Left in the Lurch, Idaho Must Go On Alone

The days when college conferences were held together by academics and geography are gone.

In this ugly new age, all that matters is perceived football prowess and access to television markets. That means even more universities are changing their conference allegiances.

The latest shake up came on Friday with the expansion of Conference USA. Texas-San Antonio, Louisiana Tech, UNC-Charlotte, North Texas and Florida International all defected from their respective conferences (the WAC, Atlantic-10 and Sun Belt).

That means 31 universities - more than a quarter in all of Division I football - will have switched conferences for various stated reasons such as stability or more prestige. Granted, most college presidents do not have the audacity to freely admit they are moving conferences to chase more money.

With Utah State and San Jose State also finding new conference home in the WAC 2.0, also known as the Mountain West, you can, as Brett McMurphy put it, "start carving the tombstone" for the WAC.

That's a shame considering the WAC is the sixth oldest D-I football conference and will have had 26 members at one time or another when the D-I expands to 125 programs in 2013.

That also means a school near and dear to my heart, the University of Idaho, has been left in the lurch.

The Vandals, despite doing things the right way with student-athlete graduation and leading the WAC Commissioner's Cup, are out of good options. Idaho is in a minuscule television market, it's regional TV footprint is over shadowed by the Smurf Turf to the south and there has not been any consistent success on the Palouse.

What is being widely suggested by many sports writers for the Vandals, a drop back to the I-AA level and the Big Sky Conference, would be a disaster.

Looking purely at the economics, the Vandals need to remain in Division I football, because that is where all the money is. It's why, for richer or poorer, the number of football programs at the highest level continues expanding.

Idaho has another option. And it must choose to go the route of D-I football independent.

Without a conference the Vandals could mirror the Gonzaga basketball mantra of playing any school, any time, any where.

That would open to the door to schedule not one or two, but five or six games with BCS conferences opponents and guaranteed six figure paydays. By being everyone else's homecoming opponent, Idaho could rake in a very low estimate of $3 million dollars a year.

That may be what the Vandals need to jump start into the arms race of seriously upgrading its athletic facilities.

With top class facilities, success on the field is not a guarantee but does generally follow. Just look at Oregon's meteoric rise in the football ranks.

Who knows what the college football landscape will look like in five months, let alone five years.
But if Idaho shows some resolve and goes on playing football with the big boys, they may just wind up finding an even better conference home.