i posted an article in the misc. conf. forum about automatic bids. basically it said that at least 50% of the bids for the division 1-aa football tournament must be at large bids. my question is what happens when there are more than 8 legitimate conferences? there seems to be an unwillingness to expand the tournament, but with the new 1-aa western football conference forming, there will be 9 legitimate football conferences, with the big south 1 team away from making that number 10. who gets left out.

also, why dont the ivy and swac participate in the 1-aa football tournament?

The Ivy League of course prides academics before athletics...they just don't want to take too much time for teams to practice and practice and practice for playoff games...they don't send anyone for football, they don't have a conference tourney in basketball, and they don't send the conf. champ to any post season play period...It's all about the books for them, and they make that the primary concern...

The SWAC is basically thinking about money...they can make more money putting the two best teams in each division against each other than to send one team to play in the playoffs...I don't blame them...

The I-AA playoffs are totally unfair...i think many of the deserving teams should be able to compete that aren't getting a chance to compete...they should expand the field of 16 to anywhere from 20 to maybe 24 teams...

there are about 12 slots that conference champs can go to...i suppose you do want 50% at-large bids...so just expand to 24...take 12 conference champs and 12 at-large bids...that would make it a lot more interesting...

It's even more unfair at the division II and III levels..they have about 300 teams and only 16 get to go to the playoffs!!!

To answer your question Seahawk. When there are more than 8 conferences fighting for automatic bids (as will happen when the CAA forms, the Great West has been around 2 seasons and the Big South reaches their number) .... basically the 8 conference chanpions from the strongest 8 conferences (not strongest 8 teams) will get the automatic bids.

I disagree with the playoffs being unfair and that legit teams aren't getting their shot. IMHO, if you don't win your conference, what right to you have saying you deserve a shot at the national championship?

And just because certain leagues have teams that would be denied in other leagues doesn't mean they shouldn't have a shot too.

As for the DII comment, what makes it even more unfair at DII is that it is broken up by region and only 4 teams in a region can make it.

I think it was 1994, and West Georgia, Carson-Newman, Elon, Lenoir-Rhyne, and two other South schools were in the top 16, but only 4 got to go. But 2 NE teams got in because of this regionalization BS.

The Colonial Athletic Association could look like this in 2009.
Delaware
George Mason
Hofstra
James Madison
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Northeastern
Old Dominion
Rhode Island
Richmond
Towson
Villanova
William & Mary

AccSeahawk,

Right now there are 10 conferences fighting for the 8 automatic bids. The automatic bids are determined each year based on conference strength. Basically, it looks like there are 8 conferences with an auto-bid, but that is because the other two are so weak, they never are considered realisticly.

The conferences are:
SoCon, Gateway, A-10, Southland, MEAC, OVC, Big Sky, Patriot, NEC, Pioneer (with the SWAC and Ivy abstaining). The NEC and Pioneer have no realistic shot at it, ever. When the Big South and Great West get 6 teams, you could start seeing a fight with the MEAC, Patriot and OVC for those last two spots.

My gut tells me that the MEAC is going to have some schools leave (A&T and Hampton come to mind). And the SoCon and Big Sky are going to pick off the Big South and Great West. So, we'll not see this being a problem any time in the forseeable future.

Patriot, NEC, MetroAtlantic, and Pioneer are non-scholarship ball... they have a hard time competing with bona-fide I-aa.

Colonial is taking over the same clump of teams that are now A-10, so the A-10 FB will disappear when the CAA FB comes on-line. No net change there.

Great West (once Northern Colorado leaves for Big Sky) and Big South are each at 5 teams, below minimum (6)required to qualify for auto-bid. That's why there is some talk of merger to get to a critical mass.

Patriot teams have a hard time competing? Umm... Colgate, Lehigh?

let me clarify....

The teams in the non-scholarship FB leagues will find it difficult to compete with top teams from 1-AA leagues that award scholarships for FB.

I think this will become evident in viewing results from the 1-AA playoffs.

What about Colgate two seasons ago?


I understand your point perfectly. In theory, there should be no difference in the competitiveness between the Pioneer League and the Ivy and Patriot Leagues since all 3 are non scholarship conferences.

