Finally found it in my rat nest of stuff.

Division I when it was created in 1973 had 237 schools:
126 football schools and 111 that did not initially play football at the Division I level. Some were non-football schools. The remainder were schools that were initially classified Division II or Division III for football.

Two changes happened pretty quickly. SWAC opted DII football after initially declaring Division I. The Southland membership split over playing Division I or II football causing two schools to depart and had to play Division II in 1973 and 1974.

What was basically a SWAC/Southland swap resulted in no net change in the number of Division I football schools as each had 7 football members when they declared Division I in football.

The initial list of conferences and schools
All Sports + Football Division I
ACC
Big 8
Big 10
Ivy
MAC
Missouri Valley
PCAA
Pac-8
SEC
Southern
Southwest
SWAC (after initial decision opted Division II football)
WAC

All Sports but football in Division I.
Big Sky (would remain Division II football)
MEAC (would remain Division II football)
Ohio Valley (would remain Division II football)
Southland (intended to be Division I but couldn't opt immediately for it because of a lack of qualifying members)
West Coast Athletic Conference (opted Division III for football)
Yankee (would remain Division II for football)

Non-football
Central Collegiate Conference
Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League
Eastern Intercollegiate Gymnastics League
Eastern intercollegiate Wrestling Association
New England University Wrestling Association
Southern Intercollegiate Gymnastics League

Since 1973:
We are I think at 351 Division I basketball up from 237
Top level football is at 128 from 126.
FCS/I-AA has replaced the concept of playing football in Division II and III (which is no longer permitted). There were six leagues "playing down" in 1973 with five playing scholarship ball in Division II and one playing Division III. Today there are 13 conferences playing FCS with two I believe playing true non-scholarship football.

This.

It disproves the myth that some have that moving from FCS to FBS isn't moving up to the top level if the FCS mostly had its historical foundation in Division II.

That is what you hear from schools like Delaware who always deny that moving from FCS to a G5 FBS conference isn't "moving up" when it really is a whole different level of association. There are schools of course like NDSU that excel to the point where they can get heard out of the FCS level but that is only 1 school showing up anywhere on the radar.

Missing the SWC from the +football list.

The Southland, Southern, almost all the MVC and most of the MAC were forced down in 1982 to I-AA. Ivy also moved down semi-voluntarily. MAC moved back the next year. Other than McNeese, the Southland either dropped football or made its way back by 1996.

I hadn't remembered the Big Sky and Yankee were Division II.

(10-28-2014 07:11 PM)bullet Wrote:  The Southland, Southern, almost all the MVC and most of the MAC were forced down in 1982 to I-AA. Ivy also moved down semi-voluntarily. MAC moved back the next year. Other than McNeese, the Southland either dropped football or made its way back by 1996.

The original DI/DII/DIII classification I believe is what convinced Northern Illinois, Ball State, Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan to move up to the MAC which was DI.

That is ultimately what saved the MAC's FBS fate, the development into a more regional Great Lakes league instead of just an Ohio based conference. Its a lot like when the CAA expanded out of its Virginia core into the Northeast but they didn't have top level football on the line.

How were schools forced down?

(10-28-2014 06:56 PM)Zombiewoof Wrote:  Missing the SWC from the +football list.

Yeah SWC and SWAC got me.
Edited for future reference.

Posted from my mobile device using the CSNbbs App

(10-28-2014 08:34 PM)solohawks Wrote:  How were schools forced down?

It could be the 17,000 attendance requirement. They were then brought back up when the rule was amended to average 17,000 once every 4 years or have a 30,000 seat stadium.

Most of the MAC decided to go the 30k stadium route.

Good post. Thanks for sharing.

i find this a very interesting topic, particularly the MAC. How were the able to stay in the game while the SoCon and MVC had to drop down? I believe I have read previously about how the Big 10 was sympathetic to the MAC's cause, which turned out to be a very wise decision.

(10-28-2014 09:22 PM)solohawks Wrote:  i find this a very interesting topic, particularly the MAC. How were the able to stay in the game while the SoCon and MVC had to drop down? I believe I have read previously about how the Big 10 was sympathetic to the MAC's cause, which turned out to be a very wise decision.

The MAC had a few members that made the outright made the attendance cut. Toledo, Central Michigan and Western Michigan never moved down.

The MAC also had Toledo and Miami ranked several years in the 70's. They put on a MWC level performance from 1966-1976 with Toledo and Miami ranked several years which also was a positive influence keeping them around. The ACC at that time had almost no representation in the rankings.

Tradition plays a big part for the MAC. Ohio and Miami had B1G wins as far back as the 20's and 30's

(10-28-2014 08:34 PM)solohawks Wrote:  How were schools forced down?

This may over answer your question, if so I apologize.

Division I membership required that you sponsor a certain number of sports and play a minimum number of contests in each sport against other Division I schools.

