I agree with the premise of the article, but I too think that it's unrealistically gloomy. Without question, there will always be an upper crust in the collegiate sporting world, and WSU will not be a part of it. That's already the case today.
What WSU has going for them is their West coast location. If (when) the time comes where the upper crust wants to break off and form their own NFL type of alignment, WSU is positioned to move into the 2nd layer. What programs out West are legitimately candidates for the upper crust? UW, Oregon, Stanford, USC, UCLA, maybe the Arizona schools, but not necessarily.
When the dust settles, and the big boys move up, there will still be a huge market for the teams who stay back. Unlike the East, South East, Midwest, and Southwest, there aren't as many teams for WSU to compete with for a seat at the table. WSU, Oregon State, Cal, San Diego State, Colorado, Utah, Boise State, Nevada, UNLV, Wyoming....see how quickly the well dries up? I'm older now, and if we formed a league with some of the above mentioned schools, it wouldn't bother me at all. We could still play the Apple Cup, still play OOC games with Oregon, Stanford, USC, etc. Most importantly, we'd still be able to recruit at a high level, given how few true super power programs there are out West.
Quite frankly, WSU has been VERY fortunate to be associated with the Pac10/12 for as long as we have. On the spreadsheet, we don't deserve to be there. Because we've hung around as long as we have, our University has grown in prominence to the point where we now have a huge satellite campus network, a new Medical school, and are clearly the 2nd biggest school in WA state and the entire inland NW.
For those of you younger fans, trust me when I say that our outlook was A LOT darker back in the 70's and 80's, when WSU was barely hanging on. We now have a glistening campus, and a University that has distinguished itself from virtually every other large public school in the NW.