On April 1, Benson emailed a powerpoint presentation to Sun Belt presidents/chancellors and athletic directors, laying out the league’s various realignment options.
One slide listed 21 schools to be considered as “possible additions/replacements” – including Idaho, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, San Jose State, Texas State, Utah State, UT-San Antonio, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Jacksonville State, James Madison, Liberty, Charlotte, Old Dominion, Belmont, College of Charleston, Florida Gulf Coast, North Florida, St. Louis and Texas-Arlington.
“That was just to demonstrate that the Sun Belt had many options,” Benson said. “We needed to think out of the box, but it was just an exercise in showing that the Sun Belt is in a good spot.”
The same presentation included several maps of potential conference mergers – one of which was titled “Makes Too Much Sense” and proposed a 33-school superconference combining the Sun Belt, C-USA, WAC and Mountain West Conference.
“I had very quiet inquiries with (Mountain West commissioner) Craig Thompson and (C-USA commissioner) Britton Banowsky to see if, ‘Hey, would you be interested?’” Benson said. “But that was dismissed quickly. No interest.
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