Hawaii is gone from the WAC after this spring, joining the Mountain West in football and the West Coast Conference in all other sports. Without UTSA, the WAC will be down to six football-playing schools this year: Idaho, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, San Jose State, Texas State and Utah State.

NEWS FLASH TO MAC OFFICES:  Call somebody respectable East of the Mississippi and North of the Gulf and invite them!

Utah State, San Jose State rumored to the Mountain West, which will soon be renamed the WAC, then split in two (okay, maybe I freelanced that last bit).

http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/04/29/rep.../

To answer the title of the thread: 

Not as low as the MAC, apparently. The reason the WAC's falling apart is because it used to consist of good teams that were attractive to the expanding larger conferences. 

Meanwhile, the MAC's still sitting here fully intact, hoping that if they don't make any noise the rest of FCS football will forget we're here and will still let us play. 

The writing is absolutely on the wall for the MAC and OU's future as an FBS football team. 

Maybe that's true, but I find it hard to believe. You would have to devise a standard that eliminates teams like Ohio and Toledo and Western Michigan, but does not affect teams like Marshall and Memphis and Houston. We've already seen the threat of attendance requirements, which have fallen by the wayside. It's just not easy to write a legally enforceable standard that results in MAC elimination.

So...
Step 1: Get Athens back into the Columbus media market.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit!

Does anyone see the BCS eventually hitting an anti-trust situation?

I can almost guarantee that this would happen under those circumstances.  The NCAA is ruled by the Board of Directors (sometimes referred to as the Council of Presidents), which consists of all the presidents of, in our case, Division 1 institutions.  That's something in excess of 350 schools.  There are more "have not" presidents than "have" presidents.  They often sit back on their hands and pass stuff that comes to them from lower levels of the NCAA bureaucracy without much debate or discussion, but when big issues come up like this they been known to be quite stubborn.  

 I think the institution most likely to be hit with anti-trust action is the cartel known as the BCS.  Congress has held hearings on this in the past, and the AG of Utah is still pursuing a suit, started on behalf of Utah, but now continuing on behalf of Utah State and BYU.  If, of course, the NCAA put into effect a 16-team playoff, that would effectively end the BCS cartel and action against them would become a moot point.  

On the vein of the CPA's thread on the hoops board about whether we are a hoops school, a FB school or both, I still believe that the MAC is the right place for OHIO, and that waiting for the dust to clear on the FBS/BCS/realignment fronts and then making the right move for BOTH hoops and FB is the right thing to do.

If I were commissioner Steinbrecher:

• After season one in the MAC, put the full court press on UMASS for full membership
• Then go after some additional east coast teams for all sports that can strengthen hoops, give an east coast flair to FB, along with providing some regional rivals for UMASS: 'Nova (probably a pipe dream but their hoops are down and they were this close to jumping to BE/FBS FB last year), Delaware, ODU (if they don't go CUSA), James Madison, William and Mary, Richmond (seeing as how the CAA, UMASS former FB conference, is on life support at this point), App State, and would love Army for FB (but they bring nothing in hoops
• Then perhaps Southern Illinois and UNI to add to the western division

Not saying you would get all these schools to make the jump to FBS, but it is a nice pool of talent that has had some significant success in hoops and would bring more credibility to MAC hoops than they would FB, honestly. (and if you could thin the current MAC herd then all the better)

If FBS football were such a losing proposition, then why would so many programs be looking to make/have made the jump in recent years?

And if the WAC goes tits up, the BCS money to the MAC will just get larger (assuming no shenanigans to reshuffel the splits): http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/brett-mcmurphy/18920451/without-wac-other-non-aqs-will-earn-more-bcs-revenue

Absent Love winning powerball and endowing OHIO in a move to a BCS conference, I believe this is the best move for both sports.