I love the idea of the floundering WAC working in tandem with the more stable Big Sky Conference. However their are two ways to approach this collaboration: a full merger in which the Big Sky absorbs the 5 WAC members or an ingenious bait and switch move in which some of the Big Sky members voluntarily move their Olympic sports to the weaker WAC and the two leagues operate independently but the "WAC" schools participate in the Big Sky for FCS football.
The Merger
The merger would work like this:
You take the 11 all-sports members of the Big Sky:
Eastern Washington*
Portland St*
Idaho St*
Montana*
Montana St*
Weber St*
S Utah*
N Arizona*
N Colorado*
North Dakota*
Sacramento St*
...and throw in the 5 newcomers:
Idaho*
Boise St
Seattle
Denver
New Mexico St*
...then create two 8 team divisions based on geography--probably a north/south alignment or some 4-Four team Pods model. For football they would have 15 members playing (all the asterisked teams plus associate members UC Davis and Cal Poly)
The Bait and Switch
The bait and switch is A) financially more lucrative, B) far more complicated and unstable, and C) borderline in violation of NCAA regulations prohibiting "umbrella" conferences. What complicates this move is how do you decide who goes where? Is it a purely geographic move? Or is it more a matter of deciding which schools want to be associated with which other schools? This gets complicated as schools will have conflicting interests and could lead to infighting among the leagues. Who is going to stop a school from deciding they would rather be in the other conference and unbalancing the fragile balance between the two league?.
The Flight Risks
Regardless of how this all shakes out, their are certain schools in this conglomeration are clear flight risks, albeit the departure of certain schools could be beneficial: New Mexico St (or maybe Montana) could potentially be asked to join the MWC to replace a member departing for Big East football--the loss of NMSU would shrink the footprint; the loss of Montana would deprive the league of its strongest football school. North Dakota, on the other hand, could depart for the Summit/MVFC) and the Big Sky confederation would be just fine--they are really more of a Midwestern school anyway and they are better off with the other Dakota schools and Nebraska-Omaha. Sacramento St moving its Olympic sports to the Big West is another potential shake up that might be helpful in slimming down the size of the league if they go with the full merger model. The Hornets are simply a better fit in a league with other CSU and UC schools.
The Spare Parts
The Big Sky Conference box set comes with some extra pieces--namely Cal St Bakersfield and Utah Valley, that could be thrown into the mix to fill the void of a member who backs out or simply used as a filler to get to an even number.
My Personal Preference
I'd like to see a merger but one that leaves out Sacramento St (for Olympic Sports only--they can get into the Big West easy enough and would probably be happier there) and all of North Dakota's sports (left to find an invitation to the Summit). This would create a 14 member league for Olympic sports that spans 8 states and creating a Pacific Northwest Division and a "Four Corners" Division. It also means 14 for football with the 3 California schools (Sacramento St, UC Davis, and Cal Poly) replacing Boise St, Denver, and Seattle in two slightly realigned divisions.
Looking Back at the Bait and Switch
Provided that both Idaho and New Mexico St are both serious about playing FCS football (I'm not convinced that NMSU is as they are waiting for an 11th hour MWC invite should a MWC school go to the Big East/Big West), there is a way to align both the Big Sky and WAC as FCS football conferences and thus this confederation would not only get two automatic berths the NCAA Men's basketball tournament but the FCS Playoffs as well. These conferences would be non-geographic and would be more about grouping the historically stronger schools together in one group and the weaker ones in the other:
UC Davis and Cal Poly become WAC football affiliates (in order to balance the fact that the WAC has 3 non-football schools)
Sacramento St goes to the WAC so they can play football with their instate rivals
Montana and Montana St both go the WAC
This creates a WAC that looks like this: While the Big Sky looks like this:
Seattle (no fb) Eastern Washington
Idaho Portland St
Boise St (no fb) Idaho St
Montana Weber St
Montana St Southern Utah
Denver (no fb) Northern Arizona
New Mexico St Northern Colorado
Sacramento St North Dakota
***UC Davis
***Cal Poly
You then create some sort of scheduling alliance between the two conferences and maybe a revenue sharing plan too in order to compensate the poorer Big Sky schools for facilitating the whole set up. You also have to work something out with the Olympic sports where if one 8-member conference doesn't have enough members in a sport the other conference will allow the members who do play that sport play in their league.
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