Ok... so some thoughts on this. Birmingham Southern is in deep, deep trouble. I give them less than 50% odds of making it at this point, just from the little bit I can gather around here and a recent look at the campus. The SAA has a football problem, and it's turning to Trinity. A school that has had some... interesting... history with the SAA and it's former SCAC member schools. It seems whenever the SAA is in a spot of trouble, Trinity helps bail them out. But when the SAA is healthy, they seem quite happy to let those long trips to San Antonio be someone else's problem. I get the Mission and Values cache of the SAA versus the SCAC schools, but you've played this game before. Why do it again?
I liken this to W&L and the ODAC. It's a bit of an odd fit by academic reputation and endowment, but a great fit geographically and by school type (private, liberal arts, mostly on the smaller side). I know W&L has had a roving eye at times, but it seems like it's always come down to putting those student-athletes on the bus and planes less, and in the classrooms more. Though I have no doubt it's also come down an inability to get an invite to where they really want to be, mainly because they'd be the geographic outlier (and maybe an attitude issue as well).
While Trinity aligning with the more well-known SAA schools might tickle an administrator's fancy, does it really matter to the student-athletes? I'm not so sure it does. So who are those schools really serving by moving to the SAA? It would help the SAA, but I'm not sure Trinity's players, especially those with seasons that are more than 10 games, are getting the better end of the deal.
