Akron has been pursuing the Big East for men's soccer forever and finally achieved it this season. They are the geographic center of that league. They probably have zero interest in leaving the Big East.
FIU got an affiliate membership in the AAC, and that is working out well for them. There's also the underlying discussion that FIU is one of the schools that took our and ODU's "walkback" of our commitment to C-USA to join the SBC pretty hard. Given their SBC history, I would imagine FIU is probably a no-go as well.
The sad truth is that outside of the ACC, we pretty much have all the teams in the southeast outside of FIU and Charlotte that are historical and expected powers. I expect them to be tied to the AAC for the remaining existence of that conference. There's really no one else in our region to add that strengths the league.
If you want to go outside the box, San Diego State and Oregon State men's soccer will be homeless after this season with the dissolution of the PAC. They are both really strong men's soccer programs, and the ACC is going coast to coast next year with the additions of Stanford and Cal, and the Big Ten is adding Washington and Oregon. We COULD add a West Coast trip every year, but I think the real question would be - Why?
We had 3 top 5 teams this year. JMU has climbed up to #28 in the RPI. A Kentucky win vs JMU might put 50% of the league into the NCAA Tournament. I think the SBC will dominate the NCAA's this year. I don't know if we really need to do anything to change the men's soccer membership.
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