I don't know if it is because their Big Red mascot is one of my all time favorite costumed characters or what but I too would like to see WKU added to the MAC.

I know Eastern Kentucky has the desire to go FBS in football and has a solid athletic department for a school their size/level of competition. They whipped our butts the last time we played them in hoops in Richmond. Not saying they would be a major home run addition but would be a decent geographic partner with Western Kentucky. Could likely be more of a deal breaker for Western than anything as their is no love lost between these two schools.

Middle Tennessee would be another reasonable option but distance would be a major factor. The MAC is mainly a bus league but going from Buffalo, Dekalb or any of the Michigan schools would be a haul on a bus to Murfreesboro.

That being said would Athens, Oxford, Akron, Toledo, etc. be that much further from Murfreesboro, Bowling Green (KY), etc. than Houston, Greenville NC, Boca Raton etc.? Conference USA is definitely an airplane conference. It would be rougher on the current MAC schools from a travel standpoint than adding any C-USA member.

We probably don't have to worry about any C-USA schools jumping ship to the MAC anyways because I am sure Marshall has whispered into all of their ears how minor and bush league we are and below them.

Definitely valid points. If we had to look at real MAC Expansion candidates, it would go something like this:

Marshall (who we would deny and tell kiss off! I root for that to happen, still salty about mid 2000's favoritism towards the turd)
Western Kentucky
Eastern Kentucky
Youngstown State
Illinois State
Indiana State

With most of those options, they'd have to gear up towards D-1. I wanted to throw James Madison, but as you covered the busing of the league would have to mean it's someone that's close and still makes a lot of trips bus-able for MAC Members. To me, adding the Kentucky schools would be no different for Buffalo, CMU, and NIU flying to Athens for a game.

As I said, getting WKU and someone else would be a pipedream. With 12 members as we speak, I am thrilled with where we're at as a conference from a geographic standpoint and from a stability standpoint. Things can change, but in terms of having a solid 12 team league where football can go home and home now with everyone once every 4 years (I think that's the new scheduling model), you no longer will have 6 year stretches of us not playing Toledo (whoever thought that was possible btw?).

We can't have WKU since they also use "Stand up and Cheer" as their fight song. That would be way too confusing. EKU would be nice since I spent my first year there before transferring to OU. It would be nice to travel down to Richmond for a game.