I think they are gone, unless they can present a plan to have football in place within 24 months...
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
Doesn't matter.
The conference can't get involved on that level. Whatever the politics of it, the school won't field a team. That's as far as the conference can or should be concerned.
If "UAB" wants a team, that's for "UAB" to figure out and get corrected. In the meantime, unless there will be players in uniforms ready to go, then UAB and "UAB" are all going to be subject to CUSA rules about membership (although, I guess I'm ok with giving them a little grace if they show they're going to effectively just take one year off and then restart the program).
I think they'll give UAB a few months until the May meetings before the board makes a decision.
And the only way UAB should get a non-football exemption to remain in the conference is if Army would like to re-join C-USA for football only like Sportdawg mentioned above.
It doesn't matter insofar as you don't keep them around if they don't field a team. It does matter if you are trying to gauge the feasibility of a reboot and its likelihood of success.
If there is no reboot, you have to kick then out (sans an Army FBO addition). But if they can reboot, I think that's probably the best option.
I don't think a "re-boot" will help much. They aren't going to pull out from the UA Board and that Board will never let them have success. It was shown when they tried to hire a coach they wanted and then this - the ax. Even if they get rid of the President, they still have a massive problem long-term and I don't know what they can do about that. It means they are not ever going to bring much to the table with football, though.
I've never been particularly high on UAB, and if you'd asked me a few years ago which of our conference mates I most looked forward to leaving behind, they'd have been second in my list.
But I've been really impressed with their response to this. If they can get Watts and/or the BoT to reverse course here, I think that will demonstrate that things have changed. There is more on the table here than just football, all going back to autonomy. UA may be discovering that there are limits to the degree they can treat UAB as a satellite campus.
And if they can't, then the costs can actually be pretty minimal for the conference. Combine this with the lack of other good consensus candidates, and I think it's worth giving it a shot. (Assuming that they can't get Army or a Delaware, both of which I consider unlikely. I think JMU or a GSU are about as good a candidate as there is, otherwise.)
I don't think that BOT will ever give them what they need to be successful. Just my opinion, but too many things have shown that. They are doomed with football, as long as they are in the UA system. I think that might spill over to other athletic programs at some point too.
I would be for Army football only, if we could get them. Otherwise, I would be fine not adding anyone. The others just don't have name appeal, which is just as important as your on the field product - my opinion. A lot of you are touting JMU or GSU. Neither have national sex appeal, though.
Even then, it's 50/50 on how far their basketball program and the lack of better overall candidates gets them. It doesn't matter how popular the decision was or wasn't or who made the call. The bottom line is that the school dropped their football program. Even if they try to restart it, we're still talking about a school that (for whatever reason and under whatever political situation) made the call to drop their football program. They (however you want to define "they") chose to drop football. They (or "they") made their bed, they may have to lie in it (again, depending on how far the other presidents are willing to go - personally, I'm fine either way, and would probably just as soon see 2 programs leave if having an even number is that big of deal, which it isn't).
Even before this nonsense, they were basically just a warm body for football.
parialex said that a UAB with a reinstated football team is the best option. It's probably better defined as the least worst option (short of dropping another team or 5).
We could find a better football program, it's just that the school and/or basketball program that would accompany that new football program would have some drawback or another.
I agree with the others that Army FBO would be the best option , but I don't think that's actually an option.
Short of that, or an outside thing like NIU or Delaware, it's ULL, JMU, GSU, GSU, stay at 13, or a rebooted UAB. The latter has the edge, in my view, if that's an option.