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Back in December, ESPN reported that leaders in the WAC and ASUN planned to join forces, formally form a new FCS football league, and eventually join FBS as a group.

A few weeks later, I talked to Oliver Luck, the Executive Director of the new league, to get a better idea of their timeline, actual FBS ambitions, and more.

We’re now in April, and trying to really get my arms around what this partnership is trying to accomplish, and where it actually stands right now, has been a real challenge. Not every WAC and ASUN institution is equally ready (or even that enthusiastic) about FBS football. The ASUN just hired a new conference commissioner. The NCAA Transformation Committee released its recommendations, we had another NCAA convention, and a litany of other industry changes have happened.

So is the WAC/ASUN still trying to become an actual league? What does it even mean to be a league? Could an FBS conference poach one of these schools before the merger gets off the ground?

I hit the phones, and I think I have a better idea now.

Let me try to explain. But to do that, we first need to jump into enough NCAA bylaw hell to make Kafka blush.

Here’s why a football-only conference technically can’t be created right this second, I think:

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