Conference Dominoes: A-10 and CAA Edition

One of the most unfortunate things about big conferences raiding lesser ones is that it causes a ripple effect through college athletics and ultimately the weaker, fledgling conferences get screwed.  Let's play a game of Conference Dominoes shall we?

Big East raids Atlantic 10 for Temple
This move leaves the A-10 at an unstable 13 by taking the gem at the center of the conference footprint.  Internet rumors have it that the A-10 wants to shift their core of their footprint south, taking VCU and George Mason from the CAA.  Additionally, to placate the Midwestern schools, Butler would be added to make 16, thus depriving the Horizon League of their poster child.  The CAA and Horizon will no doubt react by raiding the conferences beneath them on the food chain:

As a hybrid league in the Mid Atlantic region their are a few ways the CAA could proceed.  Approaching Appalachian St makes sense but I think if Happy Appy moves its to the Sunbelt and not to another FCS conference.  The next choice is going north and approaching America East members like Stony Brook, Boston University (no football), and full membership for Maine and New Hampshire.  The loss of 3 or more members to this 9 member league is likely crippling as NJIT is the only school in the region who is not comfortable in their current state.  Football only membership for Fordham is another avenue that could be explored that would leave the AmEast less damaged but Fordham football isn't that great.  The other move they could make would be towards the south by raiding the Big South for Coastal Carolina and/or Liberty.  While this move would certainly not kill the entire conference it would certainly kill the fledgling 7-member football league they created.  Stony Brook's departure for the CAA would be potentially devastating to both the AmEast and the Big South.  The AmEast would be reduced to 8 core members, fewer if others leave as well while for the Big South, Stony Brook is that key 7th football school that gives the league a FCS playoff autobid.

Meanwhile, in the Butler-less Horizon, Oakland of the Summit League has been called upon to replace the Bulldogs thus dropping that conference to 8.  This would require the Summit to take North Dakota, and hope the Missouri Valley Football Conference will be willing to add an 11th member, or hope the Big Sky will be content with keeping Fighting Sioux football for the time being.  The other option is the horrid Chicago St Cougars who the Summit already kicked out once beforeback when the league was called the Mid-Continent.  Going down and scooping a school like UM-St Louis out of DII is also on the table too but regardless, this is a league that has recently lost 3 schools to other conferences and had a fourth drop to DIII.

Summary
As a result of the big boys jockeying for position the A-10 will take a hit and in turn so will the Horizon and CAA.  In turn, the Summit will have to admit inferior members to stay cohesive and the Big South football and the entire AmEast Conference will be on the brink of collapse if not destroyed.