The Northern League

"The Northern League" was the name of a independent baseball league that operated in the Upper Midwest until 2010. Since the name seems to be available, use it for a new D1 league with football at the FCS level. This makes so much sense that it will never happen. The members of this league would come from the Big Sky (football and basketball), the Missouri Valley Football Conference (football, duh), and the Summit League (basketball). Members should include:

• South Dakota State and U.
• North Dakota State and U.
• Montana State and U.
• Idaho State and U.
• Weber State (Utah)
• Eastern Washington
• Northern Arizona
• Northern Colorado

That's 12. Cut out the last two if 10 would be more manageable. This would be BY FAR the best FCS football conference and a pretty good mid-major basketball conference. There are natural rivalries here, unlike the current conferences. What does SDSU have in common with Youngstown State? What does Montana have in common with Cal Poly? The 12 I have named are all state schools of similar size. The first six are in states where there are no FBS teams soaking up the attention.

Besides external forces, there are internal reasons why it will not happen. South Dakota State does not want to lose the home court advantage of having the Summit League basketball tournament in Sioux Falls every year. North Dakota State may want to jump to FBS sooner rather than later. But this week a crack formed in the Big Sky. Cal-Davis is joining the Mountain West in all sports except football, where it will remain in the Big Sky. Mountain West football is FBS, so how long will the two leagues tolerate Davis having that split?

On the other hand... rather than forming an FCS super conference, take all of the above and make it a Group of Six FBS conference. It would be very competitive. According to the Sagarin Ratings, South Dakota State is the highest-rated FCS football team at #39 and would be the betting favorite at a neutral site against EVERY Group of Five team except Boise, which is in the FBS playoffs. In fact, the Jackrabbits would be the favorite against half of the teams in the Big Ten (which has 18 teams now). There are too many obstacles to making this happen, but it should.