(08-15-2019 11:40 PM)Todor Wrote:  

(08-15-2019 10:49 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Does BYU Idaho have its own accreditation or is it accredited as part of a BYU system? It seems odd to have a sister campus just one state away from the denomination’s flagship school. Is the Idaho campus where kids go if they can’t get into Provo straight out of high school?

A Mormon juco called Ricks College became part of BYU and started offering Bachelor degrees about 15-20 years ago, so the location was out of convenience, not by design. But Idaho is the second highest percent Mormon.

It's just that part of Idaho, too. The eastern part of Idaho is about as Mormon as Utah is. The location makes sense.

As to BYU-I's athletic ceiling, probably D2. Idaho can't even support three D1 programs, let alone a fourth. They're better off not making it a major investment. D2 would open up a potential rivalry with BYU-Hawaii, too. On top of that, BYU wants to be a national brand to Mormonism like Notre Dame is to Catholicism, and bringing up another D1 program to compete with Provo wouldn't make sense.

Would like to see the large colleges and universities move up and replace the small ones that do not belong. There are a lot of history and all that. There is now a Pioneer League for non-scholarship football that D3 could get there.

The difference today is that a lot of politicians want to get as many state schools into a P5 conference as there are pressure to do it now. I do think the NCAA may look at realignment D1 to have a 1A and 1AA for all sports to include the D2, D3 and NAIA to join. I could move the D2 MIAA, Lone Star, Gulf South, GAC, RMAC, PSAC, and so forth into the 1AA and move schools like St. Thomas and the large public and privates into there.