Ohio U. Professor Thinks "More FBS Teams Should Think About Going to FCS"

[Lehigh Football Nation]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bdavidridpath/2016/03/02/idaho-and-new-mexico-state-considering-dropping-down-in-football-more-should-think-about-it/2/#5606b6a22ad8


There are several competitive and financial benefits that a move to the Big Sky would mean to both schools. The most obvious cost savings is a drop to the FCS level and a cut of 22 football scholarships. This is a huge cost savings. Conservatively it could be in upwards of a half million or more dollars immediately saved. Travel costs and time (http://www.forbes.com/travel/) would be drastically cut. Operating in a different market would also enable salaries and overhead to be balanced. I reject any argument that fund raising, marketing, or sponsorship sales would be dramatically impacted. People want to be associated with winners. If these two football teams become successful at the FBS level, they will actually increase interest and involvement. Students will get more excited as will the fans. The product will be better and corporations and individuals will want to be involved with that rising tide. Sponsors want the ability to sell their product and leverage the sports product to do that. These two teams will be a much better sell by dropping down, being successful, and showing others that bigger in this case is definitely not better.


I hope other teams in the Group of Five conferences are listening. This is a logical move that many could make and the sport of college football and respective institutions would be much better for it.

Though he's a professor at the Ohio school of sports business, that it is coming from a professor at a MAC school I found particularly interesting.

[Laker]

Though he's a professor at the Ohio school of sports business, that it is coming from a professor at a MAC school I found particularly interesting.

Ohio and Toledo were the only two MAC teams that averaged over 20,000. Imagine if the entire MAC went FCS. But they won't.

[clenz]

Ohio and Toledo were the only two MAC teams that averaged over 20,000. Imagine if the entire MAC went FCS. But they won't.
B10 relies too much on the MAC for any of them to go anywhere.

[bonarae]

Meanwhile...

Will the NCAA block the schools' moving down of football subdivisions if the ex-Sun Belt schools really want to do this? xchinscratchx

Otherwise, I think it's a win-win for the FCS, but the NCAA keeps on watering us down. xsighx xnonono2x

[RootinFerDukes]

Although there will be an excess of Fcs schools nationwide, I'd welcome any schools that want to drop down, including recent move ups who are quickly realizing the mistake they made (umass, ga state, odu). I bet at least the bottom 1/3 of fbs would seriously consider it if the "stigma" was removed with a mass exodus such as what happened in 1978.

[bonarae]

Although there will be an excess of Fcs schools nationwide, I'd welcome any schools that want to drop down, including recent move ups who are quickly realizing the mistake they made (umass, ga state, odu). I bet at least the bottom 1/3 of fbs would seriously consider it if the "stigma" was removed with a mass exodus such as what happened in 1978.

1978? I think the NCAA forced the move upon... but I don't know about what happened there. OK, so what is the current "stigma" of the FCS?

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

The MAC has always been a conference of the haves and have nots. Toledo, NIU, Ohio, WMU and CMU are generally above average to fringe Top 25. The rest have had their moments but are rather inconsistent. I think EMU, Ball State, Kent State and perhaps Miami(OH) would be prime candidates to drop down. Akron has been horrible but they might be trending up. Plus they carry the league in basketball most years. Buffalo is a quality AAU school that's usually decent in bball. They've become reasonably competitive in football. Still below average but no longer an embarrassment.

Replace EMU, Ball State and Kent State with UNI, NDSU and Marshall and league becomes arguably the best P5 conference in FBS and a multi bid league in basketball.

[DFW HOYA]

What was the last I-A school that unilaterally moved to I-AA? Villanova?

[OhioHen]

What was the last I-A school that unilaterally moved to I-AA? Villanova?

Villanova dropped football in 1981. When it was reinstated in 1984, it was at the I-AA level.

[Libertine]

Relegation. Match each P5 conference with a G5 and an FCS conference. Top two move up and bottom two move down every year. Watch Vanderbilt drop into the SWAC within three years.

[344Johnson]

Relegation. Match each P5 conference with a G5 and an FCS conference. Top two move up and bottom two move down every year. Watch Vanderbilt drop into the SWAC within three years.

Relegation would be a lot of fun... But at that point, I think you'd end up seeing the bad P5 schools nut up. Seems like some of them are the fat kids at prom. If you put them in a situation where they have to leave the prom, they might bite back.

[bluehenbillk]

The guy who writes the article lost me on this:
"I reject any argument that fund raising, marketing, or sponsorship sales would be dramatically impacted."

I thought the professor taught at Ohio U, not Fantasyland in Orlando. Do you think teams with FCS programs fundraise like FBS programs or can get more $$ in sponsorships with grater visibility? Sure. How is advertising priced, it's based on the # of views or hits it will get. Are more people going to come see better opponents? Sure they are. Old Dominion & App State aren't having any problems getting good teams at home. App State hosts Miami (FL), not (OH), this season. Is a home game vs Miami the same as a home game against Savannah St or Presbyterian? I'll grade this professor's article as a D, and recommend he seek some extra help and check office hours.

[RootinFerDukes]

1978? I think the NCAA forced the move upon... but I don't know about what happened there. OK, so what is the current "stigma" of the FCS?

