(12-31-2018 11:32 PM)cruzan_flame13 Wrote:  

(12-31-2018 08:59 PM)GE and MTS Wrote:  The Big East is the pinnacle of conferences that don't play football. If we aren't going to be in a P5 conference, the Big East should be our target destination.

Even if we improve our basketball profile up to an acceptable level, they may still not want us. Them knowing that we would leave at the first opportunity to join a P5 conference would really hurt our chances. They went through that before the split with the American and don't want to do that again.

We do make for a logical expansion candidate as far as locations go. Unfortunately, we are more of an Atlantic coast and southeastern school rather than a northeast and Midwestern city school. We wouldn't bring many fans to games in Chicago, Cincinnati, Providence, etc.

I agree with your second statement based on location but I don’t see us going P5 if we get into the BE and settling in. We would know how it feels to be denied before ( twice), and a great opportunity to grow our Olympic sports in a great conference like the BE is quite hard to resist. The only P5’s that would work is the ACC or Big 12. I don’t see the ACC happening and who knows what will happen with the Big 12 in a few years. McCaw has a lot of relationships and connections in the northeast, so the BE is perfect. Football as an independent can stand on its own.

It would be a massive mistake to not go for a Power conference. The exposure, the money, and the benefits from being in any of the Power conferences is just too great to ignore. We could conceivably build up to that as an independent but could lose it quickly if we hit a rough patch. Football is such a revenue driver and marketing tool and we've worked so hard to get to FBS, we'd be very unwise to say "Okay, this is it. We've reached as far as we want to go."

BYU is a geographic outlier for every conference but the PAC 12 so they are very limited in where they can go. We do not have that problem as we are in Virginia that borders/includes states that are occupied by members of the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and ACC. Of course that doesn't mean we have a shot at all of those, particularly the Big 10 (they won't like that we are private and religious) and the ACC (they don't need another Virginia school as long as VT and UVA are members). However, if we build up our program enough and show that we can make a conference money, I think we'll get an invite, and that threshold is currently lowest for the Big 12.