When Division I formed it was on the heels of Title IX so as a cost-cutting measure football scholarships were capped at 105 before that, scholarship limits (if any) were set by conferences or a school just offered as many as it wanted/could afford.

For the 1978 season the decision was made to split Division I football into I-A and I-AA. I-A would lower its limit to 95 scholarships and I-AA would have a cap of 75.

Part of it was because Division II didn't fully embrace having the SWAC, MEAC, Yankee, OVC, and Big Sky in their midst and those leagues did not care much for the confusion created by being Division I in everything but football.

One stumbling block though was post-season. There were 13 bowls in 1977 and 15 in 1978. The leagues did not award 95 rides in football though that wasn't a major issue since several of the smaller leagues were capped at 80 or 85 (or none in the case of the Ivy) but the real issue was post-season. They weren't going to have their own bowls.

So I-AA was created for them with a four team playoff.

The NCAA had set a minimum standard for Division I football.
Sponsor a certain number of sports and play the minimum schedule, but they created a set of exceptions for a few schools. The exceptions were:
1. Avg 17k over four years or once in four years if you had 30k seats.
2. Avg 20k home and away over four years or once in four if you had 30k seats.
3. Be a member of a conference where more than half of the members met the requirements.
This became the I-A standard.

When I-AA was created, the I-AA only had to meet the basic Division I standard and didn't have to meet any standard other than be Division I in other sports and not exceed the scholarship limit.

There was some hope/belief that some leagues might opt to drop to I-AA in football but it didn't happen.

As the 80's started a group of schools wanted to make their own TV deals in football and were threatening to pull out because they wanted a bigger cut of the money and wanted to be on TV more.

The NCAA brokered a "compromise".

The powers would push to change the I-A membership standard changing the "OR" between the clauses regarding sport sponsorship and scheduling and the clauses about attendance and league membership with the word "AND".

It was a particularly dirty deal by NCAA standards. The vote was taken in December of 1981 and would be effective immediately, no opportunity to adjust.

That would remove the Southland, Missouri Valley, Southern, Ivy, and (it was thought) the MAC and PCAA/Big West.

The PCAA in 1981 had six football schools 3 met and 3 didn't but UNLV was joining for 1982 making it 7 and UNLV gave them four schools meeting the standard saving them from being moved down.

The MAC story is a little more muddled. Depending on which version you believe they were either split with 5 meeting and 5 failing or 4 meeting and 6 failing. Bottom line they stuck together and after the 1982 season had 6 meeting the standard.

Cincinnati didn't meet the standard and sued the NCAA and gained an injunction. The NCAA settled by saying meet in 1982 and you are I-A, fail you agree to go down. They met and my understanding is that helped sort out the MAC deal of only four meeting the standard.

The turmoil didn't end there. The MAC voted to expel Eastern Michigan (they had gone 0-11 and had horrid attendance). The MAC theory was if they dumped EMU and had 9 then if someone struggled 5 meeting would keep them alive while at 10 they needed six. After some threats of litigation the MAC back-tracked.

In the Ivy Yale met but opted to reclassify I-AA to stay in the league. In the Missouri Valley, New Mexico State, Wichita State and Tulsa met but that didn't save the league. NMSU moved to the PCAA/Big West while Wichita State and Tulsa went independent in football. In the Southland SW Louisiana (now Louisiana Lafayette) met and opted for independence while McNeese State opted to reclassify.

The grand compromise didn't much matter because Georgia and Oklahoma sued the NCAA and won before the US Supreme Court in 1983 striking down the TV deal.

The NCAA's quest to keep siphoning off TV money from football was defeated. So the Southland, Southern, Valley and Ivy were reclassified so the NCAA could postpone the ending of the TV contract by two years.

The core disconnect was the NCAA didn't understand the problem. They thought the money was the driving force but what the critical difference was the power schools wanted liberation from games only being able to be telecast in two broadcast windows on Saturday and wanted freedom from the cap on national telecasts (you were limited to 5 national telecasts over a rolling two year period). The TV deals that got made paid about the same money but freed teams from those restrictions and made it possible to create the noon eastern time syndicated networks and opened up games on Superstation WTBS and things like that.

The MAC voted to expel both Eastern Michigan and Kent State. With no expulsion going through it motivated Northern Illinois to give up on the MAC and go the Independent route with the idea of being ready to join the Big 8 by the year 2000.

There were continued threats to the MAC all through the 80's and 90's of not making the standards in place. Only having one bowl until 2001 made the long term longevity of the conference uncertain. The MAC even tried to force EMU out again by setting a comprehensive facilities plan that each school had to adhere to if it wanted to stay in the MAC. EMU ponied up on the facilities end when they had to.

