When the U of I enters the Sun Belt for football and the Big Sky Conference for everything else 7/1/14,  it will be very quietly. I don’t sense they are proud of it. Kind of reminds me of that guy who finally has a date to the prom but they are “just friends.” They have to take the bus to get there and slip in the back door so they aren’t really seen. He tells himself that at least he will have the memory of going and he will collect money from his friends who said he could never get a date in the first place.

Yea, it’s a B rated movie. 

The players and potential recruits shouldn’t see much difference. The Olympic sports teams will be trading in trips to Las Cruces ( fly to El Paso) , Bakersfield ( fly to LAX) , Orem ( fly to SLC), Phoenix, Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle and Edinburg, Texas ( fly into McAllen) for some Big Sky trips. Buses will be loaded to Bozeman, Missoula, Cheney, and probably Pocatello. Heck they still get to fly to Portland, SLC, PHX, Denver and Sacramento. If you are 18-22 years old that stuff matters. I call it a push. If you want to go to U of I, the schedule won’t stop you in any sport. Football players will go explore Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas and Louisiana.  Players who have more talent on average will gravitate to schools up the food chain.

Everybody knows that.

And, everybody is okay with it publicly. The President, AD and coaches all seem to think while it isn’t ideal, they need the money. It sounds desperate. It doesn’t sound too prideful or mighty. But, it is reality. 

What should the fans think? I don’t believe they will ever engage in football and the other sports will take years to re-create these so called rivalries. Until winning big starts happening. But, in the meantime, they will cheer against whatever team the U of I plays and that will be that.

Ho-hum.