<a href='http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2004-05-13-attendance_x.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/foo...ttendance_x.htm</a>
Three months before officially tightening membership criteria for college football's most prominent and competitive division, the NCAA is weighing whether it set the bar too high.
The association is reviewing attendance and home-scheduling requirements that are scheduled to go into effect next season and could weigh heavily on two I-A conferences — the tradition-steeped Mid-American and the 3-year-old Sun Belt.
At least two school presidents, Carol Cartwright of MAC member Kent State and Philip Dubois of Wyoming, expressed concern during a meeting of the Division I Board of Directors two weeks ago. The board launched the review and will readdress the issue when it meets in August in Indianapolis.
Cartwright's and Dubois' primary target: a stipulation that I-A programs average at least 15,000 in home attendance each season. Eleven schools, including Kent State and five others in the MAC, didn't in 2003, and Kent will have to bump its average by more than 40% to get there next season.
Looking for fans
Eleven college football programs will have to raise their average home attendance next season — some by a third or more — if the NCAA sticks to new criteria for membership in Division I-A. Those that failed to draw the minimum 15,000 a game last year:
School 2003 average attendance % increase needed
Buffalo 9,414 59%
Kent State 10,546 42%
Middle Tennessee 11,021 36%
Eastern Michigan 11,260 33%
La.-Monroe 11,298 33%
Idaho 12,064 24%
Central Michigan 13,683 10%
Akron 13,812 9%
La.-Lafayette 13,995 7%
Ball State 14,710 2%
Utah State 14,921 0.5%
"What does that really prove? ... Is attendance really a measure of an institution's commitment anyway?" says Sun Belt Commissioner Wright Waters, who saw five of his schools fall beneath the 15,000 standard last year. "I think those are all questions that are kind of buzzing around."
The standards, approved by the NCAA in November 2001 and effective in August, are designed to weed out I-A pretenders and slow a migration of Division I-AA schools. Those schools value the prestige of I-A membership, but many are struggling in the deeper financial and competitive waters.
In addition to the attendance minimums, the new rules ultimately will require I-A schools to play at least five regular-season home games vs. I-A opponents each season. Because of contractual commitments and, in part, because of recent conference realignment, that guideline has been softened to four home games the next two seasons.
Less controversial are further requirements that schools hand out at least 90% (or 76.5) of the 85 football scholarships allotted to major-college programs in a given season and offer a minimum of 16 sports (including at least six men's and eight women's) and 200 scholarships overall.
"We think it's the (proper) criteria. Otherwise, we wouldn't have recommended it," says Georgia athletics director and former football coach Vince Dooley, who heads the Football Issues Committee. "But it's the nature of the NCAA to thoroughly discuss and review again. ... If there's some tweaking of those things without changing too much of the basic criteria, then I'm not opposed."
Still undetermined is the penalty for falling short of any of the criteria. An initial proposal would have placed a program in "restricted membership" for a year, barring it from a bowl, then bounce it from I-A if it didn't measure up a second consecutive year. The MAC has submitted another plan that would hold off restricted membership until a school fell short three years in a row, then strip it of I-A status if it doesn't meet all the requirements a fourth year.
Also uncertain is the impact of the new standards, should they remain as written. The Sun Belt's Waters echoes sentiment in the MAC, insisting, "We will meet any standard that everybody else will."
|
