Can someone explain to me how it is possible that the NCAA can tell an FCS college or university that they don't have the right to play FBS football if they choose to? Something about that seems very wrong to me. Why can't FCS schools who desire to move up, form their own conference if there is no room for invites an any other conferences? It seems that this rule hamstrings universities that want to grow and strive for excellence.

Quick answer? All NCAA schools are all part of a private club. Back in 1956 or so, all club members got together to appoint an organization to run the private club's activities (NCAA) and to adopt rules and regulations that everyone who wants to continue to be part of the club agrees to abide by. Reason why the NCAA can dictate this.

(05-31-2011 11:06 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  Quick answer? All NCAA schools are all part of a private club. Back in 1956 or so, all club members got together to appoint an organization to run the private club's activities (NCAA) and to adopt rules and regulations that everyone who wants to continue to be part of the club agrees to abide by. Reason why the NCAA can dictate this.

1956? NCAA was founded in 1906.

Obviously that rule has not been around since 19--. Many schools had moved up in the past to independent status. It may have been based on criteria set by the NCAA that the institutions had to achieve in order to join "the club." But it was in the hands of the institutions to determine their own path. It seems now that has been taken from them and they can no longer determine their own direction. Instead they must rely on someone else to tell them what they can and can't do. That seems pretty darn lame to me. The modern NCAA and football "club" is aweful.

What he is saying is, it is a club whose membership is voluntary. Thus asking if it is fair for the NCAA to make such rules is pointless, because fair has nothing to do with it. They are free to make their own rules. Especially since there are monetary consequences to the other teams if you allow new conferences. Remember, ALL D1A conferences are members of the BCS, and share in BCS money. It is not "fair" to the other D1A teams to have a group of 1AA schools move up, form their own conference, whcih in essence means they are still 1AA, only they will play two 1A teams instead of one, and then get the 1A windfall, by taking money from other conferences (12 conference clices instead of 11). Also, a sixth non ACQ would put the BCS in jeapardy, as you might now get enough votes to vote it out.

(05-31-2011 10:58 AM)army56mike Wrote:  Can someone explain to me how it is possible that the NCAA can tell an FCS college or university that they don't have the right to play FBS football if they choose to? Something about that seems very wrong to me. Why can't FCS schools who desire to move up, form their own conference if there is no room for invites an any other conferences? It seems that this rule hamstrings universities that want to grow and strive for excellence.

Essentially the NCAA is prohibiting teams/potential conference from getting involved with the BCS which is an entity that they have no control over. Seems like a restraint of trade to me which is why, even though membership voted in the silly rule, it would ultimately be unenforceable. Especially if a proposed group of FCS teams were operating within the minimum standards of NCAA FBS programs. I am not an anti-trust lawyer by and stretch but they would have a field day suing the NCAA over this.

Yea I don't get this one. Didn't the Sun Belt make the jump as a conference 10-15 years ago???

I beleive it was in the last few years that they put the brakes on teams moving up. When Western KY moved up, it was said that WKU and Villanova (should they decide to move up) would probably be the last ones for a long time, due to rule changes coming up (it was why WKU moved up when it did, even though they would have preferred waiting two years as they had just had a coaching change and a regression). And this was about five years ago.

You are allowed to move up if you have a conference in place to join. That is why UMass and the schools joining the WAC are allowed to.

I wonder if some caa schools would join the wac or a conference for a few years and then decide they want to form a new conference, could they?

(06-01-2011 09:28 AM)General Mike Wrote:  You are allowed to move up if you have a conference in place to join. That is why UMass and the schools joining the WAC are allowed to.

So what you are saying is that if 10 teams set up a conference office, named the conference, hired a commissioner and staff, etc. they could move up to FBS. Because there would be a conference in place.

Sounds reasonable to me, Mike...

(06-02-2011 12:33 AM)army56mike Wrote:  

(06-01-2011 09:28 AM)General Mike Wrote:  You are allowed to move up if you have a conference in place to join. That is why UMass and the schools joining the WAC are allowed to.

So what you are saying is that if 10 teams set up a conference office, named the conference, hired a commissioner and staff, etc. they could move up to FBS. Because there would be a conference in place.

No, that won't work. The new rule effective this year is that a FCS team can't reclassify to FBS without an invitation from a FBS conference. A FBS conference, by definition, is a conference with at least 8 FBS members in it. So if, for example, 8 teams in the CAA wanted to move to FBS, the CAA can't invite themselves to FBS, because the CAA didn't meet the definition of a FBS conference prior to inviting the teams to move to FBS.

There's a special exemption in the rules for conferences which used to be FBS conferences but dropped below the minimum number of required members (so that they can replace lost members with FCS teams without losing standing), but the CAA wouldn't satisfy that requirement since it never for one second had 8 FBS teams in it. On one of the FCS boards though we've been speculating that the Big West could exploit this exemption because no time limit was written into the rule as to how recently you had to satisfy the 8 member requirement, and they did in fact have 8 FBS members at one point. That's one potential vehicle for starting a "new" football conference. Otherwise, the only way to do it is for 8 existing FBS teams to leave their current conference(s) and found a new one. That's very unlikely excluding a Big East split, which wouldn't really count since the total number of FBS conferences wouldn't change.

The NCAA has too many rules, but at least they grant lots of waivers/exceptions. I would bet that if 8 FCS teams got together and proposed to the NCAA that they wanted to move to FBS and form a new conference together, it could happen.