Well talking to some socon and ur wm fans who remember those days said the I-A/I-AA split was voluntary on the part of some schools. I wasn't born yet and it doesn't seem to be well documented as to what specifically happened at each school or conference during the split and resulting realignment.
Didn't the Ivy want to de-emphasize big time college sports and voluntarily demote themselves to I-AA?
What is the current stigma? I thought that is pretty self-explanatory. The media doesn't even make an effort to properly distinguish FCS as not "division 2" and any given student at any Fcs school believes their school plays "division 2 football" because that's what fans of P5 schools are telling them.
If I had a nickel for every time at JMU I'd hear from a student, "yeah last year we won the national championship but it's for division 2". "No were division 1, it's just a subdivision." "No we're not division 1. My friends at tech and UVA said JMU is division 2".
No one wants to be the school that demoted themselves to Fcs. Many fans would rather see the school just drop the program all together first.

[RootinFerDukes]

What was the last I-A school that unilaterally moved to I-AA? Villanova?

In 1981, there was a mass exodus of schools to I-AA. The Ivy League, some socon, southland and Mvfc schools.
After 1981, no school voluntarily demoted themselves to I-AA. Some programs after that year just dropped their football programs.
If Idaho or New Mexico State go down to Fcs, it would be the first instance of it since the 1981 mass exodus. There will certainly be a stigma on their programs for being "those" teams. Now if there's another large collection of schools doing it, many other schools can say "see they're doing it, let's go too and save money".

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Relegation. Match each P5 conference with a G5 and an FCS conference. Top two move up and bottom two move down every year. Watch Vanderbilt drop into the SWAC within three years.

Since you brought it up... :D

http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-relegation-and-promotion-can-work.html

[Penguin Nation]

An article that is slightly outdated, but if anything the rationale for a wholesale MAC move to the FCS is even stronger now.

http://www.hustlebelt.com/mac-football/2014/12/7/7324531/hustle-belt-roundtable-uab-blazers-mac-to-fcs

NIU really should upgrade from the MAC, but most of the rest are really FCS level in both talent and attendance. In the article, there is a surprising amount of acceptance of the idea.

[OhioHen]

Relegation. Match each P5 conference with a G5 and an FCS conference. Top two move up and bottom two move down every year. Watch Vanderbilt drop into the SWAC within three years.

A sound idea that has been floated before - but only as it pertains to football. How do you handle other sports? Does a weak Duke football team mean that ALL sports have to move to another conference? All of a sudden, the top-level basketball and lacrosse programs get shuffled off to oblivion?

[Lehigh Football Nation]

A sound idea that has been floated before - but only as it pertains to football. How do you handle other sports? Does a weak Duke football team mean that ALL sports have to move to another conference? All of a sudden, the top-level basketball and lacrosse programs get shuffled off to oblivion?

FBS and FCS are "football-only" constructs. So, you take all the G5 and FCS football conferences and make them all formally "football-only" constructs, with easy movement from bowls to playoffs.

All-sports conferences like the Missouri Valley, CAA, Patriot League are unaffected, so bids to the NCAA's remain the same. The Sun Belt's autobid to the NCAA tournament is safe. But the composition of what the Sun Belt football is today could have teams move in and out, replacing, say, Georgia State with Northern Iowa.

[OhioHen]

An article that is slightly outdated, but if anything the rationale for a wholesale MAC move to the FCS is even stronger now.

http://www.hustlebelt.com/mac-football/2014/12/7/7324531/hustle-belt-roundtable-uab-blazers-mac-to-fcs

NIU really should upgrade from the MAC, but most of the rest are really FCS level in both talent and attendance. In the article, there is a surprising amount of acceptance of the idea.

Too bad it starts with misinformation - Pacific in 1995 was NOT the last Division I school to drop football.

[Go Green]

Didn't the Ivy want to de-emphasize big time college sports and voluntarily demote themselves to I-AA?
.
The Ivy's de-emphasizing football began long before that. My understanding is that every Ivy except Yale was going to be pushed down to I-AA in 1981 because of attendance requirements. Yale agreed to voluntarily join the rest of its Ivy brethren in I-AA rather than keep going alone as a I-A independent.

[Go Green]

What was the last I-A school that unilaterally moved to I-AA? Villanova?

If you mean by "unilaterally" that they would have still qualified for I-A membership (attendance requirements, etc.), yet made the drop to I-AA/FCS voluntarily.... I'd say Yale.

And to the best of my knowledge, Yale was the only one to do so.

[Libertine]

A sound idea that has been floated before - but only as it pertains to football. How do you handle other sports?

I don't care.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

The Ivy's de-emphasizing football began long before that. My understanding is that every Ivy except Yale was going to be pushed down to I-AA in 1981 because of attendance requirements. Yale agreed to voluntarily join the rest of its Ivy brethren in I-AA rather than keep going alone as a I-A independent.

I thought Harvard and Penn also could have stayed I-A.

There were Ivy teams that had no prayer of meeting the requirement, which I think were Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth. I'm not sure about Princeton and Cornell. Harvard and Yale decided to reclassify to FCS voluntarily in order to keep the gang together, is my understanding, to preserve rivalries (critically, with Princeton, if that part of my theory is right).

