLC - A&MCC*, UNO*, SELA, McNeese, Nicholas, NSU, HBU, UIW
At this point to place the rest of the WAC, you would need the Summit basically to be down to six schools (ORU to WAC or SLC), then adding the rest of the WAC to get enough schools that play baseball:
West - CSUB, CBU, GCU, UVU, Seattle
East - UND, NDSU, USD, SDSU, Omaha, Denver
Of course Denver will probably join the Southland before sharing a conference with Grand Canyon.
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