Sports Column

SIU Sports Reporter

While the TV league schools careen towards two super-conferences at the tacit urging of ESPN and Fox Sports, the rest of college sports tries to figure out what to do with NIL and its collectives while avoiding the collateral damage caused or suggested by everyone else.

I really don’t know what to think of a lot of this. I feel sadness for schools like Oregon State and Washington State that will literally get left out in the Pacific Northwest cold because they lack a shoe company godfather or are stuck in Pullman.

“I think our board and any conference in this current situation right now is mindful of what’s happening,” commissioner Jeff Jackson said. “You never know what the next domino is going to be and how it might impact your membership.”

But I feel worse for the schools who decided bailing for FBS was a more viable plan, only to find out they’ll be stuck forever in the Bahamas Bowl or in whatever the Frisco Bowl’s name will be next year (and the year after) because the Pac-12’s had two straight commissioners who can barely play checkers in everyone else’s game of 3D chess.

Where does this leave the Missouri Valley Football Conference (and the MVC, for that matter)? Not in horrendous shape, not compared to other places. Yeah, North Dakota State and South Dakota State might not be long for the MVFC if the Pac-12 somehow decides to stay afloat and the Mountain West has to replace programs like San Diego State and Boise State.

However, there’s also another consideration that MVC commissioner Jeff Jackson brought up Thursday during the league’s summer Zoom call for women’s basketball coaches.

“I do have concerns that you can become too big,” he said. “You want to make sure you can serve your membership the correct way and that means you have to have a certain amount of time, family and resources.”

Simply put, the Cardinals have been as bad as it’s possible for a team to be...

As an example, Jackson brought up a current trip he made to Murray State. He said if the Valley had 16 or 18 schools in it, as the Big Ten is heading for with the likely addition of Oregon and Washington, that he might not have the time to visit every school and pay attention to it in the manner it deserves.

Let’s face it: The Valley is probably stretched about as far as it really can go geographically. Someone threw out St. Thomas, a Division I newcomer in Saint Paul, Minn. which has been very competitive in a rapid rise from Division III, as a candidate for MVC expansion.

A look at the school’s athletic facilities reveals that they are pretty new and pretty small. The basketball gym seats 1,800 and the football stadium 5,025. The smallest MVC hoops venue seats 5,000 (Valparaiso) and the tiniest football field has room for about 9,000 (South Dakota).

Even with a big TV market, that seems unlikely, barring some serious facility expansion. Besides, that TV market already has four pro sports franchises and the University of Minnesota competing for eyeballs. I’ll dare say U of M hockey is a bigger deal there than the perpetually mediocre Timberwolves.

Hill knows you can’t play the status quo card after a 5-6 season that started with a top 10 national ranking and ended with a four-game losing streak.

However, unlikely might soon morph into possible, given how things are going in TV league land. You can bet Jackson and MVFC commissioner Patty Viverito are refreshing their Twitter feeds as much as the rest of us, trying to figure out if we’ll get that Washington-Illinois rivalry that maybe dozens desire.

“Most of the madness is occurring at the Power 5 level,” Viverito said Tuesday morning during MVFC media day on Zoom. “We have NIL and people suggesting pay-for-play is the answer. Conference realignment is the topic of the day. Unfortunately, we are not immune to the collateral damage that might be result so we have to be alert to it.”

These days, being a conference commissioner could be compared to covering kicks or punts in one big way: Better keep your head on a swivel.

Bucky Dent

Bucky Dent covers SIU sports for The Southern Illinoisan and also votes on the Wooden Award. He can be reached at [email protected] or at 618-351-5086.

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