But, obviously, the Ivy and Patriot teams are just about on par with the rest of the I-AA teams.

Since it first began accepting invitations to the I-AA Playoffs (1997), the Patriot League has been comparable to the MEAC and the OVC, if not more formidable than either of those conferences (particularly the OVC). Unfortunately, the Ivy League still doesn't participate in the I-AA Playoffs (probably due to the possibility of playing its intersectional "lessers" from the SLC, etal.)...

The Ivies and the PL were D-I (even I-A) prior to 1993...the MAAC Football League, NEC, and PFL were not...

How could the teams in the PFL, NEC, and MAAC be DI and not have DI football?

I am not aware of the specifics for these conferences, but the general trend has been for a constant upward movement into Division I, to claim an automatic conf. champ bid to the NCAA BB Tourney.

That has been a huge pot of gold, and has not gone unnoticed by numerous schools and conferences that do not play nor sponsor football.

So the Division I over time subdivided into levels of competition:
I-A 85 scholarship limit
I-AA 63 scholarship limit
I-AAA (not sure, but no scholarships for Football).

We have entire D-I conferences that have no football whatsoever. Big West, Missouri Valley, Mid-Continent, Horizon League, American East, Atlantic Sun, CAA (which will take over the current Atlantic 10 FB operation in 2007).

Some individual teams in these conferences play FB, and there are leagues accepting some as guest teams. The MVC sponsors the Gateway and Pioneer (nominally independent of the MVC) and the Mid-Con sponsors the Great West. Gateway, Pioneer, and Great West are agglomerations of D-1 FB schools and relate ONLY to the sport of FB - the are FB leagues for "orphan" FB schools.

So the evolution of this is a bit crazy.

There is an NCAA rule, stating that if you are nominally in a conf. in Divisions X, you cannot play other sports in a division below Division X. I think what happened was - everyone wanted to move up to Div I to get a chunk of the Div I BB tournament $$$, but leagues such as Patriot and MAAC did not want to turn their FB operations into giant scholarship-fueled deals that gobbled up those same $$$ windfall from BB. So this non-scholarship Div I-AAA was created.

The Ivy League is officially I-AA

I-AAA Conferences include the Patriot, MAAC, NEC, and Pioneer. I think those are the only 4.

And I could have a few of my facts worng, and for that I apologize.

Prior to 1993, several athletic programs had D-II or D-III football in accordance with a D-I basketball program...an NCAA mandate was made for "unilateral divisional status" (at least in terms of men's basketball and football)...

The MAAC Football League, NEC football, and the PFL are "creations" of the post-1992 era...

Several MAAC schools (including several which no longer offer football) entered I-AA (i.e. Canisius, Iona, Saint Peter's, Siena), and hence a I-AA conference (also featuring Georgetown and Saint John's) was composed under the MAAC banner...note that Marist (admitted 1994) would later "ascend" to "full" membership in the MAAC (1997, roughly around the same time that its former conference, the NEC began offering football as a championship sport)...

The charter membership of the PFL (Butler, Dayton, Drake, Evansville, San Diego, Valparaiso) all entered I-AA from D-III (although Drake had been I-AA as recently as 1985 and I-A as recently as 1980)...if memory serves, Butler, Evansville, and Valpo had all shared conference membership(s) in football at the D-III level...Dayton had been D-I in football (prior to the I-A/I-AA classifications) as recently as 1976...

The charter membership of NEC football (1996) was composed of pre-existing NEC members...

D-II football programs affected by the "unilateral" edict were Saint Mary's (maintained I-AA status before dropping football after the 2003 season), Santa Clara (dropped football), and UC-Santa Barbara (dropped football)...

Members of the Western Football Conference (1982-1992), who left D-II for D-I/I-AA included Cal-State Northridge, Cal State-Sacramento, Cal State-Sacramento, Cal Poly-SLO, and Southern Utah (D-I basketball) to form the short-lived American West Conference (D-I/I-AA)...another WFC member, Portland State, returned to D-I/I-AA in accordance with Big Sky membership in 1996...as previously noted, WFC member Santa Clara (also of the D-I West Coast Conference) discontinued its program...