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Some interesting items on the agenda:

A G E N D A
National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Board of Directors
NCAA National Office, April 27, 2006, Indianapolis, Indiana

13. Update on Division I-AA enhancements.
a. Recommendations to delete use of Divisions I-A, I-AA and I-AAA labels.

Consistent with the numerous Board discussions of Division I-A criteria and Division I-AA enhancements over the past two years, the Board will be asked to take formal action to delete subdivision labels in Division I that pertain only to football (i.e., Divisions I-A, I-AA and I-AAA). The PAG will be asked for feedback.

Division I football members will continue to be distinguished for the purpose of maintaining statistics – For example, Division I – Bowl Championship Group and Division I – Playoff Championship Group. This action will have no impact on the Division I governance or voting structure.

A coordinated public relations initiative is planned for this spring and summer to implement this change and NCAA Football has been asked to both partially fund and help manage the transition. The substantial involvement of NCAA football conferences in this organization (i.e., NCAA Football) uniquely places it in a position to participate along with the NCAA in the management of the branding of the sport and postseason competition in a manner that best serves current Division I-A and Division I-AA NCAA members. NCAA Football is expected to act on a request for $100,000 to be used toward the public relations initiative soon.

b. NCAA Division I Football Championship (former Division I-AA Championships).
Approval of the Division I budget by the Board will result in increased funding for the 16 institutions that now participate in the Division I-AA Football Championship. The total amount will be approximately $450,000, which will increase the travel party by 30. This provides flexibility for the involved institutions to promote more of a bowl celebration environment and the overall student-athlete experience during this NCAA championship. The actual budget allocation of new money is $250,000, along with reallocation of approximately $200,000 available from the Division I-AA budget. This new funding also is contingent on NCAA Football approval of funding of the initiative that is described in paragraph “a” above.

Man this is going to be interesting. Because they will take away those designations, I suspect that the big conferences will be able to schedule 1-AA team with impunity which will further marginalize the mid-major conferences. This will ultimately lead to a de facto dropping down by the mid-major conferences if they can't get games with the BCS teams. The 1-AA teams will vote for this because they get more pay days. The BCS will vote for this because they get easier scheduling. And the mid-majors get hosed again. The only downside that I see to the big conferences is that if the Championship group (former 1-AA) and the non-BCS get together to cram some academic and scholarship limitations into Division I. It will be interesting to see how they work out the by-laws on those issues. The big schools might not like having scholarship limits of 76 players.

What about the transfer rules? Will everyone now have to wait one year to be eligible?

This has been planned for more than a year.

ALL THEY ARE DOING IS CHANGING THE NAME of I-AA.

Is this another way of ensuring there will never be a 1-A playoff system in football?

eliminating I-AA will make everyone who isn't BCS de facto I-AA, including us due to spreading of talent.

They are not eliminating it, just renaming it!

I am still confused over what will become of the transfer rules (althoug I am pretty sure nothing). With only a Division 1 label and the 1AA and below being given subheadings like "playoff division", how will they now distinguish tranfer eligibility. Will it be "if you transfer to a playoff Div 1 team you can play immediately but if you transfer to a team that is not priviledged to get money from the BCS schools and can not be in the playoff program you have to sit out a year"? I am thinking this will lead to all transfers having to sit a year. I would be happy with this because it would at least give us some parity with the lesser divisions in picking up scraps from the big boys.

What's the point of this? To give a feel-good pat on the head to the Sam Houston States of the world?

You can now go into any stadium in the country and sit on the 50 yard line in someone elses seats and feel as good at Sam Houston as you would at DKR Stadium in Austin. Arkansas Tech or Georgia Tech, Florida A&M or Texas A&M. Its a day to be proud that we are all now one and the same. (Unitl the checks are cut)

I actually have enjoyed going to 1-AA games at William and Mary. A W&M-Richmond game has lots of atmosphere. And if you want to see the Virginia version of the Aggies, go to a VMI game.