GDAWG

I wonder what matters more to Air Force Football? Winning the Mountain West or beating both Army and Navy?

Major Madness on Twitter: "Southland Conference is officially going all in on Texas Southern and Prairie View AM as the first schools to be targeted for expansion." / Twitter

And UT Rio Grande Valley is probably going to be a football school as well. So all four of those schools will be in a Texas division. So it's ACU, Lamar, SHSU, SFA, Tarleton State, UTRGV and TBA. The speculation is that the 7th school is going to be West Texas A&M.

Paul Rabil's goal with the PLL is to make the sport more accessible to the general public and not make it the "elitist" sport it has been, hence the no cities with the teams.

The Allen Americans would make sense for the Stars since Allen, Texas is only 21 miles from the Stars training facility in Frisco.

I have heard that the 4 Louisiana schools are struggling. I think if the 4 Louisiana schools in the Southland have to disband football, this leaves Houston Baptist and Incarnate Word as the only football playing schools left. In that case, do they become FCS Independents? If all six teams are able to keep football I don't know how they would add two more teams as FCS rules state that there needs to be 8 football teams to qualify for the FCS Playoffs. Do they go down to Division II and take two teams from the Lone Star Conference?

Four Texas colleges expected to join Western Athletic Conference (texasfootball.com)

If Boise State goes FBS Independent, they have the ability to control their schedule.

So the chatter I am reading on the message boards is that West Texas A&M could move from Division II to the WAC.

If Tarleton State moves to the WAC in all sports (football included as they will be an FCS Independent), they will have some in-state rivals. I think that the WAC should stay in the FCS if they bring football back (which looks like they will because all of those schools they have added all play football). Going back to FBS would require all of the football programs in their conference to expand seating of their stadiums. In that case, Southern Utah would have to expand their football stadium to 30,000 if they ever want to host the Utes or Aggies or even Cougars. The Texas schools in the conference would have to expand also to 30,000 if they ever want to host the likes of Texas Tech or Baylor. When Texas State jumped from the FCS Southland to FBS Sun Belt, they expanded their stadium to 30,000. Sam Houston State, Lamar and Stephen F. Austin represent East Texas, a region without any FBS programs but with a large number of alumni from FBS schools, many of whom are the other Texas schools in the Sun Belt, AAC, C-USA, Big 12 and Texas A&M and also quite a few from LSU, La Tech, Louisiana and Louisiana Monroe as well as Arkansas and Arkansas State. If all three were to be a part of a FBS conference in the WAC, they would all have to expand their stadiums to 30,000 if they ever want to host an FBS school from the area. Same for Abilene Christian and Tarleton State with the latter located in Stephenville, Texas, just on the outer reaches of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. I don't think the WAC goes back to FBS, but will become an FCS conference.

Speaking of FBS Independents.....I think UCONN needs to cut their football program and just focus 100% on basketball. That's where the money there comes from, especially from the Women's basketball team. I think UMASS needs to drop to FCS. Does the Northeast Conference need another football member?

15,000 is attendance, but in terms of capacity, if SFA, SHSU, ACU and Lamar and Tarleton State join the WAC and likewise the WAC joins FBS, those five would need at least 15,000 max capacity. In fact, Lamar is over that threshold at 16,000. The other 4 are under but none would need major renovations to get to 15,000. That could be an issue for those 5 schools if they ever plan on hosting any of the other Texas schools in the FBS, which would mean they would have to "host" a school like Texas Tech or SMU away from campus in San Antonio, Dallas or Houston. If all five schools want to host a major FBS school like Baylor, Houston or SMU, I think they would need to go up to 30,000. I look at Texas State. In their final year in the FCS, their stadium had 16,000 seats. When they opted to move to the FBS, the stadium expanded to 30,000 in the hopes that they can host other Texas FBS schools in their own home venue. Two of their largest attended games were against Texas Tech and Houston, both eclipsing 33,000 as both schools had alumni in the area. Another game against UT-San Antonio had over 31,000 due to close proximity between San Marcos and San Antonio. Stephen F. Austin may not sell out a 30,000 seat Lumberjack Stadium when they play Sam Houston State in WAC conference play, but if they host Houston or Baylor in Nacogdoches, the chances of a sell out are really high. If Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston State, Abilene Christian, Lamar and Tarleton State join the WAC and the WAC joins the FBS, all five of those Texas schools might have to double their current capacities to at least 30,000 in the hopes of hosting a school like Baylor or Houston at their home stadiums. If those 5 schools are content with 15,000 capacity if they join the WAC and the WAC goes FBS, then they better be content at being the "home team" at neutral sites because no way would a school like Baylor would play on the road at Stephen F. Austin if their stadium only seats 15,000 and would prefer to play in San Antonio or Houston if they have to be the visiting team. If any of those 5 schools join an FBS conference, they will be like Texas State and double the size of their stadiums in the hopes of hosting a school like Baylor or Houston on campus.

Everything I have read in the past seems to indicate that Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston State, Lamar and Abilene Christian have no interest in moving to the FBS, although things could change. All four schools have football stadiums with under 20,000 capacity and three of them are under 15,000 capacity. The smallest FBS Stadium in Texas is Bobcat Stadium at Texas State University which seats 30,000. How much would it cost those four schools to have the same capacity for their stadiums as Texas State? Tarleton State currently seats 12,000 at their stadium. In order to make the FBS move, they would have to at least add 18,000 seats to match Texas State.

So what would it take for the WAC to go back to the FBS, even if they bring football back?

Are tweets not able to show up for anyone else when they post a new tweet? Instead it shows a link to that tweet

BYU would be a major draw to the league and give them national attention

the WAC is going to need to bring back the BYU Cougars in order to even get a chance at the FBS. That's not going to happen.

Perhaps, but if that's the case, don't just take ACU, Lamar, SHSU and SFA. Also take Incarnate Word and Houston Baptist. If you want a non football school as well, bring in Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

I heard a local sports talk host say when this team was named "Fort Worth is Panther City? I thought it was Cowtown?"

Still long flights though. Of course, we don't even know if the NAL is going to play due to the Pandemic.

I find it hard to believe that Abilene Christian, Lamar, Sam Houston State and Stephen F. Austin would consider a move to the WAC. I am always of the opinion if one of those 4 Texas schools leave the Southland it would be for a move up to the FBS via CUSA or Sun Belt.

Ontario isn't going to kick off anyways once the NAL comes to their senses and realizes the travel costs are too expensive.

I like the name, it's the location of the team as compared to the rest of the NAL.

Plus A-Sun is a non football league and all three have football teams.

It's stupid because of travel issues. Ontario is in California while the rest of the NAL are based East of the Mississippi River.