If you decline this offer, suit yourself. But I have repeatedly scanned the wide-ranging landscape of Conference USA, and have reached a critical conclusion.

There is one, and only one, legitimate candidate to leave C-USA and ascend to the annoying, perpetually entrenched institution that is the Bowl Championship Series. Or more correctly, to a BCS AQ league.

(One word here: Ugh.)

Anyway, there is one school who has earned the right to advance to the next level.

Congratulations, East Carolina University.

You've aggressively upgraded your facilities and have expanded Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium to 50,000 seats. Your fan base travels very well to bowl games. Looooove that "purple haze" opening; it's almost as good as Virginia Tech's "Enter Sandman" ritual.

You've scheduled the right way in football for years, taking your lumps but giving a few. You've earned home games against nearby state rivals. And you didn't back out of a Miami series - shoot, you beat the Hurricanes in 1996 and 1999.

(One of my all-time favorite football moments is when ECU had to move its '99 Miami game to Raleigh because of Hurricane Floyd-related flooding, the Pirates won and their fans ripped down one of North Carolina State's goalposts.)

We can live with that albatross of a basketball program, I guess. South Florida needs a hoops rival in the Big East. Your baseball program and its ballpark will perk up any league, however. I discount the TV market dynamic because your fan base is a little more widespread than Greenville, Washington and New Bern, N.C.

When the Big Ten picks off Pitt in its expansion to 14 teams, ECU is ready to go to the Big East immediately. The two-time Conference USA champs have earned it.

There are several applicants which your unpaid consultant must reject. These were very difficult decisions.

Oh, you got me. I am lying. It was too easy.

Let's start with you folks at the University of Memphis. You're the best argument against the concept of an all-sports conference. The Tigers' basketball program should be admitted to the SEC today, as its hoops pedigree and NCAA compliance history is a perfect fit.

But the football program? Go to the Sun Belt, directly to the Sun Belt. Do not pass go, do not collect $200,000.

It doesn't impress me that FedEx is preparing to underwrite everything, including your sleep patterns. It does not impress me that you hired Mike Tranghese in 2009 to surreptitiously lobby the Big East. It does not impress me that you have the Liberty Bowl, a better stadium than you deserve.

Take away the basketball program and you're a Sun Belt program in C-USA clothing.

Your football pedigree is somewhere between Eastern Michigan and Arkansas State, the latter of whom almost owns you. You've been hammered by Middle Tennessee twice. You have that Liberty Bowl, but don't bring in anybody but Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Tennessee, who bring in thousands of their own fans.

And what football talent you don't lose to SEC schools, you squander. You had DeAngelo Williams and still lost four times to UAB. You had a receiving corps the wild, wild C-USA West would have loved, yet couldn't get them the ball.

You had a midweek ESPN home game and could have fit the crowd at whatever high school at which you practiced during Marshall week.

Application denied. Next up, the University of Central Florida.

I've heard and written about the potential of your school, whose enrollment has shot past 50,000. The campus has become its own city in a decent location - in northeast Orlando, about 30 tollbooths from Disney World, that cash-Hoovering tourist trap.

Your ancillary facilities take a backseat to nobody, you have a football coach once hired by Notre Dame and are paying him a million-plus a year. You have enough cache to hire coaches from league rivals.

So why aren't you guys already in the Big East? Or ACC?

Because you're wannabes. Gator/Seminole/Hurricane/Bull wannabes. Wannabes with a defensive tackle on "American Idol."

Yeah, you've beaten Marshall five straight times, and the Herd's coach was rewarded with a job at big brother USF. Yes, I said big brother - remember, the Bulls dropped 64 on you during your championship season. Really thin book: good UCF quarterbacks in the post-Daunte Culpepper era.

And since you're following the "if you can't beat 'em, hire 'em" school of hiring, you could use Marshall's Jeff Waggoner in baseball. In football, Big Brother USF took Skip Holtz first. Sorry 'bout that, but maybe you could make a run at Neil Callaway when you tire of George O'Leary.

And about that football stadium: When you have to renovate it in 20 years, mix in a little concrete.

Application denied. Next!

Houston and Texas-El Paso officials are no doubt dreaming about the Big Ten pillaging the Big 12, with the latter needing reinforcements. Both of you can keep dreaming.

You Cougars can invoke the football glory days of Andre Ware, etc., all you want, and you do have sustained success once again. But you're 12th banana in what is pound-for-pound one of America's worst sports cities, and your stadium is the C-USA equivalent of Akron's old Rubber Bowl.

(OK, that was completely unfair. Sorry.)

UTEP, I love you guys. The Sun Bowl is a setting few schools can rival. It's a rotten shame your football pedigree is comparable to that of Memphis.

And it's a shame El Paso is a long way from the rest of civilization. Miner fans, your options will be (a) staying put with the Texas schools in C-USA or (b) joining a BYU- and Utah-less Mountain West.

That brings me to Marshall, which isn't ready for prime time, either. But I think you Herd fans know that.

Five years of going sideways in football, at best, have dulled your program's edge. The good news: With a 7-6 season and a change at the top, better days are on the way. But you need to step up your game in every area.

As athletic director Mike Hamrick pointed out last week, you guys need to buy 19,000 season tickets not just this year, but every year - with or without WVU on the schedule. And you're going to have to start drawing crowds that start with a "3," against anybody.

Your donations are going to have to double and somebody must step up to get certain facilities built. Basketball must stay on the uptick after Donnie Jones left for, gasp, UCF.

Unless there is a bizarre movement to enormous BCS conferences that include everybody, you're going to have to hang on for the ride. But unlike the folks in the Memphis media, I refuse to forecast Armageddon.

You have a model, and it's in Greenville, N.C. Herd fans, go ahead and pat ECU on the back, wishing them well in BCS land. Terry Holland and all the Pirate faithful, you have earned it.

Just don't forget who loves ya. Give the Herd a home-and-home in football when you go.

Reach Doug Smock at 304-348-5130 or dougsm...@wvgazette.com.