There will no doubt be a few that won't meet the new qualifications for Division 1-A. Who are they and what conferences are most affected?

I don't see this as a "hard" line for the colleges to be forced to achieve. It will be more based on progress to goal once you hit enforcement than the actual goal itself.

15K attendance, minimum 5 home games are factors everybody points to. Wyoming at 14.8K average will not even be considered (as an example).

The better question is Who won't make progress and then therefore will be politely asked for recision to 1AA.

My money says two schools definitely...

Louisiana Monroe
San Jose State

One school as another maybe...
Buffalo

Neither SJS or ULM seems to have the committment at this time.

UL-M is an easy choice because if the SunBelt thought they were going to make it they would have been offered full membership along with Utah State and Idaho.

SanJose seems to be in a period of reduced athletic support. I live in the BayArea, and this is pretty apparent. Only influential alumni stepping up will help save their 1A status. They relegate to the Big West which may bring back 1AA football in a limited form, and will be an all California conference (Big-California) in basketball by next year ;D.

There are some MAC schools who are suspect, but they are less guaranteed for recision. A lot of this is due to the fact that the MAC is an all-sports conference, and until they brought in UCF this year they had the same membership in football and basketball. Buffalo would be my only pick to get the ax. They are bad in both major sports and the league probably looks at their accepted entry now as one of those "mistakes of the 90's expansions." This would be an excuse to get them out.

ULM is definitely out!!! They have a huge deficit (daficit, according to a certain Tennessee congressman), and the La. Dept of Education has been making rounds, and auditing all of the La. schools. (To no one's surprise, ULM still has a huge deficit)
Ditto on SJS.
I think another school that won't make the IA cut will be Akron. Akron and Kent are way to close together, and Kent is an original MAC member. I'm guessing Akron probably gets the ax, and they would get before Buffalo would, because Akron has had many years to improve attendance and has shown little progress in that dept. Buffalo is a IA newbie, and I think they'll probably get one more shot.

I think the schools you listed are a fair guess. I think there is a # of others that could fall. 2 or 3 in Mac have trouble and are way below 15k requirement. Uab in conf usa is another. ??? ??? who knows.....

After looking at a number of boards, digesting rumors and even learning a fact or two, here is my conclusion:

Six programs seem almost certain that they won't meet the requirements:

Louisiana-Monroe
San Jose State
Akron
Buffalo
Eastern Michigan
Kent State

Two are in serious jeopardy, largely due to politics:

UAB
Idaho

Troy State must find a conference right away. They've yet to have five 1-A home games and will continue to have problems getting home games without a conference.

There are three others on the attendance bubble who will probably make it but will struggle to stay qualified (especially in any year that they do not have a competitive team):

Ball State
Arkansas State
Middle Tennessee State

I now believe that at least six teams, and could be as high as eleven, will drop to 1-AA.

The most affected conference is the MAC followed by the Sun Belt. If either of these conferences get cherry-picked of their better teams (and I would also include the WAC), then there could be serious realignment as the other teams struggle to find conference homes. It appears that there will be one less nonBCS conference and perhaps a name change or two due to mergers.

I know UAB is running some large deficits and lack fan support. It is ashame because their sports program are not that bad.

The most affected conference is the Sun Belt, because they were the only one that did not have 8 all-sports members that made the cut in 2002.







ULM got high marks on their audit last year (it was the year before that when they got in deep trouble) so they are on the road to recovery, regardless of what they do with football. When I visited friends in Monroe last Fall, they said their new president has done wonders on campus in terms of building morale. To what extent can he interrupt that process to support football?

I was told that ULM could have joined the SBC in all sports last Summer had their new president been willing to present a plan as to how they were going to make the 1-A cut and he didn't do it. A friend of mine said that the president and AD want to be 1-A but won't give up the farm to do it. The people on their message board almost universally want to stay 1-A, but they are on pins and needles because their officials haven't made a public announcement about their intentions. Another friend said ULM officials have quietly decided to go back to 1-AA. Who is correct? 15,000 a game isn't a hard figure to fudge if they want to stay 1-A bad enough and can't achieve that average, but they have to do other things like add sports and scholarships.

It appears to me that the onus is being put on the fans to step up to the plate in a big way, because their administration is unwilling to pursue it alone and mess up what they are accomplishing on campus.

The most appropriate cliche for the University of Louisiana at Monroe Indians is that the natives are getting restless. :-/

http://forums.delphiforums.com/SBCsports/start