BCPanther wrote:The Valley as we know it won't exist in 10 years.
I believe that to be true but the MAC is probably out of reach for ISUr and UNI right now and they aren't in a hurry to expand. The only hope would be for Doug Elgin to grow a pair and make some radical changes:
1) Convince the 4 Privates (Bradley, Drake, Loyola, Evansville) and the Horizon that they are a better fit for that conference.
2) Fold the MVFC into the MVC but without Youngstown State & Western Illinois.
That leaves 9 Football schools:
ISUr
ISUb
SIU
MSU
UNI
SD
SDSU
ND
NDSU
3) Add Omaha as a non football member to get to 10 which provides a bridge to the Dakotas and a nice round robin schedule for BBall.
4) To increase exposure and market size consider UMKC and UW-Milwaukee for 12 members.
On the surface this doesn't seem like the best course of action for ISUr and UNI but I ran the RPI numbers for this season. The revised 10 team MVC has a higher RPI than the current MVC with WSU in it!
This is a pipe dream because the Privates aren't leaving and Elgin would never force them too either!