I've been saying this for a long time. Every day we are in this conference with north Texas, Florida Atlantic, Charlotte, San Antonio, uab etc it erodes what little value we still have left.
Fau is now in the same conference as us, has made an ncaam final, destroyed us in a conference game, has their own stadium, also in a large market. Right now we are viewed nationally as bigger than them, but in 1-2 years after they've beaten us a couple more times, why would the next conference expansion choose us over them?
It doesnt matter if we lose a bit of money in the short term, the erosion of our brand is far more damaging. We should be independent playing as many away games against power 5 teams as possible. Only way to stay relevant. No one goes to our home games anyway, there's no point in being in this conference so we can host fau, rice, North Texas, uab etc in front of 8000 fans