In another thread some posters speculated what the G5 conferences might have looked like had the Big 12 successfully lobbied to have a title game with just 10 members in 2010. I thought I'd look at the moves in the Big East that occurred that would have a cascading effect on the rest of the landscape:

12/7/11 The Big East (Catholic 7+ND, UConn, Rutgers, Cincy, L'ville, and USF) has already experienced the announced loss of Pitt, Syracuse, WVU, and TCU. They announce they are adding Houston, SMU, and UCF for all sports and SDSU and Boise St for FB only. The league stabilizes at 16 full/ 8 FB + 2 FB only. Equilibrium is restored and they can hos a football title game.

11/28/12 By this point Notre Dame, Rutgers, and Louisville have all announced departures leaving the Catholic 7, 6 football schools and 2 FB affiliates scheduled to come on board. At this point I think we see Temple added as full member and Navy for football. The new split is 7 football/7 non-football and 3 FB affiliates.

December 2012 This is where I think history could diverge in a few different ways. In our timeline this is where the Catholic 7 bolt--allegedly with the addition of RPI killing Tulane as a full member. I'm going to suggest that in this timeline, without the need for 12 football schools the Catholic 7 stay and the hybrid league carries on.

The second big event in December 2012 was Boise St's NYE announcement that they were remaining in the MWC. 2 weeks later San Diego St made the same announcement. I'm going to venture that in this hypothetical timeline this also occurs. In this time line the solution to replace them is to add Memphis (good basketball and football) and to keep things balanced non-football Butler to appease the Catholic 7. For football member #10 ECU joins for football only and parks their other sports elsewhere.

There you have it:
Big East:
Non-FB--Providence, St John's, Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown, Butler, DePaul, Marquette
Football--UConn, Temple, Cincy, Memphis, UCF, USF, SMU, Houston
FB only--Navy, ECU

This is an interesting possibility! Check out here for another: http://csnbbs.com/thread-821510-post-150...id15016505 :)

I know Nerdlinger looks at the fallout differently but here is how I see it playing out:

MWC: same as now minus Utah St and San Jose St

MAC: same as now

C-USA: I think you've got Marshall, UAB, USM, Tulane, Rice, Tulsa, and UTEP. I think the last 3 spots get drawn from the original pool that these 7 (plus ECU) picked in real life: FIU, MTSU, UNT, LA Tech, UTSA, Charlotte, and ODU. Without ECU, ODU and Charlotte are out. With the center of the conference footprint roughly being Tulane I also think FIU is out. I think they go with MTSU (bridge to Marshall), UNT, and I think newcomer UTSA barely edges out LA Tech due to market and growth potential.

SBC: WKU, FIU, FAU, Troy, USA, ULL, ULM, Ark St, UALR (non-football)
joining them is GA St and in a surprise move, LA Tech who chooses this league over a crumbling WAC

WAC: Idaho, Utah St, SJSU, NMSU, Texas St plus non-FB Denver, Seattle, and UTA. this group is in a rough spot. They either need to attract FCS schools in their footprint or step outside it for affiliates, possibly some of the schools the Sunbelt in C-USA brought in.

(01-23-2018 08:17 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  This is an interesting possibility! Check out here for another: http://csnbbs.com/thread-821510-post-150...id15016505 :)

My decision to put ECU in over Tulane is the big game changer.

With no ECU in C-USA there's no one there to lobby for ODU and Charlotte and I think the eastern part of the footprint gets abandoned. Even FIU would be a potentially unnecessary island. That's why I think they'd go for schools that would fit better with their new core rather than over stretching the footprint.