Does SBC even have enough .....?

The easiest thing the NCAA can do is to maintain all of the existing requirements except eliminate the conference exception that allows a school to stay IA if six other members of its conference meet all criteria. Without the conference exception Buffalo, Akron, Eastern Michigan, Kent State and ULM would be out of IA right now since those schools have been under the 17,000 average in all of the last four years.

Whatever criteria are finally established, schools should be forced to meet those criteria on their own to stay in IA.

Even showing up isn't going to catch the cheating because it can be so discretely and you can't get an eyeball count that will stand up. Ever read the widely differing claims of how many show up for the million whatever marches in Washington?

They could easily hire a CPA firm to just go to one game every Saturday incognito and set outside the gates and click off head counts. You could just send them to only one of the 40 or so suspect schools. On a given Saturday, UAB would have around a 5% chance of being audited. They could probably just announce they were going to do it (and not even actually do it) and scare everyone straight, if the penalty was expulsion.

I do think if the rules are relaxed and D1A continues growing, eventually the big boys will create a new higher division within the NCAA that will have very stringent requirements. They could then have their cake and eat it too. They could schedule a couple of games against us D1A schools every year to give them their 7 wins and 7 home games, at the same time they could keep all the football money generated by a future playoff or big bowl system. I wonder with Dr. Cowen thing going on recently if this was seriously considered already.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlot...5988680.htm?1c

[arkstfan]

RealityCheck the new I-A criteria was an explosion of a simple suggestion. 1. Eliminate the conference exemption 2. Eliminate the 20,000 home and away option for retaining I-A status. That would have left averaging 17,000 paid in one of the prior four seasons if you have 30,000 seats or averaging 17,000 paid over the past four years if the stadium is smaller. While that would have been good, I think 200 scholies and 16 sports are good additions. It reminds me of 4th grade home room, Mrs Coggins told us to adopt our own class rules before the class was done we had about 30 rules. She then enforced them for about a day and repealed them and replaced them with No talking without permission and no gum chewing. She told us to remember that lesson whenever we heard the word Congress. 28 years later the lesson makes sense.

UABGrad if there is ever a playoff and the riches that entails I-A will be about half its current size.

[OsageJ]

I could be wrong but I think you can still be a 1A conf. with six schools and recognized as such. The eight school conf. get a seat at the 1A voting table and as I have seen elsewhere the BCS conf. have most of the votes in that so it would not make that much difference. We would rather have that seat than not have it but being below eight for a season would not kill the Belt.

[GrassyNoleHitman]

BC goes to ACC for the 05-06 season, right? We might be playing this game again this time next year.

yes, BC comes into the ACC July 1 of 2005. The Big LEast made its raid of C-USA based on losing BC as well as miami and VT. ironically the 16 team grouping is what drove BC out after publically making a pledge to stay with the other 7 football schools. they viewed the ACC as the lesser of the 2 evils when compared to the rivalries they have lost as the BE has expanded.

i expect that the BE will implode (explode?) as the football teams want to add another member to balance the schedule. but i think that is 3 or 4 years off.

[Champ967]

i expect that the BE will implode (explode?) as the football teams want to add another member to balance the schedule. but i think that is 3 or 4 years off.

Let's hope it comes sooner that that!

[GrassyNoleHitman]

Let's hope it comes sooner that that!

with that pit of lawsuit loving vipers, they are at least 3 years away from a breakaway.

[arkstfan]

The two sides of the Big East (8 football, 8 non-football) can split in July of 2010 and have five years continuity of membership for each group.

If they were going to split they would probably announce it no earlier than June of 2009.

[Champ967]

eh? Where did you get those dates arkst? Is that set in stone? (Everything seems pretty fluid in college sports these days.)

[StrayDawg]

GrassyNoleHitman,


What if.......
The Big 10 expands? Obviously Notre Dame is the most likely candidate, but Pitt has also been mentioned and they allegedly have Penn State in their corner. Do you see that happening?

If Pitt left because of huge changes in their old conference, then the BE would probably come calling on Memphis, opening another spot in CUSA and leaving La. Tech with one less enemy at the CUSA negotiation table.

[arkstfan]

Champ that is from the NCAA Division I Manual outlining eligibility for a basketball at-large berth.

[Champ967]

I like the way you're thinking Stray, BUT --- On the other hand ...

What if the Pac10 expands first? If they take 2 MWC schools, you can bet MWC would gut the WAC the next day. They'd take 2 for sure. Maybe more.

I have to say, I think a Pac-12 and a 12-team MWC would be GREAT conferences. But that pretty much lays the poor old WAC on its deathbed ... and royally sticks it to Tech.

POTENTIALLY GOOD SCENARIOS: Re-alignment comes from East.
CERTAINLY BAD SCENARIOS: Re-alignment comes from West.

Should we send a letter to Big10 presidents telling them what a terrific school Pitt is? At the same time, let's send letters to the presidents of BE bball schools telling them that they dont need those nasty old football schools bringing them down.

[Champ967]

Champ that is from the NCAA Division I Manual outlining eligibility for a basketball at-large berth.

eh, again? I'm afraid I still dont follow.

What do conference memberships have to do with at-large berths? I thought the whole point of at-large spots was that they are not tied to conference afilliations. A bball independent could score an at-large berth if the committee thought they deserved it. Right?

I can see your point if this was about revenue credits associated with tourney appearances. But I must really misunderstand the meaning of "at-large", if this is indeed as you explain it.

In all the recent shuffling, what other conferences are affected by this strange rule? Is CUSA also obligated to its current membership until 2010?

[arkstfan]

Sorry meant automatic berths.

Basically the Big East needs to stick together to keep the auto bid and to avoid losing the basketball units.

If the Big East splits they are going to have to negotiate the divorce to divide the basketball units because if they don't the side that declares they are leaving forfeits the money. When you consider how many top 100 basketball programs are going to be in that conference it could be a big piece of change.

[GrassyNoleHitman]

GrassyNoleHitman,

What if.......
The Big 10 expands?

i firmly believe that IF the Big 10 expands it will ONLY involve Notre Dame. per the FSU insider on Warchant.com, when the ACC went public about wanting to expand a year ago (before the Syracuse, BC, UM plan was announced) the Big 10 sent Penn State over to chat with the schools it has good ties with (NC State, Md) to see if our expansion plans included ND. they didn't care much about Pitt. they just wanted to know if we had any serious ability to snag their prom date. well, we all know how that ended up.

when it comes to expansion different conferences have different wants and needs. the first time i ever heard the term "NCAA credits" (or some term like that) was on the Big East boards when we raided them. when the ACC went hunting we were looking for things like "market share" and "academic fit" with market share being the biggie. as good as VT is in football we did NOT want them in the ACC because they did not increase our market enough to offset their slice of the pie. that's why we wanted syracuse.

the big 10 is compromised primarily of HUGE land grant state universities with a focus on graduate education. the 11 schools of the big 10 along with the University of Chicago have a grouping called "Colleges in Consortium" or "CiC" (something like that). what this means is that they pool their research capabilities and resources together. this increases everybody's academic profile. most of the Big 10 schools view Pitt as academically unworthy of joining the CiC. they want ND's alumni association and all the connections that comes with it ALMOST as much as they want ND added to the TV contract. the university presidents like the $5-10 million a year that each receives for athletics. they LOVE the $10-50 million a year in research grants that they get from the federal and state governments. the way they see it, Penn State gives them the cash from the Pennsylvania state legislature, why do they need Pitt? but tapping that ND alumni association...THAT's a goldmine!

and for the record, the only reason that "academic fit" was included in the ACC's criteria is because we are going to start an east coast version of the CiC.