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Prior to the current Pro era of the NCAA, the Big West had drifted down to being ranked in the low 20s of about 32-33 conferences. According to a post a couple of weeks ago, the Big West is currently about #12 of 31 conferences. This means that o a National Basis, the BW is more relevant than they have been since the heyday of of the PCAA when UNLV, NMSU and Utah state were part of our conference. It is my understanding that schools are capped at somewhere around $20 million on total payments to athletes. The P4 conferences are all going to spend a majority of that on Football. This year's BW entrant to the tourney UH allegedly spent $1.2M on players. UCSB was generally thought to have the best talent in the BW while reportedly spending under $1M on talent. The average going return for a game against a P4 squad on the road is upwards of $100k. If we played 4-6 of those a season, combined with the Pyramid naming rights money and some donations, we could conceivably be competitive with the top of the BW.

Will that make us competitive for a National Title? Absolutely not. But, could it make us as good as any BW team (if combined with a competent Coach) in the last 20 years, sure. So, it is different, it will require strategic thinking and we need to find someone capable and willing to invest. Do we have the right AD and Coach right now to accomplish this? I am not confident of that.