AE: Expansionocalypse Theories?

Although many see the AE as being somewhat below the major tides of realignment that are sweeping through the FBS conferences, a couple recent stories have intrigued me in terms of mentioning how this conference could be impacted once the major dominoes begin to fall. The New York Times reported in the last couple of weeks that the CAA had reached out to several schools, including Charlotte, Richmond, GW and Boston University. I think at this point that it’s a no-brainer move for BU if they are invited. Don’t get me wrong, I love the cross-sport rivalries with UVM, Maine and UNH that come over from Hockey East, but BU will never become a mid-major basketball contender in the AE. It would be a waste after Coach Chambers’ hard work before leaving to go to Penn State if BU again turned down the CAA. And on a side note, I’d personally love a home-and-home in conference against Northeastern every year. Could be a great rivalry as it is on the hockey side. On the other hand Sporting Vermont has a somewhat melancholy article in response discussing Vermont’s lacking prospects for joining another conference despite being the AE’s best hoops program in recent years by some distance. Personally wherever BU goes I wouldn’t mind seeing UVM follow given how great that rivalry was during my time at the school the last 4 years but I suspect it will not happen once one of the schools moves on.

Another interesting (albeit speculative) article showed up on the UnrankedAE blog recently regarding how a football realignment could change the conference in all sports. Although the UNH football fan in me would not like to see them leave a very strong CAA football conference, the fact is that once URI and UMass leave for the NEC and the MAC respectively, Maine and the Wildcats are basically on an island alone as far as being near their conference mates. Delaware and Towson would become the team’s closest trips and travel budgets would expand. Forming a new AE football conference, if Albany and Stony Brook could be enticed would be tempting for the sake of saving travel costs. If the conference seemed to be a competitive improvement over the NEC (Albany and SBU both have also had success recently and Maine is perhaps the best team in the CAA this year), then other teams could be perhaps enticed to join. To get to a minimum of 6 all-sport members in order for the AE to sponsor football, the ideas from URAE that I liked the best personally were bringing in CCSU (fits profile of an NE state school) and Bryant or Fordham (having the NYC school intrigues me if they’d be willing to leave the A-10, which I’d doubt) Even Sacred Heart or Wagner would be intriguing filler options for all sports. URI might even be a possibility as a football-only school once the conference filled out its roster. Obviously this football part is all fun speculation at this point but very interesting to discuss nonetheless.