Thought Experiment: Possible SoCon Shakeup in Wake of Texas/OU Leaving Big 12

With this week's bombshell report of the University of Texas and Oklahoma University looking to move from the Big Twelve to the South Eastern Conference, it is clear that no membership in a conference is final. While it's only been a decade and change since Samford moved from the Ohio Valley Conference to the Southern Conference, the Bulldogs are somewhat isolated from the rest of the conference as we are the furthest West, third furthest South, and the only school in the Central Time Zone. Let’s make a conference that attempts to fix that.

First, some ground rules for myself.

1. No powerhouse programs - this conference would still be FCS, so no reforming the Southern Conference of the 20s and early 30s.

2. Teams must be from the South - What’s the point of being named the SOUTHERN conference when there are teams from Delaware and Colorado that play in the conference (Both the University of Delaware and the Air Force Academy play in the SoCon in Men’s Lacrosse). To differentiate, I’ll be referring to this conference as the Deep South Conference.

3. No more 10 hour bus trips - Current SoCon member institutions don’t have the money to charter planes for every away game and it’s not fair to the student athletes who have to travel to a particular military academy in Virginia via bus.

4. Multiple schools from a state will be permitted - Let’s be honest, the only people who watch SoCon games on TV are the friends and family of players and the unpaid intern(s) up in Bristol, Connecticut who look for Top 10 Plays.

Being that my main gripe with the current SoCon is how spread out it is, let’s keep Samford, Chattanooga, Mercer, Western Carolina, and The Citadel together in the conference as Samford, Chattanooga, Mercer, and The Citadel are the furthest South. Samford, Chattanooga, Mercer, and Western Carolina are the furthest West as is. Samford, Mercer, and Chattanooga are very competitive every year in just about every sport, WCU has some room to grow, and The Citadel has shown multiple times over in both Football and Basketball that they can (and will) shock the favorites in their conference matchups.

So who would the other five teams be?

The SoCon currently lacks a representative from Florida, so let’s take Jacksonville University. They already compete in the SoCon in Lacrosse, so there’s some familiarity there. Plus, both Samford and Mercer played with Jacksonville when all three were members of the Atlantic Sun (ASUN). Also, TV contracts are the lifeblood of sports, so getting into the Florida market would be very intriguing.

Next, let’s move the conference’s median location away from the Atlantic Ocean and bring in the Golden Eagles of Southern Mississippi. While currently members of the CUSA, Southern Miss has been middle of the pack to bottom of the league in the CUSA in just about every sport and this move could give that athletic department some much needed success.

Just because I can, let’s throw in the Vanderbilt Commodores into the mix. Obviously their Football and Basketball teams are constantly in last place in the SEC, so they could compete and win in the Deep South Conference. However, this is probably the biggest stretch when it comes to Baseball. Fair point. Counter point: Baseball is one of the very few sports where smaller teams can and (relatively often) do put better teams on the field than bigger schools. For example, Cal State Fullerton has one of, if not the highest rate of players from a single school to play in the MLB. Good players go to good programs and Baseball is more insulated from conference play than sports like Football.

South Alabama would be a good addition to the Deep South Conference with solid sport programs that could compete for FCS championships immediately and could compete at a high level for conference championships. While it would remove the in-conference rivalry between them and Troy, it could create a rivalry with Southern Miss. Plus, there's always the non-conference slate for the Jags.

To round out the conference, we’ll add Georgia Southern out of the Sun Belt. Not only would they be in the middle of both Mercer and The Citadel (very helpful for Basketball scheduling), but it also allows for Atlanta to host the Conference Championships for every sport. Additionally, Georgia Southern already competes in the SoCon with their Rifle teams, so their athletic department is at the very least somewhat familiar with a large group of the newly founded Deep South Conference.

Being that I am a big SEC fan (War Eagle), I'd format the Deep South Conference after the East-West divisions of the SEC, but actually use Geography to determine the placement.

EAST

The Citadel

Jacksonville

Mercer

Georgia State

Western Carolina

WEST

Samford

Southern Mississippi

Chattanooga

Vanderbilt

Southern Alabama

For Football, it'd be an 8 week conference schedule where everyone plays everyone else in their division and 3 of the 5 teams in the other division. The top teams from the East and the West would face off for the conference championship and the auto-bid to the Playoff. This 8 week schedule would allow for the teams to schedule "paycheck games" to help keep the athletic department in the black.

For Baseball, the top team from each division gets the #1 and #2 seed for the Conference Tournament based off of conference record and then the rest of the teams are seeded by conference record, regardless of division.

Before I wrap up, I’ll sum up a few other schools I considered, but ultimately didn’t include

UAB- The Blazers were one of the first teams I considered, but with Samford’s and UAB’s campuses so close that Samuel Strickland could hit their campus if he threw a rock from Ben Brown Plaza, it would feel too much like the situation between Wofford and Furman.

Jacksonville State- Wikipedia technically has Samford and the Gamecocks as rivals so that would be cool to see the two schools play more often (something needs to be done with Samford's lack of a solid rival in the near future), Jacksonville State has built a very solid Football program and constantly represent the Ohio Valley Conference in the FCS playoffs. I don’t see them leaving the OVC anytime soon.

Furman- This is entirely because I don’t like the Paladins. Don’t know why, but they’ve always rubbed me the wrong way.

Wofford- The SoCon’s league office is located in Spartanburg, so there’s a sub 0 chance of Wofford leaving. While I think Wofford could maybe one day be a decent addition to the Deep South Conference, it’s not a viable theory for now.

UNCG- Like Furman, they rub me the wrong way since they rejected me from their Music School when I was applying to Universities. Also, they remind me of UAB, just with fewer hospitals.

Sewanee- The history nerd in me really wanted to put the Tigers in this conference as Sewanee was a founding member of the SEC and them returning to their roots of building a conference from scratch would be fun to see nearly a century later, but they’re currently classified as D-III and would be absolutely demolished for the next decade in every sport known to man.

Georgia State- I was between Georgia State and Georgia Southern and chose the Golden Eagles solely because it would allow for Atlanta to be used as a neutral site. If the Panthers were admitted to the Deep South Conference, one team would be given a major boost over the others for supposedly neutral site games.

Do I think that this conference would succeed? Probably not, but weirder things have happened. The Southern Conference just recently inked a brand new tv rights deal with ESPN that runs through 2026 and the new CBS Sports Network deal for Basketball runs for the next handful of years. It would be much easier for Samford to rejoin the OVC than start a new conference.