The big news Monday was that Conference USA, home of Southern Miss, and the Mountain West were merging into a new megaconference.

The conference will have 18 to 24 schools , spread over five time zones and cover a footprint greater than Shaquille O’Neal’s size-26 Reeboks.

It’ll be split into divisions and stage a football championship game and a basketball tournament.

But the new megaconference needs a name. What would fit?

You can’t use any directional adjectives since the conference will cover half the country. Maybe the Omnidirectional Conference?

Or the name could describe the conference’s position in the college athletics pecking order. Best of the Rest Until You Go West? Without Boise State and TCU, which departed for BCS conferences, the western part of this potential conference is pathetically weak. Nevada, Fresno State and Air Force are decent in football, but UNLV? Ugh. New Mexico? One of the worst teams in college football. Hawaii hasn’t been relevant since June Jones left the building for SMU. Wyoming? Its signature win was over Ole Miss in 2004.

The conference won’t be in the Bowl Championship Series and its tie-ins will be the Square Pizza Bowl, the Poulan Weedeater Bowl and the oh-so-awesome Beef-Don’t-Forget-the-Apostrophe Bowl. Even though it will be the largest of the conferences, there won’t be an automatic qualifying bid from Conference To-Be-Named-Later. Looking at the basketball side of the ledger, things are even worse.

How about the Long-Distance Conference? Or the Frequent-Flier Conference? While football programs are capable of paying easily for a biannual trip to Hawaii, what about the softball team? Or the women’s basketball team? Or the track and field teams? The travel costs inherent in this spread-out conference are not chump change. Hopefully, the schools can cash in their airline miles, because they’ll rack up plenty. Maybe that’ll open up a sponsorship with an airline. Anything to defray the travel costs.

How about the Conference of Misfit Toys? Like the island in the Rudolph Christmas TV special, this conference will be filled with rejects of all stripe, with TV markets or traditions not attractive enough to garner interest from a BCS conference. Let’s be honest: with the exception of basketball, Memphis is a poor candidate for the Big East Conference. But I guess it helps to have the Memphis TV market, which is ranked 50th out of 210 areas, according to Nielsen’s rankings of the nation’s TV markets.

For point of comparison, the two TV markets that Southern Miss brings to the table — Hattiesburg-Laurel (167th) and Biloxi market (163rd) — are puny at best. Combined, they would bring 234,350 TV homes to the new conference. This combined footprint would be 123rd, just above Louisiana-Lafayette.

How about the No Natural Rivalry League? With Memphis out, the only functional rivalry Southern Miss has is Alabama-Birmingham. Or Tulane. Oh. Happy. Joy.

In terms of institutional size, competition and regional proximity, the Sun Belt is a better football fit for Southern Miss than the new All-American Rejects Conference. Southern Miss would have a close rival, South Alabama, which recruits the same territory and is only an hour and a half away in Mobile. The Golden Eagles could build other rivalries over time while avoiding airfare charges guaranteed to break the athletic department’s bank account.

But that logical step isn’t going to happen.

At least in the new conference, each team will get a trip to Hawaii every few years. No bowl bid required.

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Steve Wilson is sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. You can follow him on Twitter at vpsportseditor. He can be reached at 601-636-4545, ext. 142 or at swilson@vicksburgpost.com.