Originally posted by NewEraWarrior
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For the GLIAC, the way forward seems to be the following.
1. Figure out the Ferris and GVSU situation. If they are going (and I think they will eventually), then it is time to figure out some new membership.
2. New Membership. I know this is obvious, but they need more football schools badly. In the past, schools would bend over backward to play in the GLIAC because the competition was so good. Nowadays, schools seem focused on lowering travel costs and being in conferences with similar schools (mostly private or mostly public). the GLIAC has historically had both, but the public schools run the conference now. so the privates are hesitant to join. The best path for them seems to be opening up the conference to private school expansion, mostly from the NAIA. This will mean the public schools will give up some of their control in order to keep the conference alive. The best bet would be to aim for a 50/50 split public to private, but that will take some time. I would think that the current schools that the conference could explore expansion with are: Lewis from the GLVC, UM-Dearborn, Lawrence Tech, Madonna, Concordia-Ann-Arbor, and Siena Heights. They should really focus on the Northern Indiana and Michigan areas because those are the schools that will be most willing to deal with the increased travel costs of going up to the NMU, LSSU, and MTU. Additionally, the farther south you go in expansion, the more likely that school ends up leaving to the GLVC or the GMAC in a few years.
3. Potentially Bring Some Old Schools Back. If the GLIAC can add a handful of private schools (hopefully that have football), I think they have a shot of attracting back schools like Northwood and Hillsdale. Those schools left because they were isolated as private schools in a public school-heavy conference. If that ratio were to be more balanced, they could maybe be persuaded to return (at least for Northwood, Hillsdale is a whole other situation as it is basically in Ohio. )
If they focus on that process, they have a decent shot of keeping the conference together. They will probably sacrifice some competition level when/if GVSU and Ferris leave, but that seems preferable to an outright folding of the conference and members scramble into the GLVC or GMAC or NSIC if you are LSSU, MTU or NMU.
This is all just my thoughts on the situation, but I hope that clears some stuff up for you.
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