And the hinge pin for making either one work is making the leap sooner than later, and wwith Boise at this point.

Boise is the big brother in the MWC, adding BYU just brings someone who can compete with Boise every year. If Boise stays in the MWC, and BYU goes AAC to be their 12th team, then I will argue that the MWC becomes slowly irrelevant except for Boise, even when things go bad for Boise, the teams that step up weren't race horses. So it was just a terrible conference overall.

In the AAC, they get some real love from the east coast press; teams like S Florida, Central Florida, Memphis, Houston, Cincinatti, and Tulsa, these are teams that have been giving this upstart conference a better rep than the MWC has had since BYU left. And in my opinion, it's not close.

But you take BYU to the AAC, and they are at least equals to the rest of the conference heirarchy. You add Boise, and the two bring enough credibility that the type of football played in the AAC could easily stand up to the ACC by comparison.

In my scenario, I add BYU, Boise, and Army or even Liberty in a 14 team conference. 14 teams of which 8-10 are strong contenders year to year.