A Saturday meditation

A columnist at the North County Times has checked in with the suggestion that San Diego State drop Division I football and join the Great West Football Conference. Despite the pedantic objection to that idea -- the GWFC is Division I football, just not Bowl Subdivision football -- and the fact I-AA is being floated primarily to blast an underachieving football program, the point is interesting as an intellectual exercise.

To join the GWFC, San Diego State also would have to leave the Mountain West Conference. And this is where it gets interesting. The Big West would love to hear from San Diego State.

It would open another market to the league. And given that the Big West is largely ignored in it's home base, it would be important new exposure. Also, it would give the conference a reason not to invite Cal State Bakersfield, which currently is in the process of moving to Division I. The now nine-team Big West would like to get back to an even number of teams. But one would imagine breaking into San Diego or the Bay Area would be a higher priority if there were a partner there. And after taking on UC Riverside and UC Davis in the past decade, the league probably would prefer adding an established program to lessen any perception that it is a haven for reclassifying schools. From the Aztecs' point of view, they would immediately be competitive in most sports and boast some of the best facilities in conference. In addition, putting Tony Gywnn on the baseball side of the conference would be a huge boost to both parties.

Of course, it will never happen. The money in the Football Bowl Subdivision is simply too attractive, even for a constant struggler like SDSU. More likely, if in a decade UC Davis upgrades its football stadium and builds out to 30,000 seats, it's pretty easy to see the Aggies trying to secure a home in the Mountain West as a Bowl Subdivision team.

The Great West probably will announce the addition of North Dakota and South Dakota in the coming months, to replace the departing North Dakota State and South Dakota State. UND should quickly move into the upper quarter of Football Championship Series programs, so the overall quality of the GWFC won't dip too much. But UND and USD won't count as Division I opponents until 2009, leaving the league scrambling in 2008. The Aggies have scheduled the Sioux in 2008, but want to avoid playing two Division II games in order to boost its playoff chances. On the other hand, two D-II games is less damaging in 2008 than in other years because FCS teams can schedule 12 games that year. A number of options are being considered for the 2008 season. We will be keeping an eye on this, obviously.