Even if there was interest in sponsoring football, there's not a practical way to do it. Current NCAA regulations (20.02.6) prohibit FBS football-only conferences (FCS does not: ie. Ohio Valley Football Conference). In order to sponsor FBS football, 8 of the members must participate "in at least six men's and eight women's conference-sponsored sports, including men's basketball and football and three women's team sports, including women's basketball."jpatsfan wrote: ↑Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:14 pm The only play here for the AAC is to be a national conference. Add Boise State, SDSU and other random.parts from around the country. Travel will become insane and expensive. For those reasons I think the AAC is done. To bad the A10 doesn't want to bring back FB, what an opportunity they have right now.
Maybe you could convince some current A10 FCS teams to upgrade to FBS? But keep in mind no one else in the A10 has a stadium that meets FBS standards (most are well below 10,000 seats and none are equipped for FBS media). Can an FBS conference give non-football members the option to play the sport in an FCS league? I'm not sure. The other non-football schools like Wichita State and UA-Little Rock do not sponsor football at all.
Why would the other A10 members look to add 7 schools so that UMass has a football home? I don't think a 21 team A10 is really reasonable, or possible due to scheduling.