(01-07-2020 02:13 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  I don't see a scenario where an American or Mountain West school would go Independent.

UConn is Basketball, and they had the opportunity to join essentially a "P5" basketball conference in the Big East. For schools in the American and Mountain West, they are already in the highest Basketball conference that is not P5 and any non-P5 membership option means downgrading your basketball.

BYU's move looks to have been a bit of a downgrade, as besides Gonzaga (which in effect is a Big East school unfortunately located 1400 miles too far West) the league plays in glorified high school gyms. BYU consoles itself with the religious association, and has been able to set up a pseudo P5 football schedule in most years, much higher SoS than other G5 schools. But it's not a path open to other schools.

For San Diego State only membership in a true power conference would be acceptable, as a Big West membership is death to the Basketball program (look at how UC Santa Barbara with plenty of financial resources to tap has dropped from high mid-majors often hovering around top 25 rankings in the 90's to well below the top 150 programs today). Boise State the same, although they are more a football school. There simply are no good Olympic sports options in the West, which effectively kills the option. (Long run Colorado State is likely to join that western list, and one does have to keep an eye on UNLV to see if they ever develop into anything athletically or academic)

Hawaii is a possibility posters bring up -given they already are in a separate Olympic conference-, but the willingness of power programs to visit the Islands has waned so much that they need the MWC. If they dropped out even the MWC schools would mostly drop them from the schedule, given how much of a hassle they are to visit.

For schools in the American I would add Memphis to the list Frank the Tank gave. Their academic index is so dreadful they failed to get a Rose in the B12 search, and Carnegie dropped them a category (same for East Carolina). Central Florida might be the next school to get to that point as well. But after the P5 and the Big East, the American is the strongest Basketball conference, seemingly locked into 3 bids. Losing UConn, doesn't help, but Wichita State gave them instant depth alongside Cincy, Houston and Memphis, plus sometimes strong SMU and Temple. There is no place to park your Olympics that comes close, unless maybe the A10 accepts you. And the Football contract is probably as good as they can expect. So it would be a risky proposition.

For these reasons the top schools will remain in the twilight zone of very high non-power for the foreseeable future.

If any shakeup comes, it will be from schools leaving the Big 12, leading the remnasts to pick up the strongest G5 schools to move into a slightly higher twilight zone on the edge of "P4" status.

Note: Frank makes a good point about a G5 access to an 8 team playoff, as that would take the sting out of being G5 for the highest teams there -- I think you'd see 3 or 4 MWC schools invest heavily in their programs if that option came open (not just Boise State).

As a fan of Memphis and Cincinnati, I struggle to see a scenario in which football independence would make sense.

Now IF the American imploded and Memphis and Cincy had numerous scheduling opportunities in football AND could be members of a Olympic sports conference with, say, Houston, Temple, Wichita and SMU, along with the "best of" the A10 (say, Saint Louis, Dayton, VCU, UMass, Richmond, Duquesne, Rhode Island, George Washington and Davidson) ... that would be an appealing scenario in some respects.