This guy would like to see it.
http://www.underdogdynasty.com/2014/8/21...conference
Te old SWC was full of high flying offense that was exciting to watch. Houston's Andre Ware brought the program more notoriety than ever before. The SWC was also full of renegades, highlighted by SMU and their fat wallets. We need more of Eric Dickerson and his gold hot rod. For any of the negatives that the old conference represented, it also brings back memories of rivalries and just plain old fun.
With the death of the WAC, the unsteady position of Idaho and New Mexico State, and the overall spread out vastness of the Sun Belt, I start thinking about what would happen if a new conference based on schools mostly between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains came into being.
You would have to start with football programs that already play at the FBS level. Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Texas State, Idaho, and New Mexico State come to mind. Do those schools really have much in common with the Alabama and Georgia schools that make up the core of the Sun Belt? The Sun Belt seems destined to evolve more into an eastern league with the addition of Appalachian State and the discussion of adding programs like Liberty, James Madison, and Eastern Kentucky.
The key would be forming a new league that highlighted high flying offense in addition to high quality basketball. That's where the western schools of the Missouri Valley come in. Wichita State needs to bring back football and they already have a 30,000 seat stadium in place. Creighton is gone, so what would be holding them back? Missouri State has been flirting with the idea of moving up and Northern Iowa could join Idaho as another dome team in the new conference.
Arkansas State, Idaho, Louisiana-Lafayette, Missouri State, Northern Iowa, Texas State, and Wichita State would be an awesome foundation to a new conference. The basketball would be outstanding. Wichita State, Missouri State, and New Mexico State have a history together in the old Missouri Valley Conference when it sponsored football. North Texas and Tulsa were also part of the fun. Denver and Texas-Arlington would be good additions if they added football, or maybe a Western Illinois, Lamar, or Houston Baptist would move up and join the fun.
There are too many logistics to starting a new conference for this to ever work, but that's the kind of thing that rolls around inside my empty brain.
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Astate, La La, TXST, Idaho, NMSU...the new SWC?
