We find ourselves members of this football-only FCS league primarily because the gutless NCAA did not have the courage to enforce their own rules. On paper the requirement for FBS membership is an average of 15,000 fans, butts in seats, at your games. Proper enforcement would have relegated all the Ohio MAC schools, except Toledo, to FCS status. But no. The NCAA allowed nonentities like Akron first to lie about attendance and then actually have that university "buy" tickets to their own freakin' games and count that farce. We should be members of an Ohio-dominant FCS all-sports MAC conference.
As far as the MVFC, the problem with expansion to the west, in addition to obvious geographic distance, is the fact that it forces members to compete with the primary state institutions in North Dakota and South Dakota. Those two schools have unlimited resources compared to the members of the old Gateway conference. In fact, a school like Western Illinois is actually struggling to keep their doors open.