Revisiting the All-Ohio D-II Conference Idea after the WVIAC Break Up

One of my earliest blog articles had to do with all the D-II schools in Ohio forming a conference together.  In the interim a lot has happened.  It nearly looked as if the nascent G-MAC was going to actually become a reality rather than just a promise.  It looked as if they were going to have 8 members and even more exciting--5 play football.  That list of schools included Ursuline, Urbana, Central St, Cedarville, Georgetown (KY), Kentucky Wesleyan, Trevecca Nazarene, and Virginia-Wise.  Turmoil in WVIAC has made the G-MAC's "birth" more suspect.  The 9 football schools in the WVIAC (not including Alderson-Broaddus, who is just starting football this year) have withdrawn and declared they want to find 3 more members in keeping with the "12 by 2015" guideline set by the NCAA.  This means that both the WVIAC (left with 6 members) and the new conference will all be looking for more members and effectively declaring open season on the G-MAC.

Virginia-Wise will no doubt join the WV football faction thus leaving 2 available slots in that league.  They could go to the pair of Kentucky schools or the two football-playing Ohio schools Urbana and Central St.  The G-MAC and WVIAC remnants will probably be forced to merge to stay cogent.  With 2 Ohio schools (Ursuline and Cedarville) facing an almost certain fate in a Busch league and the other two possibly left behind as well I think its time to revisit the All-Ohio idea--

In the GLIAC the Ohio schools have a strategic advantage over the Michigan schools.  The 9 Michigan schools need the Ohio schools, particularly because of football scheduling.  The "12 by 2015" rule gives them added leverage as the Michigan contigent would need to find 3 new members while the 7 Ohio schools merely need to secure promises from Notre Dame (OH), Urbana, Ursuline, Cedarville, and Central St--none of whom would refuse--and they have their 12.  Throw in an NAIA school like MVNU in too just for safety and the Ohio schools are in far better shape.  The impediment is still getting Findlay and Ashland to get on board with the plan.  I hope that the other 5 GLIAC schools have enough pull to wrangle in their more tenured brethren into buying into a Buckeye League.  Like I said previously, I think you can arrange friendly terms for the GLIAC schism---a football scheduling agreement, as well as scheduling agreements in other sports and a unified league in sports neither league has enough members to field a conference seems like a fair way to ease the transition.