Four D-I FCS Moveups West of the Mississippi?

Are there any sub-D-I schools west of the Mississippi that might consider in the near future moving up to FCS football?

For the sake of argument I'll additionally add San Diego to this discussion, who of course is D-I but compete at the non-scholarship level. Would they possibly move up to 63 scholarship football?

What about Cal State-Fullerton and the other Cal States that were rumored to be restarting football?

Maybe Sioux Falls but not for quite awhile. A powerhouse in NAIA now in DII plus beat UND in 2010 add that to being located in the largest city in the Dakota's. I wouldn't put it past them to move up, what conference they could go to would be the real question.

St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) is technically east of the Mississippi (less than 1 mile from it), but if there's any school in the Mpls area that could be DI already - they are it.

Abilene Christian, Incarnte Word, and Houston Baptist are all moving up.

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Originally Posted by MplsBison

St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) is technically east of the Mississippi (less than 1 mile from it), but if there's any school in the Mpls area that could be DI already - they are it.

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With Minnesota's budget problems I can't see any Minnesota team moving up to DI that doesn't have them drop football (like St. Cloud State almost did).

Missouri Valley could really use a Minnesota team. SDSU used to compete against St. Cloud back in my day. Or University of Minnesota Duluth I think could go DI football to match their hockey team.

I think SD is pretty unlikely to go to scholly ball. The cost of scholarships probably keeps them out of that mix.

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Originally Posted by Dakotaguy74

Missouri Valley could really use a Minnesota team. SDSU used to compete against St. Cloud back in my day. Or University of Minnesota Duluth I think could go DI football to match their hockey team.

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UMD is a good choice but I wonder if the cost of DI sports would be too much to fund that plus hockey.

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Originally Posted by darell1976

With Minnesota's budget problems I can't see any Minnesota team moving up to DI that doesn't have them drop football (like St. Cloud State almost did).

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St. Thomas is a private school with a $557million endowment (according to wikipedia). They've been pretty good in DIII football lately...I believe they played in the national championship game and lost to Mt. Union.

They've got a law school, engineering school (the only other on in the Twin Cities than Univ of Minnesota, as far as I know) and a business school. Very trendy pick for "private school kids" in the cities for undergrad.

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Originally Posted by darell1976

UMD is a good choice but I wonder if the cost of DI sports would be too much to fund that plus hockey.

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As good as UMD has been in football with two recent D2 titles, I can't see them shelling out that much money to go FCS. Their other non-hockey sports don't get that much attention.