Could backfire on the larger schools. If they were to break off, what becomes of their constantly underperforming schools? How corrupt would recruiting get? What would the states that fun these schools do about it? My guess is the more freedom they have the worse it will end up backfiring on them in the long run.

It's not going to be up to the conferences to make that decision. The individual university presidents are the ones who will need to make their case known. They have the power. It will come from schools like UConn, Cincinnati, Houston, BYU, etc or anyone else who feels slighted. That is, if those schools don't end up joining some other major conference in the next year or so.

Full disclosure, I think BYU wrote their own death warrant when they decided to go Independent in football. The Mormon following may be strong, but it's no where near what the Catholic following (Notre Dame) is. The Mountain West was making a serious argument to be a top five or six conference when they had TCU, BYU, Utah, SDSU, Utah State, Nevada on board and Boise State poised to join the league. I can't remember if it was Utah who left for the PAC 12 first or if it was BYU who did the solo project first.

I think that this split makes it far more likely that the football players in power conferences will be found to be employees, and the courts can require players to be paid and given health insurance/work comp insurance/unemployment insurance/social security/disability insurance, and other employee benefits. (I don't even want to think about how high the rate will be for work comp insurance).

Meanwhile the split may help the other schools, who could never afford to operate sports at all if required to provide such benefits, and non-power conference schools may be able to maintain the status quo and treat their athletes as amateurs.

Pure greed has won.  I find it sad.  My passion for college sports has been dwindling greatly due to all the recent changes.

Would be fun to watch a US Senator (hello Connecticut, anyone home?)  make some threats and etc.  But, I don't see that really happening.

Will be interesting to see if the MAC tries to match the salaries and benefits the Big 5 will dole out.  If not, how on earth could a Northern Illinois steal recruits from the Big 5 bottom dwellers?

Time for the non Big 5 division I teams and the better I-AA teams to get organized, and quick.  With sports as the main TV rating draw these days, and NBC and CBS and etc. trying to take on ESPN, they might be able to start something interesting......  Need to dream big and take a shot at it.

I am with you Ohio69. I have started to feel that way the last couple of years. This is the potential nail in the coffin for MAC Schools.

The border line kids we would get will now be willing to pick the pine and get paid then come to OHIO and actually participate. Not that this is a new revelation. I have seen many kids over the years be content with sitting the bench just to say they ran out of the tunnel for a power conference school but never sniffed the field. This decision will make that more prevalent than ever.

I would actually love for this to make our conference more relevant. Meaning that I hope fans who want to follow college ball as it was meant to be, will take a liking to a conference like the MAC where it is still a pure amateur sport and a scholarship means something.

These people have lost their mind.

The realignment circus has really been pretty efficient at getting the right schools into the Big 5 (based on football attendance at least)
Check this out, here are the bottom 12 Big 5 schools in average attendance and the top 12 non-Big 5 schools in average attendance based on NCAA numbers for 2013. 2013 record in ()
Bottom 12 Big 5                                                              
TCU 43,598             (4-8)                                                
Oregon St. 42,964   (7-6)                                               
Maryland 41,278       (7-6)                                               
Northwestern 39,307 (5-7)                                            
Colorado 38,463        (4-8)                                            
Syracuse 38,277        (7-6)                                            
Kansas 37,884          (3-9)                                              
Vanderbilt 35,956        (9-4)                                           
Boston College 33,956  (7-6)                                       
Washington State 29,738 (6-7)                                     
Wake Forest 28,414   (4-8)                                            
Duke 26,062              (10-4)                                           

Top 12 Non-Big 5
East Carolina 43,985 (10-3)
UCF 42,084                 (12-1)
Fresno St 36,917       (11-2)
Navy  35,588                 (9-4)
South Fla 34,702        (2-10)
Boise St   34,366        (8-5)
Army  33,956                (3-9)
San Diego St 33,224  (8-5)
Air Force 32,652         (2-10)
Cincinnati 31,771        (9-4)
Hawaii 30,989            (1-11) 
UCONN 30,932           (3-9)
All Big 5 schools on this list were mediocre/lousy or are small private schools with limited FB following.
Many of the Non-Big 5 schools on this list had good/great years, but there's a lot more explaining to do about some of them. (Service academies have loyal followings regardless of win-loss, for example)

sorry about that format, it doesn,t work on a mobile device

It's suggesting that it's all sports, where the rub is, as far as I'm concerned

Isn't San Antonio like the 5th or 6th biggest city in america?  And, there is NO NFL there.  And, it's Texas for crying out loud they love their FB.  Not surprising to me they have a following.

Hold on to your hat . . . now it's the Big11 that's being sued.   I think with all the various lawsuits recently against the NCAA that the issue of paying players is going to end up before the US Supreme Court.