(08-26-2020 09:08 AM)PojoaquePosse Wrote: I hate these conference "what if" threads. They are so ridiculous. I can't believe I'm jumping into the fray. But no one is including UMASS, Liberty or UCONN in this conversation. Our AD has mentioned them by name in talking about WAC football.
UMASS
Liberty
UCONN
NMSU
Dixie State
Tarleton State
There are your 6 schools. Beggars can't be choosers regarding a "western" conference.
Two more thoughts. We have no Dixie State posters, so we have very little info on them. But I suspect they were sold what ever Hurd sold to Tarleton regarding FB. So if Tarleton's ultimate goal is FBS, then I have to believe that is Dixie's goal as well, which leads me to my next thought.
The move from D2 to FCS to FBS is huge. These D2 football stadiums can't even hold the minimum FBS attendance of 15k. And their attendance is like 5k or less today (there was a lot of talk about this in a prior thread and folks produced D2 attendance numbers). How the heck are these D2 teams going to grow their stadiums and attendance to 15-20k, which is what FBS requires?
I think the WAC is looking at FCS football and FBS is just a pipe dream. FCS may be a pipe dream as well.
WAC leadership keeps mentioning FBS. personally, if FBS is even remotely in the cards (their words, not mine) I see it through existing turmoil in the existing structure of schools more than simply more schools moving up. But either is possible and I'm not sure which is more likely since turmoil through realignment and or structural changes are hard to predict.
On that note, when the old WAC was around, if one were to predict-
UVU moving from JUCO straight to D1,
Chicago State joining the WAC,
UMKC leaving the Summit,
Seattle rejoining D1 after decades,
NMSU not finding a home elsewhere and sticking around as a football Indy,
Grand Canyon becoming the first for profit D1 one, AND
UT Pan Am becoming a new instittion and merging in some existing NAIA programs, coaches and athletes, while getting a new name and mascot...
Meanwhile, everything falls into place perfectly in synch and then conference goes on, pretty much business as usual.
And imagine prediciting that in the midst of all of this, the league rose (even with Chicago States rock bottom RPI) from near the bottom half of basketball conferences to be near the middle.
And then, with one football member, they would begin to draw new schools with football while conference leadership even dares to bring up talk of FBS.
THAT, folks, is a tale that would have been laughed off any message board, and most likely pushed into the realm of pure fantasy and moderated out of existence. And that is a fact.