College Football Rankings 2011

In recent years, a number of schools have explored moving to Division I's Football Championship Subdivision (formerly-AA) to the Division I Bowl Subdivision. The team the latest to make the move was the Western Kentucky University Hilltoppers in 2009. There are four teams over planned to move in 2012-2013, however. This is a University of South Alabama Jaguars, University of Massachusetts "UMass" Minutemen and Texas State University - San Marcos Bobcats. A fourth program, the University of Texas - San Antonio Roadrunners, is a startup without any FCS history that goes directly to the FBS.

There are a number of candidates of moving-up of FSC to BF. Whether that will be the next climb requires a thorough review of the college football landscape. There is an arms race going on between the programs of college major of football which led to the expansion of the Conference in the major conferences such as the Big Ten and PAC-12 but also huge TV rights deals with conferences and academic individual networks such as the network of Longhorn and BYUtv. Budgets have soared and he became more and more expensive to build and operate top notch facilities and provide the best tools for 85 scholarship to compete at the highest level football players.

Although less prestigious conferences such as the West of the mountain, Mid American Conference and Conference USA found it more difficult to follow financially with the big boys, they will benefit likely in that the University football is so popular right now that the major television networks such as ESPN and Fox is looking for any type of programming of college football they can obtain, and these conferences are able to provide the networks with a reasonable return on the investment of smaller. Schools like the University of Montana are probably watching these TV deals and thinking, while we love the format of the FCS playoffs, could potentially benefit us from the money and exposure of TV that come with playing in a mid-major FBS Conference?

Villanova is actively considering to move from the FCS to FBS. Already be a member of the Big East Conference for all other sports, they would be in the enviable position of being a member of a Conference of automatic qualifier (AQ) immediately. Also the Grizzlies of the above mentioned University of Montana, other schools that were most frequently mentioned include the Montana State University Bobcats, Lamar University Cardinal, University of California - Davis Aggies, Northern Arizona University Lumberjacks, Cal Poly Mustangs of San Luis Obispo, and Appalachian State mountaineers. All of these schools, except the State of the Appalachians, are likely candidates for the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), which has been decimated by defections of Boise State University, University of Hawaii - Manoa, California State University - Fresno and the University of Nevada - Reno. Appalachian State could be a strong candidate for the Sun Belt or perhaps even the Conference USA. Another program to keep your eye on is the University of North Carolina - Charlotte. They are from a program of FSC in 2013 and could be a program to get faster.

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