excerpt:

In a keynote address, Slive laid out seven goals for the new subdivision of Division I that will house the following conferences: SEC, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12........

A new subdivision will be a square peg to the round hole of the way that the NCAA currently operates. These changes, Slive said, "require a 21st century governance model within the NCAA and its structure that will preserve the collegiate model and allows our schools to make decisions that put student-athletes first. This is the No. 1 priority of the five conferences and we are committed to seeing it through."

The NCAA expects to create the five-conference subdivision in August. Slive estimated that it will take until at least the first of the year to draw up the rules by which the schools will govern themselves. In the current model, presidents make decisions as members of the NCAA Board of Directors. The five conferences want more responsibility in the hands of their athletic administrators.

Between the Northwestern case, and other pending litigation against the NCAA, the permutations of a new collegiate model could be endless. Slive would rather remodel than tear down and start over.

"You try to deal with things you can control," he said, "and some things you can't."

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/...ubdivision

Man, they really do think their fans are that dumb.

If I were a school like Wyoming, Idaho, or Tulsa, etc., I would much rather let the big schools/conferences play their own level of sports. G schools would have a much more competitive division playing schools their own size/budget. A championship is a championship, and Idaho should not have to compete against Alabama to win one...

UConn has more revenue than quite a few P5 schools. More national championships than the vast majority. We can afford to do whatever they do and should be allowed to do so and compete at the same level. I can't speak to the schools in the G5 with smaller budgets, I don't know what is right for them.

The G5 should probably try to create a play in playoff--for at least the first CFP playoff one G5 school will be able to make a CFP bowl--if they created a playoff to get to that game, it could possibly exist outside the current agreements and bring those schools additional revenues and exposure.

(04-22-2014 12:52 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  If I were a school like Wyoming, Idaho, or Tulsa, etc., I would much rather let the big schools/conferences play their own level of sports. G schools would have a much more competitive division playing schools their own size/budget. A championship is a championship, and Idaho should not have to compete against Alabama to win one...

I agree.

(04-22-2014 01:18 PM)HartfordHusky Wrote:  UConn has more revenue than quite a few P5 schools. More national championships than the vast majority. We can afford to do whatever they do and should be allowed to do so and compete at the same level. I can't speak to the schools in the G5 with smaller budgets, I don't know what is right for them.

From Slive it sounds like it might be the beginning of next year before the rules for the P5 division will be set--conference inclusion though seems a must.

(04-22-2014 12:52 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  If I were a school like Wyoming, Idaho, or Tulsa, etc., I would much rather let the big schools/conferences play their own level of sports. G schools would have a much more competitive division playing schools their own size/budget. A championship is a championship, and Idaho should not have to compete against Alabama to win one...

There are very few sports fans beyond this message board that have the slightest idea who won the FCS championship last year. Virtually no one watched the FCS championship game. My guess is 10 times as many people typically watch the crappiest "Who-Gives_A-Crap Bowl" in Random City USA than will ever watch an FCS championship game. The G5 teams know sliding down a level means obscurity. In the final analysis, sports teams are the public face of the school and the marketing arm of the university. Obscurity is not the goal here.

(04-22-2014 12:52 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  If I were a school like Wyoming, Idaho, or Tulsa, etc., I would much rather let the big schools/conferences play their own level of sports. G schools would have a much more competitive division playing schools their own size/budget. A championship is a championship, and Idaho should not have to compete against Alabama to win one...

I think a lot of history shows that Americans don't view one championship as being as good as any other. We are adamant about that. We aren't content for there to be two champions. Either "we're #1" or we are losers.

We couldn't tolerate an NFL champion and an AFL champion. They had to play each other until there was only one left standing. We couldn't tolerate an AP national champ and a UPI national champ. We had to create a bowl alliance, then a BCS to pit #1 against #2. Then everybody agreed all that produced was #2, so we have a four team playoff. And many schools who were part of FCS, and could legitimately compete for a "national championship" every year, gave that up because going on a winter vacation to a meaningless bowl game meant more to their alumni than that championship.

A championship is a championship? I don't think so.

