Fighting Muskie
Senior Chief Realignmentologist
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RE: 1982 Forced Reclassification to 1-AA
(02-23-2018 07:49 PM)bullet Wrote: (09-02-2015 10:21 AM)LUSportsFan Wrote: (09-02-2015 08:41 AM)orangefan Wrote: (09-01-2015 11:37 PM)solohawks Wrote: Its funny though looking at the schools that were reclassified, most of them have made their way back to 1A FBS level. Ashame that end result of all this was getting rid of the IVY's at the 1A level. They could have really provided a boost in the Northeast during the BCS and now the Playoff era.
I haven't counted, but I don't believe that "most" have made it back to FBS. From the SoCon only Marshall and App.St. have returned. From the Southland, La.Tech, ULL, and Ark. St. have returned. No Ivies or independents have returned. I don't believe the MAC schools were ever actually forced to move down since they were somehow able to qualify as a conference rather than on an individual school basis.
With respect to the Ivies, I believe the reclassification actually helped Eastern football. There were 20 D1 schools in the Northeast prior to reclassification, and really only 5 or so were committed to playing at a national level.
The Ivy League itself was committed to playing nonscholarship ball with academic entrance requirements far higher than applicable in any other conference. They were not competitive nationally and, as a result, had lost significant fan interest. I also believe the major conferences were tired of sharing NCAA TV money with the Ivies, which brought nothing to the table for the national TV package. This is why they wrote the rules to kick the Ivies out. 1-AA was created as a soft landing place so the Ivies and others would still officially be D1.
The reclassification forced those borderline schools that wanted to play 1-A to raise their game. Rutgers and Temple, in particular, dramatically increase their commitment to competing. BC, although not borderline, also substantially increased its commitment. Rutgers and Temple had previously played Ivy level schedules against Princeton, Colgate and others. BC annually played Holy Cross, Villanova and UMass. Those rivalries were replaced by games against each other and the stronger Eastern Independents, i.e., Penn St., Pitt, Syracuse, and WVU.
Penn St. even tried to organize a 1-A Eastern football conference, but failed largely because of Syracuse, BC and Pitt's preference to play in the Big East for basketball. This ultimately led to Penn State joining the B1G, which in turn prompted the formation of the Big East Football Conference.
Interesting topic and one that brings back bad memories.
For the Southland, ULL, Arkansas State, and Louisiana Tech represented 50% of the conference membership at the time of the force down. ULL met the requirements to stay at D-1A and chose to stay at that level. The Cajuns were forced out of the conference because of conference rules. Another member, McNeese State, could have remained at D-1A having met the attendance requirements, but chose to move down with the conference. Louisiana Tech was very close to meeting the requirements, but had a bad season in 1979. Other programs were close, but no cigar also.
For the Southland, the reclassification was one of the causes of instability. Subsequent changes in membership weakened a pretty good basketball conference also. Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, and Lamar left the conference in 1987 to join ULL, New Orleans, and UTPA (now UTRGV) to form the American South Conference. ULL, Louisiana Tech, and Lamar all had made Sweet 16 appearances in the men's tournament. Louisiana Tech was a basketball power in Women's basketball.
On the football side, Texas-Arlington dropped football after the 1985 season. Lamar dropped football in 1989 after four seasons as a D-IAA independent.
The interesting thing is that using today's rolling 15,000 average, that conference would have qualified. I haven't researched it, but I would venture a guess that would hold true for the other conferences forced down.
In the Southland, UNT, ULM, La Tech and Arkansas St. moved back up. ULL never moved down. UTA and Lamar dropped football. Only McNeese stayed in I-AA.
It's a real shame that by the time that Ark St, LA Tech, UNT, and ULM were able to crawl their way back that there wasn't enough there to have a conference--Tulsa, NMSU, and USM were doing other things, McNeese didn't come back, West Texas plummeted to D2, and UTA, Lamar, and Wichita St all gave up.
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