Slim certainly presents an interesting possibility.
I took a different approach. I looked at CUSA and see a conference with a large geographic footprint. I split CUSA to merge teams more geographically aligned with MAC for potential partial merger with the MAC. What I initially came up with from a football perspective was about on par with MAC, so I came up with two Sun Belt teams that would strengthen football and are not too far flung geographically. Here is what I came up with
I am sure there are a million reasons why this wouldn't work. For starters, it breaks up CUSA (separating the teams in the south (GA, FL, TX). I need a couple more teams (other MAC east teams, Cincy?). However, this would be a fairly competitive league, especially looking at the last season. Try to be gentle with my dreamer mentality.