Strong rumors that Wichita State and VCU might be headed to the AAC as affiliate members. I don't know what this would trigger in terms of dominoes but one could possibly have UT Arlington and Arkansas Little Rock to the MVC. That could be interesting. Isaac probably has more scoop on these things but it does sound interesting and maybe SFA and San might find a better home $$$.

It depend what conference Espn conference power ranking has southland at 29. Cusa at 20 and sun belt at 18. Mvc is at 13. I would love a move to Mvc but like people on previous forum have said that the travel cost would be too much.

If it's between cusa and southland. Might just want to stay. It would be a better conference but still a one bid league. At least southland almost alway guarantee tourney (when we play good) bc competition is so poor. No way we would have finished 3 in c-usa this season. And recruiting wouldnt be that much better in c-USA . We can build ourselves and dominate until a better offer arrives

A better home than conference USA? Are you serious?

A jump to CUSA would be impressive for either SAM or SFA.

Our "peers" in the southland are UCA, UIW, Lamar, Northwestern State.

In conference USA, they'd be Rice, UNT, UTSA, & UTEP. That's a whole different class academically.

Granted, football and basketball would be hard for a while, but I feel it would be worth it.

Not going to happen. We could not qualify for football. There are strict attendance requirements. The teams in that conference would not like having to drive 130 miles from the nearest airport.

Yeah a c-usa move would require us to expand our football stadium and record decent attendance for almost 2 years to qualify. Idk what our football attendance is but even Sam has attendance problems. But for now these are just hypotheticals and pipe dreams

The cookie could crumble a number of different ways. Not sure that CUSA is a possibility but frankly anything is an upgrade over the SLC. You never know. Wichita State has been looking for a while. I'm certain that something is going to happen at the end of the spring. How it effects SFA .... a total crapshoot. Maybe not at all.

The attendance requirement is 15k. We average over 10k now.

That's easily attainable but we do have to work on the facility.

Our attendance is the second best in the conference behind McNeese. Actually 28(I think) in the FCS.
That being said, our attendance is always really really good at the beginning of the season, and it always goes down after our first FCS loss.
I think we need one or two really good football seasons in a row to really help us. Especially with how well our athletic department promotes and hypes us up, it'll be easier to do it now than it was in the back to back championship days.

I completely agree. We can do it and facility upgrades are a must.
Homer Bryce stadium can currently hold possibly 25k+ fans. I know that's a pipe dream but we do need to consistently pack in around 15k fans in our stadium if we have any dreams of moving to a better conference.

Aac to make a decision on Wichita state soon.

From what I've read it's done. The only question is does MVC back fill with a couple members of the summit league or the horizon.

It's not really VCU or Wichita State that's going to affect SFA/Sam. The big target to look at is the Big 12 grant of rights ending in 2022 or 2023.

That's going to set off dominoes like you wouldn't believe. We need to put together a spectacular run for the next 5-6 years, in both basketball and football to get a chance to move up to a better conference.

Here's what I would expect. Texas/OU to another conference. Even if they say, expect the big 12 to backfill two teams. Likely AAC teams (Houston Cincinnatti). The AAC will look to conference USA to backfill. Likely Rice, and maybe UTSA or UTEP. That'll set off another change reaction. Conference USA will want to backfill, likely with Texas State or Arkansas State. That leaves the Sunbelt as the most likely destination for us and Sam. We could potentially jump Texas State in the pecking order with a few sweet 16 appearances.

That's a big change of the landscape, and most Texas teams get promoted, which is great for the whole state. Right now, our football team isn't worth much in FCS from a prestige perspective. It wouldn't be worth much in G5 FBS, but you'd have the potential for cool bowl games and every now and then pulling off a Marshall-esque season, let's say once every 10-15 years. However, we'd make a decent G5 team after a while because we're located in between Houston, Dallas, Shreveport, which is ripe with recruiting.

That's the landscape change I see benefitting SFA. We might even get lucky and the Mizzou Valley backfill doesn't happen. That'll make the change when the Big 12 realigns even larger, giving us a better chance of jumping up.

However, we need to get the school behind the Athletic department, including student support (In person & financial). We've got to capitalize on the landscape that's soon to change(5 years).

Man! All of that has my head spinning. Can I borrow your crystal ball?

But seriously, a great conversation starter. IMO, the key is for MBB to be as good or better than they've been in the last 4-5 years, which will be predicated by experiencing lots of successful recruiting of (at least) 3-star recruits along with finding a few 2-star diamonds in the rough (can you say Thomas Walkup?) in the time period that you specified.

And remember, we can have a top level D-1 MBB program in one of those conferences that you mentioned while still having a good FCS FB program, ala Villanova.

