Poll: If not Murray State as the 12th, then who?

[BCPanther]

Marshall, Southern Miss, Old Dominion and James Madison to the Sun Belt.

CUSA is down to 5 (FIU, La Tech, MTSU, UTEP, WKU). They don't have any autobids. They're dead.

Someone mentioned it above but if you could figure out football, I'd take WKU in a heartbeat.

It's almost starting to feel like the MVFC should jump to FBS as a group like the WAC is planning. You double your buy game payouts. You can do H-H with the MAC, Sun Belt and AAC. Start a bowl game in St Louis and find a couple other tie-ins and you're set. You wouldn't have to spend drastically more than you are now in that scenario.

[Kyle_Saluki_17]

Marshall, Southern Miss, Old Dominion and James Madison to the Sun Belt.

CUSA is down to 5 (FIU, La Tech, MTSU, UTEP, WKU). They don't have any autobids. They're dead.

Someone mentioned it above but if you could figure out football, I'd take WKU in a heartbeat.

It's almost starting to feel like the MVFC should jump to FBS as a group like the WAC is planning. You double your buy game payouts. You can do H-H with the MAC, Sun Belt and AAC. Start a bowl game in St Louis and find a couple other tie-ins and you're set. You wouldn't have to spend drastically more than you are now in that scenario.

It is an intriguing option but I feel as if being FCS is actually what SAVED us this go around. Nobody went after our teams because we are FCS.

Also, don't you have to be a full member of a conference to participate in their FBS conference? Wouldn't that prevent us from being able to combine with the Dakota schools for the MVFC if we were to play at that level?

[ColonialBulldog]

I would personally like to see WKU without a home and forced to fold their athletic department altogether. (This is a bad joke. I've basically seen that obnoxious hilltopper mascot in my nightmares every night since 2008).

I have to think WKU and MTSU will be in the MAC very soon. Just seems like a perfect fit for both sides.

[sivert]

The more things progress, the less crazy a Witchita state return sounds.

I know I misspelled it.

[VUGrad1314]

With the news of 6 teams leaving CUSA to join the American. I would think Wichita is getting a little sick to their stomach Charlotte, FAU, North Texas, Rice, UAB & UTSA to their formerly thought of P6 Conference. Got to think they would be willing to come back home to MVC.

My longshot but unlikely due to football would be WKU as they are in the sinking CUSA soon to be down to 8 teams.

How about 3 teams and keep the balance of Private / Public by adding two of the three Wichita State, Murray State or Northern Kentucky and on the private side take a flyer on St Thomas.

WKU and even Middle Tennessee would be nice adds if they chose to drop but I don't see that happening. Personally, in the scenario you have outlined I would want to wait to see St Thomas prove it on the field before adding them. I would be open to treating a non-football public like Northern Kentucky as a pseudo-private school and adding all three of those teams (assuming there are no FBS to FCS drops. Wichita State Murray State and Northern Kentucky would make for one heck of a 14 team league. We'd add a TON of basketball quality with Wichita and Murray and get a very promising market school with good facilities that could get us into Cincinnati with lots of quality games. Plus, with NKU there is great rivalry potential with both Murray State, and owing to their past shared league affiliation, Valpo. Sign me up.

[Bulldog2323]

I really doubt the MVFC or any other FCS conference makes the jump to FBS. There's a requirement to be in FBS that you must average attendance of 15,000. 4 of the MVFC stadiums don't have stadiums that seat that many. There won't be any interest in the power conferences to grant exceptions.

I think the clock is ticking on the life of Conference USA. Western Kentucky will go back to the Sun Belt and the remaining 4 will go to the American. Expansion and realignment ends there.

[BCPanther]

I really doubt the MVFC or any other FCS conference makes the jump to FBS. There's a requirement to be in FBS that you must average attendance of 15,000. 4 of the MVFC stadiums don't have stadiums that seat that many. There won't be any interest in the power conferences to grant exceptions.

I think the clock is ticking on the life of Conference USA. Western Kentucky will go back to the Sun Belt and the remaining 4 will go to the American. Expansion and realignment ends there.

15,000 on paper. That's real easy to do. Look at most G5 games now.

Pretty much every Valley school gives students free tickets. Boom, we sold 15,000 tickets.

In the end, the G5 and top FCS are going to figure this out but it's not going to be painless.

[E-Villan]

Admittedly, I am not a huge college football fan, so I am serious in my questioning. I agree that Western KY is probably headed back to the Sun Belt. With that said, are they really better off playing FBS against LA-Monroe and Georgia Southern than FCS against a MVFC slate? I can't imagine their fans would get any more excited about those schools than SIU, Indiana State, Missouri State, etc. They realistically have no shot at a championship bowl, so why bother with the extra expense, as well as burying the basketball program in the Sun Belt?

Explain it to me, because as I sit, basketball has always been the calling card for Western. If I was a fan, I would much rather play MVFC football and have my basketball team in the Valley than rotting away in the Sun Belt.

[VUGrad1314]

WKU could possibly end up in the MAC which would allow them to keep their FBS status and still park their Olympic sports in a decent league. Sounds like the MAC could be going after the leftovers of CUSA once the Sun Belt is done. For the Sun Belt Marshall and ODU (two rumored adds) would bring more credibility to their basketball profile and would probably push Little Rock and Arlington further on the outs of the conference leaving them open to a more basketball centric league. Amazing to me that the #12 conference in KenPom might just blow up completely overnight but mid major basketball MIGHT end up with more concentrated power because of this. The MAC and Sun Belt would instantly get stronger in basketball as would the WAC if they can add UTEP and La Tech. If Murray State to the MVC comes to fruition there would be plenty of strong schools concentrated in fewer leagues. This is almost like the idea I had of mid major conferences banding together to get stronger as a collective except unfortunately it might result in the death of one of the leagues. But in our world maybe fewer autobids is a good thing because it would potentially open up more at large spots for the stronger leagues as much as I hate to say that.


https://mobile.twitter.com/JReecerBGDN/ ... 01539?s=20

[Mikovio]

Admittedly, I am not a huge college football fan, so I am serious in my questioning. I agree that Western KY is probably headed back to the Sun Belt. With that said, are they really better off playing FBS against LA-Monroe and Georgia Southern than FCS against a MVFC slate? I can't imagine their fans would get any more excited about those schools than SIU, Indiana State, Missouri State, etc. They realistically have no shot at a championship bowl, so why bother with the extra expense, as well as burying the basketball program in the Sun Belt?

Explain it to me, because as I sit, basketball has always been the calling card for Western. If I was a fan, I would much rather play MVFC football and have my basketball team in the Valley than rotting away in the Sun Belt.

That argument is made in this article.

https://www.sbnation.com/college-footba ... -leave-fcs

The median non-power FBS football program was losing about $20 million per year a few years ago, according to the NCAA, while the median FCS team was down about $12 million.

That math isn’t perfect for a lot of reasons. But broadly speaking, it gives credence to the idea that playing at a lower level could help mitigate financial losses for some programs.

WKU was very successful at the FCS level and probably thought they could become the next Boise but it hasn't worked out. It's not hard to see how moving down to FCS and pouring the money saved into their signature basketball program could be very wise. But once a program moves up it's a difficult task to go backward. Idaho did so recently but it's rare.