University of Idaho athletic director Rob Spear is adamant that the Vandal athletic programs remain in a Football Bowl Subdivision conference.

He might even be more likely to hop onboard an airplane with Boise State colors than to pull his programs from the highest level of college competition and put them in a conference at a lower level, like the Football Championship Subdivision.

But, he said this week, for every voice he hears that says "Stay the course in FBS," there's another voice in the other ear going, "You know, the Big Sky wasn't so bad, playing Montana and Montana State and Idaho State ... "

AFTER FRIDAY'S teleconference between Spear and media near and far, we got a little clearer picture on what the Vandals hope their future is.

This much we know - if nothing changes, Idaho and New Mexico State will be the only football-playing members of the Western Athletic Conference in 2013.

Now, a two-team league seems to be OK at certain levels of high school football in Idaho - where the teams play a bunch of nonleague games, and one or two games against each other to determine who advances to the state playoffs - but the NCAA kinda frowns on that. They like at least eight teams in a conference, and you can't blame them.

So unless Idaho and the WAC can quickly recruit a bunch of schools with football programs to join their league in a year, the Vandals' other options appear to be to find another league - like the Sun Belt - to seek shelter for their football program until this tropical storm known as conference realignment passes through, or go the independent route in football for a year or two until they can find a league.

That would mean Idaho and the WAC might have to hit up some yard sales to find some non-football playing schools in the West to join the WAC for basketball and all the other non-football sports.

That might be easier to do, especially since the WAC is at least halfway there with Seattle and Denver joining the league this fall in all sports but football.

Boise State is also supposed to rejoin the WAC in 2013 in all sports but football, but it’s hard to keep track of what league the Broncos are in these days — or which one they’re trying to get out of and into.

Idaho made a pitch recently to join the Mountain West, which would have made geographic sense, but was turned down, mostly because the Vandals’ TV market was too small. And as Spear said the other day, he can’t do much to change the population of Moscow.

And if Spear and others were working on any other plans, they weren’t sharing quite yet.

THEN THERE’S this other intriguing scenario Spear quietly mentioned on Friday:

He said he has spoken to nearly every conference commissioner out there lately — with the exception of the Pac-12 boss — to pick their brains and find out where all this is headed.

Spear said that, once the new BCS system goes into effect for the 2014 season, it’s possible the top five conferences — presumably, the Pac-12, Big 10, SEC, Big 12 and ACC — will break away and form their own FBS “tier.”

That would leave Idaho and the other FBS schools in a second “tier,” and the FCS schools (Big Sky, etc.) in the third tier.

However, Spear said some schools from the FCS could choose to move up to the second tier.

So in theory, the Big Sky (or at least the majority of its schools) could move up to the second tier and join Idaho in a league. That way, Idaho could be back in the Big Sky without having to “drop down” to a lower level of football.

“Of course all of this is my opinion,” Spear told The Press on Saturday. “I don’t know if it will ever be possible to predict anything in this environment.”

SO WHAT if that happened?

After a few years of Idaho battling against Boise State, Nevada, Fresno State and Hawaii, would Vandal fans still get as excited when Montana, Montana State and Idaho State came to town, like in the old days? Would Eastern Washington become a big regional rival, and would a visit by Portland State cause folks to make the trek down U.S. 95 to watch?

Money wise, the Big Sky might have a better TV deal now than the WAC. The Big Sky will have some football and men’s basketball games on ROOT Sports. WAC games are all over the place — and not everybody has access to all the different stations showing the games in their area.

Watching the Vandals play football against all those hyphenated and directional schools in the Sun Belt might be OK in the short run — like it was for the four seasons before Idaho joined the WAC in 2005 — but not for the long run.

Getting into the Mountain West would be good — there, the Vandals could catch up on old times with Nevada, Fresno State, Hawaii, Utah State and San Jose, which have recently bailed or will be bailing on the WAC.

But if this Tier II/Big Sky thing comes to fruition, that might be the best of both worlds.

And if not, guess we’ll wait for the music to stop on the next round of conference reshuffling.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.