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http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20100711/SPORTS/100719981

Maybe Big Sky Conference commissioner Doug Fullerton put it best when he compared the recent conference realignment at the Football Bowl Subdivision level to an earthquake.

"The damage that is done depends on how close to the epicenter you live," Fullerton said. "That is the story of earthquakes and of conference realignment."

So far, the damage that has been done by the moves of schools like the University of Colorado and University of Utah to the Pac 10 and the University of Nebraska to the Big 10 has remained at the FBS level. However, the ripple effects in the future could be felt all the way down to the Football Championship Subdivision and the Big Sky Conference - in which the University of Northern Colorado plays.

That has Fullerton and the rest of the Big Sky keeping a close eye on what could happen down the road so they won't be caught off guard. One of the chief concerns is whether conferences at the FBS level that lose teams might reach down into the FCS level for new teams to fill the void once a moratorium on teams moving up to the FBS level is lifted in August 2011.

It has happened in the Big Sky before. In 1996, the conference lost Idaho and Boise State, which left the Big Sky to join the Big West Conference and eventually moved on to join the Western Athletic Conference.

Fullerton's biggest concern is what is happening in the western part of the country, especially in the WAC, which just lost Boise State to the Mountain West Conference.

"I think that the WAC is holding steady right now with the eight schools after the loss of Boise State, and I think there are some options for them out here in the west that maybe would not include the Big Sky," Fullerton said. "But that doesn't mean that we haven't had discussions."

Fullerton said the Big Sky has a meeting set in August with the presidents of the conference's institutions if necessary to discuss the issue. However, it may be a moot point.

WAC commissioner Karl Benson has already announced that his conference will delay any discussion of expansion until July 1, 2012, at the earliest.

If any school were to make the move from the Big Sky, the most likely seems to be Montana with its rich tradition and fan base that averaged an FCS-high of 24,417 per game.

Montana is in the process of hiring a firm to do an internal assessment to look into the feasibility of moving up in the future, but Montana athletic director Jim O'Day said the Grizzlies have not been asked to join another conference.

"We are just monitoring everything that is going on around us," O'Day said. "We are watching to see what all these conference realignments are doing. Right now where we are at, we are very happy, and we are content to be where we are at. The Big Sky is a good place for us."

O'Day said the biggest deterrent for teams wishing to move up may be costs. Teams would have to upgrade facilities and add at least two sports.

"So your talking an considerable influx of cash that somehow has to be put up in order to even look at that," O'Day said. "And right now, I don't see where that would come from."

UNC athletic director Jay Hinrichs is not concerned even if a team or two were to move up to the FBS level. Hinrichs believes the conference would be all right because there are nine teams in the conference and there needs to be at least six teams to receive automatic berths from the conference into any NCAA championship events.

"That would take an awful lot of movement, a third of your membership leaving to go somewhere else," Hinrichs said. "So l think we are in a good position right now."

A bigger concern right now for UNC with the movement of teams at the FBS level is the formation of superconferences that could hurt the ability of schools at the FCS level to schedule football games against FBS opponents. Those matchups bring in big guaranteed money to the FBS programs.

UNC football coach Scott Downing said one of the biggest problems is superconferences like the Big 10 are putting scheduling negotiations down the road on hold for nonconference games until they know what their conference schedule will be like in the future.

"So we may lose a nonconference game against an FBS team in the next few years simply because they lose the  open date because of the conference their scheduling and the open date they have doesn't match up with ours," Downing said.

Downing still believes the superconferences will make allowances for a nonconference game against FCS opponents, but that the FCS schools may have to be more flexible with their scheduling.

"Because those open dates may not always appear at the front of the schedule," Downing said. "They may be open dates within all parts of the schedule."

Fullerton believes it might be healthy for FCS schools to become less reliant on money from those guaranteed games, pointing to the most successful schools like Montana hardly ever play FBS opponents.

However, Downing sees that more as the exception rather than the rule.


"I think there is merit in it," Downing said. "I think it would be great. I don't know until we at the FCS level generate a great deal more revenue to support our athletic program, I don't know for a lot of us whether it is feasible to say we can get by without that $350,000 to $600,000 infusion of money with that FBS guarantee."