Quote Originally Posted by Mike296 View Post
Part of me has wondered since they made the start of their transition up from D3 if St Thomas could feasibly go Scholly football in like 10-15 years depending on the landscape of CFB at that point. If we get certain D2 schools that move up by that point(Looking at you Ferris and Grand Valley State heck maybe even my pipe dream of Mankato you can throw into the conversation) the geography problem would be lessened. Even right now is the OVC really that far off from being able to entice St Thomas as a FB only member? I doubt the MVFC would want them right away so that’s out of the question.

For hypothetical purposes a conference of

Eastern Illinois
Western Illinois
Lindenwood
Tennessee-Martin
Tennessee Tech
Tennessee St
SEMO
St Thomas
Grand Valley St
Ferris St

Is that really that bad geographically? I personally wouldn’t think so. I think the Pioneer League is arguably more travel distance for St Thomas than this would be. You don’t have the trips to California, Florida and New York which are outliers. Having 6/10 members within a reasonable distance isn’t a bad thing.
I don't think the OVC would be interested unless they get REALLY desperate for football members. WIU is currently the furthest north and, other than Little Rock (doesn't have football), the furthest west member of the OVC. Minneapolis is another 6 1/2 to 7 hours northwest of Macomb. That being said, it would only be football, so it's not like Tennessee State would be sending their tennis team to Minneapolis or anything.

Honestly, in the 10-15 year timeframe you mentioned, I see one of two possibilities for St. Thomas:

1. They stick with non-scholarship football and continue investing primarily in basketball (and hockey). They work their way up the "levels" in basketball eventually getting to the A10 or possibly even Big East (travel partner with Creighton?), possibly with a stop in the MVC or Horizon League along the way. In this, they would resemble schools like Dayton or Butler...private religious university in a fairly large metro area that has football in the Pioneer and a really solid basketball program.

2. The Summit League decides/figures out how to do Summit League Football. The 4 Dakota schools plus St. Thomas (by then offering scholarship football) bring in Northern Colorado, Augustana (SD) moves up to DI, as does possibly Minnesota State Mankato.

#1 seems MUCH more likely to me than #2, but it's a possibility. In large part because if the rumored restructuring of DI football comes to pass, it's much less likely to affect what happens in situation #1. If #2 happens, I fully expect at least NDSU/SDSU (possibly also UND/USD, but less likely) to end up in a group that includes a bunch of remaining non-P5/P4 DI schools...maybe Wyoming and Colorado State...maybe Northern Illinois and Northern Iowa...something like that.