(04-22-2014 01:25 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(04-22-2014 12:52 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  If I were a school like Wyoming, Idaho, or Tulsa, etc., I would much rather let the big schools/conferences play their own level of sports. G schools would have a much more competitive division playing schools their own size/budget. A championship is a championship, and Idaho should not have to compete against Alabama to win one...

There are very few sports fans beyond this message board that have the slightest idea who won the FCS championship last year. Virtually no one watched the FCS championship game. My guess is 10 times as many people typically watch the crappiest "Who-Gives_A-Crap Bowl" in Random City USA than will ever watch an FCS championship game. The G5 teams know sliding down a level means obscurity. In the final analysis, sports teams are the public face of the school and the marketing arm of the university. Obscurity is not the goal here.

And what bowl did Houston play in this past season? It will never change for you in the existing format... The only chance the G5 will ever compete annually with the P5 on the field, is if the football scholarships are reduced by a significant amount over the present allotment. Even with this, how do compete financially with P5 schools signing these obscene TV deals? How about stadiums that seat 65-115 thousand fans at say $75 a ticket? (conservatively) Like everything else, there will be an ever-increasing gap in the profits and investments. Might as well fix it now.

I agree that people wouldn't look at a G5 championship the same way as THE national championship. If it had a purpose though, such as a play in game, then it could be of much greater interest to viewers perhaps.

The P5 is making the change, so the G5 will need to find a way to adapt.

The one and only point of a P5 subdivision is control of its own playoff tournament.

It will be an 8 team tournament with each P5 champ getting an AQ bid and the rest being wild cards going to P5 teams who had a great 1-2 loss season but didn't necessarily win their conference or are P5 indys like I imagine ND and maybe BYU will be.

Over the past few years the FCS playoff telecasts have only drawn larger audiences than usually two bowl games per year. One is the Heart of Dallas which shortly after kickoff has competition on ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC. The other tends to be whichever early bowl season bowl gets stuck on ESPN2 in a head-to-head vs. an ESPN game.

The same level branding isn't just important to the G5 schools it is important to ESPN as well, remember they own about a fourth of the bowl games and most of their bowls don't pit P5 vs. P5.

We functioned effectively for decades with some conferences not capping the number of football scholarships, some capping at 100, some at 95, some at even lower numbers. We had a non-scholarship school beat an AAC school in the NCAA Tournament this year and they gave a B1G school all they wanted.

This is how the association has always functioned.

The first real departure was the creation of I-AA and that happened when two interests aligned. A number of schools were forced to move their football out of Division II under the new structure (or opt to move their other sports into Division II). The Division I schools didn't want to further divide the TV contract so the optional group I-AA was created with a lower cap on scholarships and a lower cap on coaching positions and a post-season event was created for them. Those schools went willingly but it was also a time when there were only 15 bowl games so I-AA was their ticket to post-season play. Even now nearly half of all Division I football is played in FCS.

(04-22-2014 01:27 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(04-22-2014 12:52 PM)USAFMEDIC Wrote:  If I were a school like Wyoming, Idaho, or Tulsa, etc., I would much rather let the big schools/conferences play their own level of sports. G schools would have a much more competitive division playing schools their own size/budget. A championship is a championship, and Idaho should not have to compete against Alabama to win one...

I think a lot of history shows that Americans don't view one championship as being as good as any other. We are adamant about that. We aren't content for there to be two champions. Either "we're #1" or we are losers.

We couldn't tolerate an NFL champion and an AFL champion. They had to play each other until there was only one left standing. We couldn't tolerate an AP national champ and a UPI national champ. We had to create a bowl alliance, then a BCS to pit #1 against #2. Then everybody agreed all that produced was #2, so we have a four team playoff. And many schools who were part of FCS, and could legitimately compete for a "national championship" every year, gave that up because going on a winter vacation to a meaningless bowl game meant more to their alumni than that championship.

A championship is a championship? I don't think so.

That's just the facts of life. The rich will get richer and the others will continue to struggle. Feel free to choose your path though. Level competition, investment, and profits, or your present annual David vs Goliath scenario.

(04-22-2014 01:41 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  The one and only point of a P5 subdivision is control of its own playoff tournament.

