(05-03-2016 11:04 PM)LatahCounty Wrote: (05-03-2016 09:46 PM)johnbragg Wrote: (05-03-2016 09:27 PM)LatahCounty Wrote: People here keep saying that, but apparently the WAC compliance guy says the NCAA has told him that's not the case. So what's the evidence the other way?
The actual text of the rules. But, I guess I take the WAC compliance officer's word over the black-letter text of the rules. This is the NCAA, rules only matter when it's convenient.
Here's the piece of the rulebook from the report:
NCAA Bylaw 20.4.2.1.1
Eligibility for Reclassification - Before a Football Championship Subdivision institution may apply for reclassification to the Football Bowl Subdivision, the institution must receive a bona fide invitation for membership from a Football Bowl Subdivision conference or a conference that previously met the definition of a Football Bowl Subdivision conference.
The WAC was a Football Bowl Subdivision conference (the Big West was not, if you're interpreting this literally).
Is there another rule that nullifies this?
Not directly. However the same section that defines an FBS conference as a conference comprised of at least eight full FBS members (20.02.6) also contains this subsection:
20.02.6.2 Grace Period. A conference shall continue to be considered a Football Bowl Subdivision conference for two years following the date when it fails to satisfy the eight full Football Bowl Subdivision member requirement due to one or more of its member’s failure to comply with the bowl subdivision membership requirements.
So two years after the WAC stopped having eight full FBS members, it stopped being an FBS conference.
However, under the reclassification rule you quote above, the WAC doesn't have to be an FBS conference to promote FCS schools that join it to FBS status. It only has to be "a conference that previously met the definition of a Football Bowl Subdivision conference" which it obviously is.
Moreover, the definition of an FBS conference only says that it has to have eight full FBS members, not that it has to have had eight full FBS members historically with no break longer than two years. Put another way, there's nothing that explicitly says that a former FBS conference can't return to being an FBS conference once it returns to having eight full FBS members, regardless of whether the Grace Period has come and gone.
So I think it's plausible that
if the WAC could invite a combination of FBS schools as full members and FCS schools that are willing to move up to FBS as full members that totals eight or more, the WAC could return to being an FBS conference, once the FCS move-up members completed their transition to FBS.
However there are obstacles related to scheduling requirements. If the WAC wanted to resume sponsoring football, the general rule on Division I conference football scheduling (section 20.02.5.3(b)), which applies for both FCS and FBS conferences, would require the WAC to sponsor a minimum of five regular-season conference games per year. Moreover, the FBS scheduling rule (section 20.9.9.2) would require any school that joined the WAC to move up from FCS to FBS to play at least five regular-season home games against FBS opponents, of which no more than one could be at a neutral site. Taken together, those rules effectively prevent the WAC from reinstating itself as an FBS conference by just restarting football with Idaho, NMSU and six FCS move-ups and waiting the four years for the FCS move-ups to complete their transition to FBS. Instead the process would have to be done in stages over a considerably longer period, with the WAC inviting FCS move-ups in at least two stages.
Here's why the quick fix won't work. If the WAC only had Idaho and NMSU as current FBS members and immediately added six FCS move-ups with the goal of quickly returning to full FBS conference status, then for the FCS move-ups, their seven-game conference schedule would include only one home game against an FBS opponent. That would leave them needing three more FBS home games and another at a neutral site to meet the FBS schedule requirement, with only five out of conference games to do it. No FCS school would be able to pull that off.
However if the WAC had Idaho and NMSU as current FBS members and added only four FCS move-ups -- the minimum to sponsor a five-game regular season -- then for the FCS move-ups, they would get their one home conference game against an FBS opponent and be left with seven out of conference games to get the other three home FBS contests and a neutral site FBS game. By scheduling smart they would be able to do that, and in four years they would attain full FBS status. At that point, with six full FBS members, the WAC could invite two more FCS move ups and expand its schedule to seven conference games. The FCS move ups would each get three or four home conference games against FBS opponents, leaving them needing only one or two home out of conference FBS games which would be doable. Four more years would go by and the WAC would be back to having eight full FBS members and would once again qualify as an FBS conference.
Sorry for the long post but that's my take on the WAC's potential route back to being an FBS football conference. It would be a long road and would require a lot of commitment, planning and patience by at least six western FCS schools. But it appears the road is there.
One last thought: Given the scheduling obstacles explained above, the WAC would need a minimum of two current FBS members to "seed" its rebirth as an FBS conference. NMSU could not do it alone and there's no other western FBS independent that would have an interest in reviving WAC FBS football. So Idaho's decision to drop down to FCS, if it follows through, could be viewed as the true final death blow to WAC FBS football even though Idaho left the conference years ago.
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Idaho's Consultant Report