Then came MAC Saturday in 2003 where the MAC knocked out 4 or 5 ranked teams in the same day. It was also the first year of midweek MAC games. Having 3 Top 25 teams finish in the major polls opened some eyes to the conference that it was more than just Marshall and the 12 dwarfs. That led to a 3rd bowl game and then the MAC started picking up 4-5 bowls a year with at-large openings. The new agreement with the BCS was signed in 2006 giving the MAC a legit BCS shot. The attendance rule was softened around 2005 to only require 15,000 paid tickets.

Today the MAC is part of the CFP deal and has 5 regular tie-ins. They are cutting UMass after 2015 to raise SOS. The MAC's status in FBS is more secure than what it has ever been.

In the future I think you may see the American and CUSA continue to beef up numbers in hopes of marginally improving their chances at the autobid while the MAC sits back content at 12 and content with earning the autobid every once in a while. A big MAC year like 2012 where NIU did it and Ohio, Toledo, Kent all showed up in the Top 25. I don't think they'll react to the CFP poll screw job going on like other conferences might.

Thank you for all the info Arkst! Love the true history of how things ended up the way they did.

Here is an article I found about the Ivy League and their move down to FCS.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/05/sports...tatus.html
They had 4 members that met and 4 that did not which is why they were forced to move down in order to stay together.

(10-28-2014 09:30 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(10-28-2014 08:34 PM)solohawks Wrote:  How were schools forced down?

This may over answer your question, if so I apologize.

Division I membership required that you sponsor a certain number of sports and play a minimum number of contests in each sport against other Division I schools.

When Division I formed it was on the heels of Title IX so as a cost-cutting measure football scholarships were capped at 105 before that, scholarship limits (if any) were set by conferences or a school just offered as many as it wanted/could afford.

For the 1978 season the decision was made to split Division I football into I-A and I-AA. I-A would lower its limit to 95 scholarships and I-AA would have a cap of 75.

Part of it was because Division II didn't fully embrace having the SWAC, MEAC, Yankee, OVC, and Big Sky in their midst and those leagues did not care much for the confusion created by being Division I in everything but football.

One stumbling block though was post-season. There were 13 bowls in 1977 and 15 in 1978. The leagues did not award 95 rides in football though that wasn't a major issue since several of the smaller leagues were capped at 80 or 85 (or none in the case of the Ivy) but the real issue was post-season. They weren't going to have their own bowls.

So I-AA was created for them with a four team playoff.

The NCAA had set a minimum standard for Division I football.
Sponsor a certain number of sports and play the minimum schedule, but they created a set of exceptions for a few schools. The exceptions were:
1. Avg 17k over four years or once in four years if you had 30k seats.
2. Avg 20k home and away over four years or once in four if you had 30k seats.
3. Be a member of a conference where more than half of the members met the requirements.
This became the I-A standard.

When I-AA was created, the I-AA only had to meet the basic Division I standard and didn't have to meet any standard other than be Division I in other sports and not exceed the scholarship limit.

There was some hope/belief that some leagues might opt to drop to I-AA in football but it didn't happen.

As the 80's started a group of schools wanted to make their own TV deals in football and were threatening to pull out because they wanted a bigger cut of the money and wanted to be on TV more.

The NCAA brokered a "compromise".

The powers would push to change the I-A membership standard changing the "OR" between the clauses regarding sport sponsorship and scheduling and the clauses about attendance and league membership with the word "AND".

It was a particularly dirty deal by NCAA standards. The vote was taken in December of 1981 and would be effective immediately, no opportunity to adjust.

That would remove the Southland, Missouri Valley, Southern, Ivy, and (it was thought) the MAC and PCAA/Big West.

The PCAA in 1981 had six football schools 3 met and 3 didn't but UNLV was joining for 1982 making it 7 and UNLV gave them four schools meeting the standard saving them from being moved down.

The MAC story is a little more muddled. Depending on which version you believe they were either split with 5 meeting and 5 failing or 4 meeting and 6 failing. Bottom line they stuck together and after the 1982 season had 6 meeting the standard.

Cincinnati didn't meet the standard and sued the NCAA and gained an injunction. The NCAA settled by saying meet in 1982 and you are I-A, fail you agree to go down. They met and my understanding is that helped sort out the MAC deal of only four meeting the standard.

The turmoil didn't end there. The MAC voted to expel Eastern Michigan (they had gone 0-11 and had horrid attendance). The MAC theory was if they dumped EMU and had 9 then if someone struggled 5 meeting would keep them alive while at 10 they needed six. After some threats of litigation the MAC back-tracked.

In the Ivy Yale met but opted to reclassify I-AA to stay in the league. In the Missouri Valley, New Mexico State, Wichita State and Tulsa met but that didn't save the league. NMSU moved to the PCAA/Big West while Wichita State and Tulsa went independent in football. In the Southland SW Louisiana (now Louisiana Lafayette) met and opted for independence while McNeese State opted to reclassify.