It will be an 8 team tournament with each P5 champ getting an AQ bid and the rest being wild cards going to P5 teams who had a great 1-2 loss season but didn't necessarily win their conference or are P5 indys like I imagine ND and maybe BYU will be.

1. You already control the playoff tournament as-is. The selection committee - as it's currently set up - will set up four P5 schools to play against each other. There's no need to split if that were the #1 reason.

2. What happens when BYU or Cincy or Boise State or any other G5 school is able to show their books and demonstrate that they are able and willing to play by the P5's rules? This is the "antitrust" problem.

3. Explain how scheduling is going to work.

4. How does this benefit the bottom half of the P5? Even if they make $5m more, Texas will make $15m more from this arrangement. They'll win fewer games a year and could suffer as a result. You are going to turn haves into have-nots.

If you're the AAC, what do you do?

There are two so-so options:

1. Get out the dagger and start backstabbing the G5 in an attempt to allow "willing and able" G5 programs to join as independents/small conferences. These teams/conferences would NOT have immediate playoff access, however.

2. Take the top hoops leagues + most of G5 and break into your own subdivision away from both the P5 and lower half of D1. I think that you could get MOST - but not all - schools on board for this.

#2 would look like this:

Division I: P4/5 + ND (65 or so all-sports)
Division II: G4/5 + BYU + WCC + Big East + A10 + Ivy (90-100 olympics, 50 or so football)
Division III: Bottom 1/2 of Division I (170+ all-sports)
Division IV: Current Div II
Division V: Current Div III

This new governance structure will only lead to a culling of D1 in future years. There's a split coming, but it's not coming quick and it will be more along the lines of the 1-A/1-AA split where there will be requirements to stay in D1. The rest will be priced out of the division.

"Slive and the other commissioners hope delivering more benefits to student-athletes will forestall the judicial and executive branches of the federal government from doing the same. The future of intercollegiate athletics will hinge on whether they are right."

Too late the horse has already left the barn. Hope it blows up, in all in their faces

(04-22-2014 01:57 PM)oliveandblue Wrote:  

(04-22-2014 01:41 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  The one and only point of a P5 subdivision is control of its own playoff tournament.

It will be an 8 team tournament with each P5 champ getting an AQ bid and the rest being wild cards going to P5 teams who had a great 1-2 loss season but didn't necessarily win their conference or are P5 indys like I imagine ND and maybe BYU will be.

1. You already control the playoff tournament as-is. The selection committee - as it's currently set up - will set up four P5 schools to play against each other. There's no need to split if that were the #1 reason.

2. What happens when BYU or Cincy or Boise State or any other G5 school is able to show their books and demonstrate that they are able and willing to play by the P5's rules? This is the "antitrust" problem.

3. Explain how scheduling is going to work.

4. How does this benefit the bottom half of the P5? Even if they make $5m more, Texas will make $15m more from this arrangement. They'll win fewer games a year and could suffer as a result. You are going to turn haves into have-nots.

1) This way all 5 P5 champs get bids and so do other deserving (SEC) teams all without having to worry about the G5 demanding AQs and wild card for their teams. The point of a P5 only subdivision is a P5 only playoff.

2) Not going to be an issue. The NCAA has already set a precedent of membership by invitation only for the FBS division. No one has cried foul or tried to sue the NCAA over it. It will be the same "by invitation only" setup.

3) Same as it does now. FBS and FCS schedule each other all the time and allow the games to count for bowl eligibility. P5 will continue to schedule G5 and FCS and count them toward bowl eligibility. Some might refuse to play, but most wont because they need the cash.

4) See above. Dont get caught up in Saban's "we'll only play each other nonsense..cuz no, thats not happening. The lower P5 will do what they do now and schedule 3-4 lowly G5/FCS teams to boost their winning and try to get bowl eligible.

(04-22-2014 02:21 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  This new governance structure will only lead to a culling of D1 in future years. There's a split coming, but it's not coming quick and it will be more along the lines of the 1-A/1-AA split where there will be requirements to stay in D1. The rest will be priced out of the division.

Nobody is falling for that sort of split again. Last time it was voluntary. If that is tried again, there will be lawsuits. Almost nobody is going to accept a "force down".