The article starts out focusing on UMass, but goes into detail on a number of schools...
There are a great number of schools within a reasonable travel footprint that would be capable of starting an all-sports FBS conference with UMass today (if the NCAA would allow it. For the record, the NCAA's rules do not. The BCS schools have pushed to have the NCAA set up rules requiring years of lead time specifically to discourage school like UMASS from moving up).
An FBS conference only requires eight football playing members.
Looking at attendance numbers in FCS this season, there about 12-15 schools in that footprint that have pulled more than 15,000 per game. (15,000 has been the NCAA's soft minimum number for FBS membership for a while although there was talk of it going up to 17,000. I am not sure if that has occurred yet.)
Read the complete report....