NCAA targeting Division IA football programs that lack fan support

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Writer

College football's weakest links beware: The NCAA is gunning for you.

And if some schools in the Western Athletic Conference aren't concerned, they should be because their Division IA standing could be threatened.

With an eye toward reducing the number of schools playing football at the highest collegiate level — and raising the level of competition — an NCAA committee is correctly looking at new, more rigorous standards for membership in Division IA, including setting minimum attendance requirements.

While the University of Hawai'i is safe, some of its WAC brethren wouldn't fare so well if the requirements being discussed by the Division I Football Oversight Committee are put into play.

Under discussion this week in Indianapolis are plans that would recommend schools be required to:

• Average at least 15,000 in turnstile home attendance.
• Sponsor a minimum of 16 sports overall, including at least eight for women and six for men.
• Offer a minimum number of scholarships or meet a budget level.
• Play at least five home games.

While it sounds simple, at least 18 of the 114 teams that participated in Division IA last year would have failed to meet at least one of the criteria, according to 2000 NCAA attendance figures. San Jose State and Louisiana Tech of the WAC and Wyoming of the Mountain West are among them.

And, if you use turnstile counts, which can be 25 percent below the tickets distributed totals that many schools use to calculate attendance figures, probably another 10 schools from across the country wouldn't have met the requirements.

Current rules allow schools to qualify for IA standing by averaging an attendance of 20,000 per game. But the loophole in that is attendance can be figured by averaging both home and away games or padding the count by using figures for tickets distributed.

San Jose State, for example, had an average home attendance of just 5,980 in 1999 and 12,013 last year but played road games at Nebraska (77,728), Southern California (56,545) and Stanford (41,525) last season.

Louisiana Tech averaged 16,636 at home last year but played on the road at Kansas State (48,902), Penn State (94,555), Auburn (82,140) and Miami (48,617).

The push to set tighter standards comes amid rising IA membership and the feeling borderline members dilute competition and image. Eleven schools, including WAC schools Nevada, Boise State and Louisiana Tech, have moved to IA since 1989.

Some of the newcomers, Arkansas State and Louisiana-Monroe notable among them, are IA in name only, becoming rent-a-foe mercenaries who play only token home games and hire out for the big paycheck road games.

WAC Commissioner Karl Benson acknowledges some WAC schools could be at risk under new standards but says he is confident they will meet whatever requirements are put before them. "Once they know what the standards are they'll do what it takes to meet them," Benson said.

Hugh Yoshida, UH athletic director, said new standards, "would provide an impetus to make the commitment to get it (Division IA standards) done."

At least that is the hope. Otherwise, they become weights that have the potential to drag down the whole conference.