Just for the sake of discussion and perhaps a reality check, which conference upgrade scenario do you think is more likely?
1) SFA and Sam improve football facilities and attendance enough to crack into the FBS and thus elevate basketball visibility in a "big" conference; or
2) enough of the other SLC schools improve basketball programs to the point that the league gains some B-ball respect while football stays in FCS; or
3) McNeese goes to FBS in football and would be content to let their D1 B-ball languish in a better conference.

I think:
#3 by a longshot
#2 a million to one
#1 I'm afraid is an eye roller.

Mcnesse?? I don't understand #3 . What does McNesse have I do with us? Is McNesse better at football than Sam? Sam has go to like 2 straight finals or something

I agree it's going to depend a lot on basketball. Whatever conference we go to won't be a football power conference (c-USA or sun belt)

We don't have to go deep in the NCAA every year but we need to attend the tournament consistently. That is what team like gonzaga vcu and Wichita have in common. Gonzaga has gone to 19 straight NCAA tourneys , vcu 7 straight, Wichita 6 straight. And win a game or two if possible. Basketball is going to be our way out of southland.

Keller can recruit and soon we will find out more able his coaching ability. If he possess both then we may be set for a few years.

Okay I understand now

Sam's end goal seems to be to see their football team playing FBS football eventually. So if we moved to another conference with them, I don't see any chance we leave our football team in the FCS.
We do need to be better than we were with Brad to make it happen though. Sweet 16 appearances need to happen. Maybe even an elite 8 run. Anything to keep SFA as a nationally known Cinderella.
Football wise we seriously need to start winning games. As much as basketball is our sport, football is the college athletics money maker, and if we can have a respectable team that just sweetens the deal.
And finally, and the absolute biggest hurdle that no one talks about, we need an airport. Flying two hours away and taking a charter bus the rest of the way just won't cut it when we try to get real competition in Nac.
I want to see our big games against Kentucky or Arkansas in WRJ.
Not even a real airport. Just make the runway on the municipal airport big enough to land a charter flight.

Too bad teams can't fly into Angelina County, just 25 miles from Nac.

http://www.angelinacounty.net/departments/airport

Here is the landing strip out at A. L. Mangham Jr. Regional 4 miles away.

SFAXE93 said:

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Too bad teams can't fly into Angelina County, just 25 miles from Nac.

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So, why don't they? Still too small?

SFAXE93 said:

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Too bad teams can't fly into Angelina County, just 25 miles from Nac...

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Not asking this as a challenge to your statement, but out of my ignorance...Why can't they?

For carrying a football team, maybe the 5300' runway isn't long enough for big jets. But for basketball, it seems certainly long enough for a chartered 20-30 seat small jet.

Sorry, I don't know it seems like it could be done, but their are probably restrictions on this or that, union requirements, who knows?

Why not even Gregg County Airport near Longview, Air Force cargo planes land in there.

Just some county airports do not accept commercial airline carriers, which may include charter planes.

This conversation is much like "Back to the Future". I started my Masters in the fall of 1992 and, as part of my leadership class, was tasked with observing the Athletic office. Among the requirements of the paper I had to author was one where I had to make suggestions about future direction. At the time, the football team was a force in Division 1-AA and the Women's basketball team was a perennial power.
At the time, there were loud rumblings about the breakup of the Southwest Conference and where that would leave the teams that might not be invited. My suggestion was to approach those universities that would be left out, and explore the possibility of asking several Southland schools to move up to 1-A. The proposed conference was TCU, SMU, Rice, Houston, SFA, UNT, Texas State, Sam Houston, NE Louisiana (now Monroe), McNeese, NW State and UTEP.
At the time, I was told the breakup would not happen and that my idea was crazy. Just my opinion, but 25 years later, I don't think it was that crazy. I did get an "A" on the paper, however. Feel free to comment!

I think the more likely play (25%) is that we end up in something like the Sunbelt or a watered down CUSA.

I think the most likely scenario is that nothing happens. If it turns out that Keller can coach, the team will make the Big Dance a few time and maybe win a game or two. Once that happens, Keller will go to a bigger school with deep pockets and prestige. I just don't see SFA being able to pay a BB coach big money and keep him around long enough to move up to a better conference.

If it did happen, I think football stays FCS in a different conference than basketball.

As far as having a top program in NAC is concerned, I agree a nearby airport would need to handle some jets but, if you can have a PAC-12 school in Pullman Washington, you can have a top BB program in NAC.

I would like to see us stay FCS ... at least until we can get a better facility, which isn't happening anytime soon. I see us continuing to play fcs but looking for a better fit for other sports. Not many options so the end result will be nothing.

This would be ideal, but it would also depend on what Sam Houston does and they don't want to stay FCS forever and I doubt they leave the Southland in every sport but football.

Hasnt been confirmed by big news networks yet

-- edit: just read the article. Nothing new. The headline is just misleading.

ESPN: American vote on Wichita State planned for Friday