I-A's vs. I-AA's
N.C. A&T broke new ground last year by playing Wake Forest, a I-A football program. It was a lopsided loss but a nice payout for the Aggies.
With a rule change passed by the NCAA Thursday, I-A wins over I-AA schools will count toward bowl eligibility every year -- not just once every four years -- so there's no penalty for playing down for what is generally an easy W. That means A&T, Elon et al. should be seeing a lot more opportunities to play bigger programs for the kind of guaranteed money its athletics department so badly needs to pay the bills.
Of course, I-AA coaches don't want to get their players beat up playing top-25 I-A programs. Bill Hayes balked at going to Nebraska when he coached the Aggies. But those schools will be calling. The question at A&T is: Will an AD be there to answer?
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The sad thing is, that if you funded Georgia Southern, Furman, James Madison and several other powerful I-AA teams to full scholarships, they'd be more than competitive with the bottom 2/3s of the "Big Boys".
Recent legislation has been introduced to remove the AA from the Division I moniker. I hope it works out. Schools like GSU, App State et al, would then be able to play some money games that they could win.
Either all schools will be called Division I with no further designation, or a football specific reference will be used to distinguish Division I football members in terms of those eligible for the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and those eligible for the NCAA Division I Football Championship. In addition, two of the other recommendations will enhance upper level institutions’ (those I-AA schools giving at least 90 percent of the permissible grants in aid in football) ability to get additional games against BCS schools on a yearly basis. That should help the competitive I-As to align them more closely with the current I-A ranks than the low scholarship or non-scholarship levels of I-AA.
Posted on May 4, 2005 4:27 PM