I assume the G5 would be VERY DIFFERENT. Would we even HAVE 10 conferences? What alignment would we have?

I'm pretty certain Idaho is the only FBS team to willingly drop down and they're not moving back up.

If you're talking about the NCAA split then it would look like the 80s.

If the NCAA would have gotten what they wanted this would have been 1A
ACC (8): Clemson, Duke, Maryland, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech
Big 8: Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State
Big 10: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin
Pac-10: Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington State
SEC (10): Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
SWC (9): Arkansas, Baylor, Houston, Rice, SMU, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech
WAC (9): Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, Hawaii, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah, UTEP, Wyoming

Independent (20): Army, Boston College, East Carolina, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Memphis, Miami-FL, Navy, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, South Carolina, Southern Miss, Syracuse, Temple, Tulane, Virginia Tech, West Virginia

Possible (9) - would be indy or have to find new conference: Fresno State, Pacific, UNLV, Utah State, New Mexico State, Tulsa, Wichita State, Central Michigan, Toledo

The Big West and the MAC weren't supposed to make it. Big West added UNLV before the test to stay was applied so they were OK with the 50% of the conference exception. The MAC schools that didn't qualify fought back. Doing so allowed the conference to come back as it was prior to the forced reclassification

Assuming all 9 of the now conference less teams wanted to stay 1AA I think you have enough for 2 new conferences:
Big East and CUSA

Without upgrades you would have a few NMSU'S that were homeless against their will

(07-14-2021 05:50 PM)Bobcat2013 Wrote:  I'm pretty certain Idaho is the only FBS team to willingly drop down and they're not moving back up.

Villanova was I-A until 1981, didn't play from 1982-84, then moved to I-AA.

(07-14-2021 07:44 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 05:50 PM)Bobcat2013 Wrote:  I'm pretty certain Idaho is the only FBS team to willingly drop down and they're not moving back up.

Villanova was I-A until 1981, didn't play from 1982-84, then moved to I-AA.

I think West Texas A&M did something similar. Dropped the program and then brought it back D2.

Not the same thing as moving down willingly even though the end result is the same.

(07-14-2021 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  ... The Big West and the MAC weren't supposed to make it. Big West added UNLV before the test to stay was applied so they were OK with the 50% of the conference exception. The MAC schools that didn't qualify fought back. Doing so allowed the conference to come back as it was prior to the forced reclassification ...

Seems like the MAC schools would phrase that as the MAC schools that were told they didn't qualify disputed it, and since enough of them proved that they did indeed qualify, the MAC stayed together under the 50% rule.

In any event, half of the MAC demonstrated that they qualified, so even without the 50% rule, you'd have to add five MAC schools to that list.

I thought I recently saw that North Texas was a school that did the drop in the earlier reclassification ... something like going down to Division II before climbing back up?

(07-14-2021 09:34 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  ... The Big West and the MAC weren't supposed to make it. Big West added UNLV before the test to stay was applied so they were OK with the 50% of the conference exception. The MAC schools that didn't qualify fought back. Doing so allowed the conference to come back as it was prior to the forced reclassification ...

Seems like the MAC schools would phrase that as the MAC schools that were told they didn't qualify disputed it, and since enough of them proved that they did indeed qualify, the MAC stayed together under the 50% rule.

In any event, half of the MAC demonstrated that they qualified, so even without the 50% rule, you'd have to add five MAC schools to that list.

I thought I recently saw that North Texas was a school that did the drop in the earlier reclassification ... something like going down to Division II before climbing back up?

Only 2 MAC schools made it.
Central Michigan & Toledo

2 MAC schools appealed the reclassification and were successful
Miami-OH & Western Michigan

6 MAC Schools were reclassified in 1982
Ball State, Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Northern Illinois, & Ohio

The MAC didn't use use 50% rule right away, but the MAC did fight back. They won and got back in 1983 although their year in 1AA in 1982 was pretty much in name only. The NCAA wanted the MAC out of 1A and originally said only 2 of 10 qualified. After appeal it was 4 of 10 ith Northern Illinois and Bowling Green still denied. Northern Illinois had to install new seats that were at the 18 inches wide minimum. At time of review, their seat average was 16 inches wide so the NCAA said they were out. Bowling Green had to add seats to get to 30,000 minium capacity

Because the MAC fought back they were given a waiver which allowed them to petition for reevaluation the next year. Without the waiver they would have been stuck in 1AA for a minimum of 3 years.

https://dks.library.kent.edu/?a=d&d=dks19820427-01.2.65

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/101713298/

(07-14-2021 11:14 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 09:34 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  ... The Big West and the MAC weren't supposed to make it. Big West added UNLV before the test to stay was applied so they were OK with the 50% of the conference exception. The MAC schools that didn't qualify fought back. Doing so allowed the conference to come back as it was prior to the forced reclassification ...

Seems like the MAC schools would phrase that as the MAC schools that were told they didn't qualify disputed it, and since enough of them proved that they did indeed qualify, the MAC stayed together under the 50% rule.

In any event, half of the MAC demonstrated that they qualified, so even without the 50% rule, you'd have to add five MAC schools to that list.

I thought I recently saw that North Texas was a school that did the drop in the earlier reclassification ... something like going down to Division II before climbing back up?

Only 2 MAC schools made it.
Central Michigan & Toledo

2 MAC schools appealed the reclassification and were successful
Miami-OH & Western Michigan

6 MAC Schools were reclassified in 1982
Ball State, Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Northern Illinois, & Ohio

The MAC didn't use use 50% rule right away, but the MAC did fight back. They won and got back in 1983 although their year in 1AA in 1982 was pretty much in name only. The NCAA wanted the MAC out of 1A and originally said only 2 of 10 qualified. After appeal it was 4 of 10 ith Northern Illinois and Bowling Green still denied. Northern Illinois had to install new seats that were at the 18 inches wide minimum. At time of review, their seat average was 16 inches wide so the NCAA said they were out. Bowling Green had to add seats to get to 30,000 minium capacity

Because the MAC fought back they were given a waiver which allowed them to petition for reevaluation the next year. Without the waiver they would have been stuck in 1AA for a minimum of 3 years.

https://dks.library.kent.edu/?a=d&d=dks19820427-01.2.65

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/101713298/

So, in other words, CMU, WMU, Toledo and Miami University were not (in fact) subject to reclassification, although at first the NCAA incorrectly claimed that two of those four were, and so at a minimum the list should have:

MAC (4) CMU, WMU, Toledo, Miami University.

After all, the subject line does not say "FBS if all the teams that the NCAA wanted to drop to FCS did indeed drop down and stayed down". And you can't ding those four on the technicality that they were playing too many FCS schools, since the MAC was under a waiver at the time.

And two of the other six were only "pushed down" for a year before they fixed the issues that prevented them from qualifying at first, and when they did so, the other four were covered by the 50% rule. In terms of actually engaging in the action of "dropping down", none of the ten did, which would make it:

MAC (10): Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Miami University, Northern Illinois, Ohio University, Toledo, Western Michigan

Isn’t th bulk of the SBC made up of teams that moved up? This category was ALSO what I was talking about.

(07-15-2021 11:04 AM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Isn’t th bulk of the SBC made up of teams that moved up? This category was ALSO what I was talking about.

Yea all but Louisiana and maybe technically USA, but if in this scenario they could never have moved up whats the point of discussing them? They simply wouldve stayed in FCS.

That’s the essence of my question though. What would FBS look like without these teams?

I think McNeese State qualified to stay FBS then, but not La.-Monroe. If McNeese State stayed at D1? They would be in the SBC instead of La.-Monroe.

(07-14-2021 11:49 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 11:14 PM)solohawks Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 09:34 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  ... The Big West and the MAC weren't supposed to make it. Big West added UNLV before the test to stay was applied so they were OK with the 50% of the conference exception. The MAC schools that didn't qualify fought back. Doing so allowed the conference to come back as it was prior to the forced reclassification ...

Seems like the MAC schools would phrase that as the MAC schools that were told they didn't qualify disputed it, and since enough of them proved that they did indeed qualify, the MAC stayed together under the 50% rule.

In any event, half of the MAC demonstrated that they qualified, so even without the 50% rule, you'd have to add five MAC schools to that list.

I thought I recently saw that North Texas was a school that did the drop in the earlier reclassification ... something like going down to Division II before climbing back up?

Only 2 MAC schools made it.
Central Michigan & Toledo

2 MAC schools appealed the reclassification and were successful
Miami-OH & Western Michigan

6 MAC Schools were reclassified in 1982
Ball State, Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Northern Illinois, & Ohio

The MAC didn't use use 50% rule right away, but the MAC did fight back. They won and got back in 1983 although their year in 1AA in 1982 was pretty much in name only. The NCAA wanted the MAC out of 1A and originally said only 2 of 10 qualified. After appeal it was 4 of 10 ith Northern Illinois and Bowling Green still denied. Northern Illinois had to install new seats that were at the 18 inches wide minimum. At time of review, their seat average was 16 inches wide so the NCAA said they were out. Bowling Green had to add seats to get to 30,000 minium capacity

Because the MAC fought back they were given a waiver which allowed them to petition for reevaluation the next year. Without the waiver they would have been stuck in 1AA for a minimum of 3 years.

https://dks.library.kent.edu/?a=d&d=dks19820427-01.2.65

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/101713298/

So, in other words, CMU, WMU, Toledo and Miami University were not (in fact) subject to reclassification, although at first the NCAA incorrectly claimed that two of those four were, and so at a minimum the list should have:

MAC (4) CMU, WMU, Toledo, Miami University.

After all, the subject line does not say "FBS if all the teams that the NCAA wanted to drop to FCS did indeed drop down and stayed down". And you can't ding those four on the technicality that they were playing too many FCS schools, since the MAC was under a waiver at the time.

And two of the other six were only "pushed down" for a year before they fixed the issues that prevented them from qualifying at first, and when they did so, the other four were covered by the 50% rule. In terms of actually engaging in the action of "dropping down", none of the ten did, which would make it:

MAC (10): Ball State, Bowling Green, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Miami University, Northern Illinois, Ohio University, Toledo, Western Michigan

Miami OH and Westen MI were subject to reclassification. They just appealed and won. In 1982 the MAC was a 1AA conference. The NCAA would have liked the MAC to stay there.

The NCAA was not prepared for the MAC to fight back and, allegedly, have Big 10 support to stay 1A. Northern Illinois and Bowling Green were granted a waiver so they could move back up 1 year later. The original rule was that it would take 3 years to reclassification. By giving Northern Illinois and Bowling Greent that waiver the non compliant MAC 4 were allowed to move back up under the 50% rule along with the compliant 6.

Southland and the rest were not given that opportunity because they didn't fight back

(07-14-2021 09:34 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 07:16 PM)solohawks Wrote:  ... The Big West and the MAC weren't supposed to make it. Big West added UNLV before the test to stay was applied so they were OK with the 50% of the conference exception. The MAC schools that didn't qualify fought back. Doing so allowed the conference to come back as it was prior to the forced reclassification ...

Seems like the MAC schools would phrase that as the MAC schools that were told they didn't qualify disputed it, and since enough of them proved that they did indeed qualify, the MAC stayed together under the 50% rule.

In any event, half of the MAC demonstrated that they qualified, so even without the 50% rule, you'd have to add five MAC schools to that list.

I thought I recently saw that North Texas was a school that did the drop in the earlier reclassification ... something like going down to Division II before climbing back up?

North Texas was forced down in the early 1980's. We had been an independent since leaving the Missouri Valley Conference in 1974. Under Hayden Fry, UNT played a number of games at Texas Stadium in Irving, which drew attention away from Fouts Field in Denton. Basically, the university let Fouts fall into a sad state of decay. Fry left for Iowa the year after failing to earn a bowl bid with a 16th ranked 10-1 North Texas team and having the SWC reject UNT's admission into the conference. When the NCAA adopted their guidelines for inclusion in the D1-A, Fouts didn't meet the criteria for seating, and enthusiasm at UNT was at an all time low, due to Fry leaving. So, at that time UNT didn't meet the attendance requirement either. The new administration didn't want to spend the necessary funds to bringing Fouts up to D1-A standards, and allowed UNT to get pushed down into D1-AA. Because of the move to 1-AA fan interest dropped. So, North Texas spent 12 seasons at D1-AA before getting a forward thinking administration and building some cheap bleachers in the end zones so we could move back to D1-A in 1995. And now you have the rest of the story.

(07-15-2021 12:40 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  That’s the essence of my question though. What would FBS look like without these teams?

Maybe I'm just dense, but didnt Solohawks kinda answer that?

He really only addressed the MAC. Though I think he confirmed my suspicion that the SBC wouldn’t have been able to form. How would those teams have found a home in this AH?

(07-15-2021 06:09 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  He really only addressed the MAC. Though I think he confirmed my suspicion that the SBC wouldn’t have been able to form. How would those teams have found a home in this AH?

In short we wouldn't have a MAC, Sunbelt, or Big West

There would have been 29 independent teams and 7 conferences

Assuming the SWC still collapses, CUSA football can still form with Houston but no Cincinnati as if the NCAA had gotten what they wanted Cincinnati would have been 1AA. ECU would have had to be a full member (#6) right off the bat instead of football-only.

Big East and Big 12 still form as is. The WAC/MWC split still happens.

There probably is room to scramble together one more conference of those left out, but it would be tight since we are assuming no upgrades and it would also likely be very geographically disjointed

This might not be a popular opinion, but I think FBS should be shrunk to include:

The P5 (64)

MWC & AAC (23)

independents ND, Army, & BYU (3)

That’s a 90 team FBS.

Do a 12 team playoff with 7 autobids and 5 at larges.

(07-15-2021 01:07 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Miami OH and Westen MI were subject to reclassification. They just appealed and won.

If they had actually been subject to reclassification, they wouldn't have won their appeal. "they just appealed and won" means, "when it was looked at more closely, it turns out that the NCAA was mistaken when they ruled that Miami University and WMU were subject to reclassfication".

It was Toledo and Northern Illinois that were subject to reclassification but were able to regain their FBS classification by coming into compliance. They played a year as FCS schools, so under the terms of the OP, they might be considered to be "FBS schools that dropped down to FCS", although dropping down for a single year seems a bit of a borderline case.

_________________

(07-15-2021 02:19 PM)Side.Show.Joe Wrote:  North Texas was forced down in the early 1980's. ...

Ah, OK, thanks for that. And as a Football Independent, North Texas didn't have access to the playing in a 50%+ FBS qualified conference rule that the Golden Flashes relied on to avoid getting pushed down. It's good that North Texas was able to get out of what sounds like a rough period for the program, and get back into FBS.

(07-17-2021 03:55 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(07-15-2021 01:07 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Miami OH and Westen MI were subject to reclassification. They just appealed and won.

If they had actually been subject to reclassification, they wouldn't have won their appeal. "they just appealed and won" means, "when it was looked at more closely, it turns out that the NCAA was mistaken when they ruled that Miami University and WMU were subject to reclassfication".

It was Toledo and Northern Illinois that were subject to reclassification but were able to regain their FBS classification by coming into compliance. They played a year as FCS schools, so under the terms of the OP, they might be considered to be "FBS schools that dropped down to FCS", although dropping down for a single year seems a bit of a borderline case.

You can argue the minutia of phrasing if you like, but the bottom line is the NCAA tried to force 8 MAC schools down. They successfully reclassified 6 and 2 were subject to reclassification but were able to successfully appeal. Thus the MAC was reclassified, borderline or not. Had the NCAA gotten what it originally wanted there would be no FBS MAC today as there would only be 2 - 4 FBS MAC schools