ST. GEORGE — Rod Zundel, dubbed the “Voice of the Trailblazers,” caught up with Utah Tech Athletic Director Ken Beazer to talk about a possible new football conference for Utah Tech.
As seen in the video above, Zundel said that the Western Athletic Conference, which Utah Tech has been a member of for two years, might merge with the Atlantic Sun Conference and form a 10-team, football-0nly conference.
The merger would allow the new 10-team conference to have an automatic qualifier to the Football Championship Series (FCS) Division I playoffs.
“It started with the need to form and solidify a football-only conference,” Beazer told Zundel.
That initial discussion, Zundel and Beazer said, led to talk about Utah Tech possibly moving into the FBS, the Football Bowl Series.
The FBS is the second tier of Division I football that is decided, at the moment, in a four-team playoff at the end of the year.
The field most likely will expand to 12 teams in the next couple of years.
Moving to the FBS requires money and planning and would move Utah Tech, as well as Southern Utah University, into the very top tier of college football competition.
“There’s a lot of water that has to go under the bridge,” Beazer told Zundel, noting that it is not necessarily an ambition for Utah Tech to move to the FBS.
“There are more resources yet to require, but there’s also some great benefits. It’s something to look at,” Beazer said.
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