By MATT VAUTOUR
With its football program homeless, any rumblings of conference shifting is good news for UMass.
So Tuesday’s revelation that the Big 12 is strongly considering expansion is worth paying attention to.
Multiple reports following Tuesday’s meeting of the Big 12’s presidents and chancellors not only said that the league was likely to expand, but could add as many as four teams, which would bring its total to 14.
It’s unlikely that a team from a Power 5 conference would leave for the Big 12 (although the Dallas Morning News floated Florida State as a long shot) so the league would likely be adding from the Group of 5.
UMass obviously won’t be invited to the Big 12, but it could have an opportunity to replace a school that leaves for it.
Minuteman athletic director Ryan Bamford said he’s monitoring the situation to see what opportunities it might present for his football program.
“We want to find a home for our football program. We’re keeping a very close eye on that,” Bamford said. “We’re looking for conferences that offer opportunities to grow our football program as we get into year five and beyond of FBS play.”
Because the Big 12 is the only Power 5 conference with even the prospect of expansion in the foreseeable future, there will likely be a lot of schools aggressively courting a spot in the league.
BYU, which is an independent, and schools from the Mountain West and American Athletic Conference have all been rumored.
Openings in the American would be the most enticing for UMass because of location and potential rivalries. Cincinnati, UCF, USF, Memphis, UConn, Houston and to a lesser degree SMU and East Carolina, have all been rumored as potential Big 12 targets.
An AAC opening wouldn’t guarantee anything for UMass. Several Conference USA schools (Charlotte, Old Dominion, Marshall, Western Kentucky, Southern Mississippi, Rice and even Texas San Antonio) would likely try to angle their way into an invitation to the American. Army could join Navy as a football-only member of the league.
The Minutemen’s best-case scenario would be if the Big 12 added four teams, including at least three from the AAC if UConn wasn’t one of them. That would give UMass natural rivals in Temple and UConn.
But the AAC would have to believe that in the future the Minutemen could be a valuable addition in football. That’s where UMass leadership from the president’s office to Bamford will have to do a convincing sales pitch.
If the Minutemen don’t get an AAC invitation, things would get trickier.
UMass made a decision to leave the Mid-American Conference rather than becoming a full member of a bad basketball conference. The message was that it wouldn’t sacrifice the interest of its men’s basketball program, as well as the rest of its sports, to join an all-sport conference where geography and competitiveness is compromised.
The Atlantic 10 has been a good fit for both basketball programs as well as the Olympic sports.
Would Conference USA or the Sun Belt (if the Sun Belt loses members to C-USA amid the falling dominos) be interested in the Minutemen for football only?
Either of those leagues would be a considerable drop-off in terms basketball strength and the travel could be financially crippling in other sports. Neither promises enough TV or Bowl revenue to counteract the added costs.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage