If timing is everything then everything is going right for McNeese State.

The week when college football realignment hit hyper speed, the Cowboys found their game.

Their upset of Incarnate Word, the 16th-ranked team in FCS, showed they could compete on the field. It also gave them a boost in the back rooms of the larger game being played out.

Where McNeese lands when all this is finished nobody knows, but it doesn’t hurt when the most recent victory leads to the club being named FCS Team of the Week.

The national honor is the latest bullet in Athletic Director Heath Schroyer’s gun which is aimed at getting McNeese out of the Southland Conference and into the bigger-money world of the Football Bowl Subdivision.

What is at stake is money, lots of television money. That is cash Schroyer said he hopes to use to build not only the football program but the rest of the athletic department.

I get all that, but the big picture is still being missed by most.

This should be about getting fans back and interested in games. McNeese playing in, say Buffalo, like one wild projection on the internet has it, seems crazy when Louisiana-Lafayette is an hour down the road.

As we put together what is needed, school presidents must come together for their own good and take control of this mess. They must find games that make sense against like opponents and stick them in regional divisions of larger leagues.

I still believe a division of say, Rice, ULL, Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana Tech, McNeese and maybe one other school like, say Tulane, would go well as part of a larger conference.

Fans aren’t going to travel across the country to watch their team, but two to three hours by car is a possibility.

Regional divisions in bigger leagues seem to make the most sense. Yes, it is a long shot as each school believes it is bigger than the other guys and pride gets involved, but sometimes pride needs to take a back seat to common sense.

I can hear the cries from Ruston and Lafayette saying we are too big for McNeese now. Maybe, but as we have seen, times do change. It wasn’t that long ago when the Cowboys were considered the better and bigger program.

Could be that’s what those fans are afraid of?

There is no telling what teams move into which conference as everybody fights for elbow room at the cash station known as television contracts.

As the money grab continues now could be the right moment for real change as the Power Five guys pull further and further away.

Ask the Cowboys. Timing is everything.

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Jim Gazzolo is a freelance writer who covers McNeese State athletics for the American Press. Email him at jimgazzolo@yahoo.com