The grand compromise didn't much matter because Georgia and Oklahoma sued the NCAA and won before the US Supreme Court in 1983 striking down the TV deal.

The NCAA's quest to keep siphoning off TV money from football was defeated. So the Southland, Southern, Valley and Ivy were reclassified so the NCAA could postpone the ending of the TV contract by two years.

The core disconnect was the NCAA didn't understand the problem. They thought the money was the driving force but what the critical difference was the power schools wanted liberation from games only being able to be telecast in two broadcast windows on Saturday and wanted freedom from the cap on national telecasts (you were limited to 5 national telecasts over a rolling two year period). The TV deals that got made paid about the same money but freed teams from those restrictions and made it possible to create the noon eastern time syndicated networks and opened up games on Superstation WTBS and things like that.

Thanks for that post.

The Great Almost of December 1981.

As the vote was coming up a group of southern/southwestern schools began talking about what to do with their conferences being broken up.

Tulsa, Wichita State, McNeese State, and Louisiana knew they were going to make it and began trying to see if they could cobble together a conference, McNeese basically took the lead. Southern Miss joined the conversation and said they would join if a sixth could be put in place.

McNeese in seven years of Division I/I-A football had three bowl appearances. USM had just completed back-to-back bowl seasons, their first bowls in major college. Tulsa's bowl game against McNeese in 1976 had been Tulsa's first in 11 years.

They tried to convince NMSU but they were working a deal to join the PCAA. Tulane and Memphis declined.

The NCAA was set aside a day at the convention for schools to request a one year waiver. Arkansas State head coach and athletic director Larry Lacewell learned of the new league idea asked if AState could join if they got the waiver and he was told yes. Lacewell then sought out Bear Bryant. He had worked for Bryant but more importantly, his father and Bear had been best friends in high school. Bryant agreed to lobby votes on behalf of AState.

The roll was taken and AState came up five votes short, carrying pretty much all of the SEC and Big 8 but received only one SWC vote, from Arkansas who passed on the initial roll call not voting for AState until it was seen that they would be short. None of the couple dozen schools requesting a waiver got within 20 votes.

With the vote the tentatively named Mississippi Valley Conference died. Wichita State dropped football after the 1986 season. McNeese opted for FCS and has never made any significant noise about returning.

(10-28-2014 09:54 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Thank you for all the info Arkst! Love the true history of how things ended up the way they did.

Here is an article I found about the Ivy League and their move down to FCS.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/05/sports...tatus.html
They had 4 members that met and 4 that did not which is why they were forced to move down in order to stay together.

Actually it says four had the stadium but only Harvard and Yale met both stadium and attendance, but I had only seen Yale mentioned as meeting so that's a real gem to add to my collection. Thanks for the link!

(10-28-2014 09:50 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  The MAC voted to expel both Eastern Michigan and Kent State. With no expulsion going through it motivated Northern Illinois to give up on the MAC and go the Independent route with the idea of being ready to join the Big 8 by the year 2000.

There were continued threats to the MAC all through the 80's and 90's of not making the standards in place. Only having one bowl until 2001 made the long term longevity of the conference uncertain. The MAC even tried to force EMU out again by setting a comprehensive facilities plan that each school had to adhere to if it wanted to stay in the MAC. EMU ponied up on the facilities end when they had to.

Then came MAC Saturday in 2003 where the MAC knocked out 4 or 5 ranked teams in the same day. It was also the first year of midweek MAC games. Having 3 Top 25 teams finish in the major polls opened some eyes to the conference that it was more than just Marshall and the 12 dwarfs. That led to a 3rd bowl game and then the MAC started picking up 4-5 bowls a year with at-large openings. The new agreement with the BCS was signed in 2006 giving the MAC a legit BCS shot. The attendance rule was softened around 2005 to only require 15,000 paid tickets.

Today the MAC is part of the CFP deal and has 5 regular tie-ins. They are cutting UMass after 2015 to raise SOS. The MAC's status in FBS is more secure than what it has ever been.

In the future I think you may see the American and CUSA continue to beef up numbers in hopes of marginally improving their chances at the autobid while the MAC sits back content at 12 and content with earning the autobid every once in a while. A big MAC year like 2012 where NIU did it and Ohio, Toledo, Kent all showed up in the Top 25. I don't think they'll react to the CFP poll screw job going on like other conferences might.

Only one bowl wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't until 1997 we had a year with 20 bowl games.

According to some of the articles I had read, NIU's biggest beef with the MAC was the scholarship cap which was 85 or 80. They kept pushing to take it to 95 to match the NCAA limit and couldn't get it passed so they left in 1985, then in 1992 the NCAA dropped the limit to 85 and the MAC was either there or bumped to it.

here is another one you might find interesting
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/21/sports...talks.html