The only way I would favor a move to I-A is if Montana could be in the Pac-10. Now before you outsiders who browse this board accuse me of being an arrogant Griz fan, I will admit that there is about a 0.1% chance of that ever happening.
Any school that moves into I-A and settles for a lesser conference affiliation (Sun Belt, MAC, WAC) must understand that they will never truly be a major program even though they are I-A in name. The money is all in the BCS schools. Even the worst teams in those conferences get a share of the wealth. I consider the Mountain West to be a quality conference, but you can't even compare the money that those schools make (or lose) to the revenues from the BCS conferences. The Mountain West is also not a very stable conference. It just might eventually do to itself what the "old WAC" did by watering down the quality of the conference by adding lesser teams.
The only reasons I can think of that the Pac-10 might invite Montana (and they aren't even good reasons) are:
1. Montana was member from the 1920's through the 1950's
2. Montana has the so-called "big-name" recognition that I-A teams like San Diego State or North Texas lack. There's no "Eastern" or "Northern" moniker in our name, and we are the major university of our state, just like the U. of Washington and the U. of Oregon are in their states.
3. There is healthy and growing fan support in football, enough so that the stadium will expand by 4,000 seats for next season. Suddenly 30,000 doesn't seem so far off. In reality though, it is probably years down the road.
There are many more reasons that the Pac-10 would never invite Montana. I probably couldn't think of all of them. For starters, we play in about the smallest TV market you can find, we would not be able to recruit that talent needed to compete with BCS institutions, and our enrollment would be miniscule with the likes of Cal, USC and all those other schools.
Believe me, there would be nothing more thrilling than to see the Griz take on the Pac-10 teams as peers, even if we were perennially the last-place team. But as a general rule, I-AA schools that make the move up fall victim to the system and become the "cupcakes" that appear every year on Kansas State's non-conference schedule. No one respects those teams. I can think of three exceptions; Marshall, Boise State, and Connecticut. I say Connecticut only because they will be joining the Big East in 2005 and have improved every year since their first season in I-A. The only reason they are the first former I-AA team to move into a BCS conference is because they are already a member in all other sports. Lucky them.
Right now it is best for Montana to stay the course. I'm happy with things as they are now, and at this point a move to I-A would be way too risky. Maybe many years down the road it will be worth considering. It's not worth it to become like Idaho, Middle Tennessee, UL-Monroe, or any of those other teams that used to be winners in I-AA but are now the laughingstock of major college football.
Sorry about the long post, everybody. I'm just answering Eagle01's original question.
