Quote Originally Posted by ST_Lawson View Post
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.
I think it would have to be a FB only move if they were to join the OVC. I see your point with #1, that was the other possibility I had thought about and if we’re going based on RPI standards the basketball conference that makes the most sense would be the Horizon (Though realistically I think they’d have their sights on something better than that.) first before they entertain something else. Summit is Ranked 25, Horizon is currently 21 so it’s not an egregious jump and it’s probably a better fit geographically.

Your second point is probably the better option for Scholly but I mentioned the OVC based on conferences that are currently actually sponsoring football. If the Summit does eventually sponsor football then yes they’d be the obvious fit.