NCAA moving to upgrade Division IA football

Advertiser Staff

Half the schools in the Western Athletic Conference and five of the University of Hawai'i's 12 opponents this season would not currently qualify for Division IA football status if guidelines recommended yesterday by an NCAA committee were adopted.

The NCAA announced new criteria for IA membership has been forwarded to the Board of Directors with a recommended effective date of Aug. 1, 2004.

The NCAA Football Study committee wants to require schools to:

• Provide at least 90 percent of the permissible maximum number of football scholarships (76.5 of 85) over a rolling two-year period.
• Annually play a minimum of five regular-season home games against Division IA opponents.
• Compete in a minimum of 16 sports, at least eight for women and six for men.
• Offer a minimum of 200 scholarships in the athletic program.
• Average at least 15,000 for five Division IA home games by turnstile count.

In addition, it was recommended the NCAA eliminate all waivers of the criteria and place a moratorium on all new applications. A final vote could come in the spring.

A study by the Chronicle of Higher Education reported more than 30 of the 114 schools now in Division IA would not meet at least one of the standards. Among them are Louisiana Tech, Rice, San Jose State, Southern Methodist and Texas-El Paso, half of the 10 schools that comprise the WAC. The Air Force Academy, which is a nonconference opponent on this year's UH football schedule, would also not meet all the criteria, the Chronicle reported.

"I think they are largely attainable goals," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "Maybe a school or two needs to make a larger investment, but I think they are all attainable. If a school can't attain an average (attendance) of 15,000 ... they've got problems."

UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida said, "Some schools out there need to step to the plate and make the commitment to Division I, but it should be something they can get done."

Air Force, which competes in the Mountain West Conference, was among four schools from that conference the Chronicle listed as falling short of at least one criteria.

The Sun Belt Conference and the Mid America Conference would be particularly hard hit with all or most of their membership required to make improvements to keep Division IA status.