I’ve made jokes about the demise of the Western Athletic Conference. But I never took my own jokes seriously. But now, one has to consider how you write the obituary for the WAC, which seems on a collision course with extinction – at least in terms of football.

News broke this weekend that Utah State and San Jose State are close to signing on the dotted line with the Mountain West, a move that would bolster the league after the departures of Boise State and TCU. Then came the news that Conference USA is nearing completion on a deal that would snag texas-San Antonio and Louisiana Tech to help replace the schools it lost to the Big East.

And you thought you were having a bad weekend? In just two years the WAC has gone from a fairly secure league to one that, theoretically, will only be fielding Olympic sports starting in the fall of 2013.

Why? Well, if these defections hold – and I see no reason for them to fall through – the WAC will be left with three football playing schools for the 2013 season – Idaho, New Mexico State and texas State.

All three of these teams, at one time, jumped ship to join the WAC. Idaho and New Mexico State left the Sun Belt Conference. texas State left the Southland Conference. Now they face the prospect of having no home at all.

So what can the WAC do? What can these three teams do? Here are a few ideas:

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Until today when several news outlets, including CBSSports.com reported that the athletic directors of the Sun Belt Conference voted to extend Georgia State an invitation to join the league in 2013.

I have to admit, I like being right. Last year’s article can be found here.

At the time I made the following case — Georgia State’s location in Atlanta would enhance the Sun Belt’s media package, improve the possibility of creating a 12-team league and would yield a conference title game and give the conference three Top 20 media markets. The Panthers could compete immediately in the Sun Belt. And the head coach, Bill Curry, would provide the same sort of national respect for the league that Howard Schnellenberger created at Florida Atlantic. Now there’s one additional criteria:

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Even if you’re a die-hard college football fan, keeping with conference realignment is a monumental task. In just the last month, Temple has bolted for the Big East and the Mountain West and Conference USA are contemplating an insane merger, even for conference realignment. They’re courting Sun Belt schools, and in turn the Sun Belt Conference is courting schools they may need to stay viable.

This is the trickle-down effect we anticipated when conference realignment started in earnest a couple of years ago. Remember when Nebraska bolted for the Big Ten and Colorado bolted for the Pac-12? That seems like a decade ago.

Larger conferences are bolstering their coffers. Smaller conferences are scrambling to survive. And it all seems patently unfair, though we are a country that prides itself on survival of the fittest.

But all of this conference realignment leads to instability in college football, instability the game doesn’t need. What’s worse is that it’s disorganized instability. Every man for himself.

So what if we embrace the chaos? What if we bring organization to the instability of conference realignment and make it a little more fair? Or at least a little more fun? Here are a few ideas that have been percolating in my mind as of late:

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It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the non-BCS schools don’t know what the heck to do. But the non-BCS superconference is a bad idea.

You know by now that Conference USA and the Mountain West are going to merge for the 2013-14 season. You know as well as I do that, given the membership that will exist at that time, it’s going to create a league with at least 16 schools. That’s unwieldy enough. Remember – the WAC tried that already and failed.

But apparently this new consolidation wants more. Turns out multiple reports have the new league (let’s call it Conference USAXL) seeking to create a league with 18 to 24 teams that would create a coast-to-coast league.

Schools like Utah State are telling news outlets that they’re interested in jumping ship to this new endeavor. That puts the WAC at risk of not just losing members, but folding completely. It barely has enough members to be a conference right now. And now WAC commissioner Karl Benson is reportedly eying a move to be the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference.

You’re forgiven if you can’t keep up with the upheaval. But there are so many reasons why this is a bad idea. Consider:

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As Memphis accepts its invitation to join the Big East starting in 2013, the Tigers provide the conference what it needs to inflate its football numbers to 12 and enjoy the fruits of a conference championship game starting in 2015. That’s when Navy joins the league, unless it can extricate itself from its own TV contracts before that time.

As the Tigers host their press conference on Wednesday, they’ll talk a lot about how the move will benefit the Tigers in the future. But will it really? And how does the move really impact the Big East? Let’s consider those possibilities after the jump.

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Admiration for Big Bill. Imagine building something that no one had built before you. Imagine bringing success to your place of employment in a way that no one had ever done before. Imagine reaching the summit of your profession, even if for just a moment. Then, when you feel you’ve accomplished all you can, you walk away, confident that the legacy you built would continue in perpetuity.

Then imagine watching it decline, slowly and painfully. Then you know what it’s like to be Bill Snyder.

