At some point when all the dust settles, we'll have to go through and catalogue all the schools that were directly and indirectly affected by Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC. Already, the number is in the dozens.
But this is not one of those moves. This is just plain ol' survival.
According to Cory Hogue of Texas Football, the Lone Star Conference and Great Northwest Athletic Conference -- both at the Division II level -- are planning a permanent alliance that will make formal their current scheduling agreement. The leagues originally announced in 2019 a scheduling agreement that would last through 2023. At that time, the conferences shared 13 times.
The GNAC is down to just three football members following Humboldt State and Azusa Pacific dropping football and Dixie State moving to FCS. Left with just Central Washington, Western Oregon and Simon Fraser, the GNAC will ally with the relatively-compact Lone Star.
The LSC's membership consists entirely of schools in Texas and New Mexico: Angelo State, Eastern New Mexico, Midwestern State, UT-Permian Basin, Texas A&M-Kingsville, West Texas A&M and Western New Mexico.
The Lone Star Conference once had a healthy mixture of Oklahoma and Arkansas numbers, but has seen its roster picked over by other D2 leagues and Division I defections. Abilene Christian, Incarnate Word and Tarleton State have all joined FCS within the past decade.
Joining the two conferences together -- be it formally or just for scheduling purposes -- would stretch this entity from Kingsville, Texas, to Canada.
Clearly, this is an ideal scenario for either league -- but ideal dropped football or left for Division I some time ago.