Snyder was the head coach at Kansas State from 1988 to 2005 before he returned near the end of 2008. Now, for a generation of college football fans, they know Kansas State as a Top 25 team and, at times, a national contender. They probably looked upon what happened after Snyder left as, well, a hiccup.

So here’s a little perspective. Before Snyder arrived for the first time in 1988, Kansas State stunk in every way. The program had the most losses in FBS (then Division I-A), had only been to one bowl game, hadn’t won a conference title since 1934, had only four winning seasons in the previous 34 years and had lost 27 straight. Sports Illustrated called it “Futility U.”

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So I made my appearance with Barnhart and Durham — that is, Tony Barnhart and Wes Durham — on Sports Talk 790 The Zone this morning to talk about Sun Belt Conference expansion. Specifically, they wanted to talk about Georgia State University, the current FCS school in Atlanta that just started its program a few years ago. I made mention in my blog post at PigskinU.com last week that I thought GSU would be a good fit for the Sun Belt geographically, especially if the Sun Belt make a move to add an 11th member (rumors are that the SBC is considering adding a current FBS member that is in another conference).

It was a great conversation, and I was happy to learn that Barnhart — who writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CBSSports.com — agreed with my assessment of the situation, as it pertained to GSU. We talked about the pros of a potential move for GSU and how it could impact the conference in revenue and bowl-tie ins.

It was my first radio appearance for PigskinU.com and it could not have gone better.

If you want to listen to my appearance on Barnhart and Durham, click below:

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And, if you didn’t read my post on Sun Belt expansion, click here to give it a read.

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Tomorrow at 10:15 a.m. EST you can catch me on Barnhart and Durham, hosted by Tony Barnhart and Wes Durham on Sports Radio 790 The Zone (WQXI) from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday through Friday. If you follow college football, you know who these guys are. Barnhart writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is featured regularly on CBS’ college football coverage. Durham is the play-by-play voice for Georgia Tech football and the Atlanta Falcons.

So, why am I going to be on? Well, about a week ago I wrote a column for PigskinU.com about the Sun Belt Conference. In it, I mentioned that the Sun Belt and Georgia State University should consider partnering up. GSU is located in Atlanta and, for the moment, is in FCS and considering an opportunity to join the Colonial Athletic Association. The way I see it, with the Sun Belt adding South Alabama and, perhaps another current FBS program, I think the SBC should consider courting GSU, which is in a Top 10 media market and features a respected head coach in Bill Curry.

I’ll find out how Barnhart and Durham see it tomorrow morning. But you can tune in. Click here to go to 790 The Zone’s Web site and click on the Listen Live button at the top right hand corner to catch my appearance.

And, if you didn’t read my post on Sun Belt expansion, click here to give it a read.

I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Earlier this week the Miami Herald (I actually read this on CBSSports.com, but the Herald broke the story, so let’s give credit where credit is due) reported that the Sun Belt is trolling for a new member. They lost Denver a few months ago when the WAC extended invites, but that was an insignificant loss since Denver really only played basketball in the SBC. The conference still had nine football members. Well, the Herald reported that the SBC is looking for a member that shares its geographical ties, plays football and is currently a member of an established FBS conference. What’s more – and this is what really blew me away – the overtures were coming from those unnamed FBS schools, not the Sun Belt.

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There were more than 20 new head coaches hired in FBS this past hiring season. For my money, there was one hiring coup. Well, two, if you count Pittsburgh having Todd Graham fall into its lap.

No, the coup I’m thinking of can be found in the Sun Belt Conference. There really isn’t another way to say it – how did a school as down on its luck as the University of North texas get Dan McCarney?

Now, I lived in Denton for two years when I was the assistant sports editor for the Denton-Record-Chronicle. I covered my share of UNT events. Back then, the Mean Green was enjoying the salad days under Darrell Dickey. The program was in the midst of four straight SBC titles and three straight bowl games. While no one expected it to last forever, I certainly didn’t expect the program to bottom out as it has. 

Dickey lost the job when as the program started to go south and athletic director Rick Villarreal gambled on hiring a texas high school coach, Todd Dodge. The result? Awful. The Mean Green went 6-37 and Dodge was fired before the end of the 2010 season. You would think that a school that hired a high school coach to be a head coach once – Dennis Parker in the 1990s – would learn from that disaster. But, at the same time, Dodge had a great reputation. He had led Southlake Carroll to three straight Class 5A state titles. It doesn’t get any better than that in texas. But it never clicked for Dodge. Don’t feel bad, though. His texas coaching connections came in handy. He is Graham’s offensive coordinator at Pitt. Graham used to coach at Allen (texas) High.

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