Was there a contingency plan to remain I-A for the Ivy League? If so, it probably included Colgate replacing one of the Ancient Eight, probably Columbia.

[UNH_Alum_In_CT]

Villanova dropped football in 1981. When it was reinstated in 1984, it was at the I-AA level.

I thought they restarted in D-III then worked their way back to I-AA? I don't see them on a UNH schedule until 1988.

[JayJ79]

B10 relies too much on the MAC for any of them to go anywhere.

If the B10 got rid of that stupid "no scheduling FCS teams" blanket mandate, they could still buy their home games against MAC opponents (as well as MVFC), but the MAC programs could operate at a more fiscally responsible level (or at least closer to reality than the current layout).

[Go Green]

I thought Harvard and Penn also could have stayed I-A.

.

They probably could have if they had tried. In 1981, both Harvard and Penn were experiencing dry runs and their attendance was below the I-A requirement (roughly 18,000 a game at the time, IIRC).

Penn really sucked in the late 1970s and very early 1980s before taking off under Jerry Brendt.

[UAalum72]

It was in December 1981 that the NCAA changed the attendance criteria for I-A football (30,000-seat stadium averaging 17,000 home attendance) so starting in 1982 the Ivy League plus Holy Cross, Colgate, Richmond and William & Mary moved to I-AA. A league could have stayed I-A if six teams met the mark, but no more than four Ivies would have.

[bluehenbillk]

I thought they restarted in D-III then worked their way back to I-AA? I don't see them on a UNH schedule until 1988.

Correct Villanova came back as a D-3, and joined the Yankee 2-3 years later.

[aceinthehole]

What was the last I-A school that unilaterally moved to I-AA? Villanova?

Post 1981, I don't think any football program reclassified down from I-A; although many I-A schools dropped football entirely.

As far as I can tell, the only program that reclassified down in football from a Division I subdivision after 1981 is West Texas A&M. They played football in the I-A and I-AA subdivisions as a member of the MVC from 1972-1985. They reclassified their entire athletic program from I-AA to D-II for the 1986-87 season.

[kdinva]

West Texas A&M.

some of their alumni?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or19TraKXcI

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

An article that is slightly outdated, but if anything the rationale for a wholesale MAC move to the FCS is even stronger now.

http://www.hustlebelt.com/mac-football/2014/12/7/7324531/hustle-belt-roundtable-uab-blazers-mac-to-fcs

NIU really should upgrade from the MAC, but most of the rest are really FCS level in both talent and attendance. In the article, there is a surprising amount of acceptance of the idea.

I think Toledo is in the best position to get an AAC invite given their success, facilities, level of support and location. NIU would be in interesting candidate too.

[Go...gate]

The Ivy's de-emphasizing football began long before that. My understanding is that every Ivy except Yale was going to be pushed down to I-AA in 1981 because of attendance requirements. Yale agreed to voluntarily join the rest of its Ivy brethren in I-AA rather than keep going alone as a I-A independent.

As did Princeton, which still met I-A attendance requirements as of 1981.

[Go Green]

As did Princeton, which still met I-A attendance requirements as of 1981.

According to Richard Goldstein (who covered Ivy football for the NYT), it was just Yale.

Goldstein, Ivy League Autumns: An Illustrated History of College Football's Grand Old Rivalries at 193 (1996) ("These regulations automatically tossed all the Ivy schools except for Yale out of the major college ranks. Yale then voluntarily joined the other Ivies in Division I-AA").

[RootinFerDukes]

Post 1981, I don't think any football program reclassified down from I-A; although many I-A schools dropped football entirely.

This is correct. Mass exodus to I-AA in 1981 of many schools, after that anyone having trouble chose to drop their program instead of demote.

[Sader87]

Was the MAC technically 1-AA one year in the early 1980s? Seems I remember they were for some reason. I think Cincinnati went 1-A to 1-AA back to 1-A in that same era too.

[uni88]

I think Toledo is in the best position to get an AAC invite given their success, facilities, level of support and location. NIU would be in interesting candidate too.

My opinion but I think the directional moniker could be holding NIU back. They have an enrollment of 20K, a strong following in the Chicago metro area and a successful football team. If they and Illinois State switched names, they would be much more attractive to a better known conference.

[Borat]

Although there will be an excess of Fcs schools nationwide, I'd welcome any schools that want to drop down, including recent move ups who are quickly realizing the mistake they made (umass, ga state, odu). I bet at least the bottom 1/3 of fbs would seriously consider it if the "stigma" was removed with a mass exodus such as what happened in 1978.

Georgia State went 6-7 in their sixth year of having a program, went 5-3 in the Sun Belt, and at one point won four in a row in 2015. Including a defeat of Georgia Southern on the road in Statesboro - a tough venue for anyone (and a team that went on to score 58 points in a bowl game win). AND THEY WENT TO A BOWL GAME.

Old Dominion has gone 12-13 over two years in FBS. They have NC State coming in to play in Norfolk in 2016. They just received $1.1M as a payout from the new FBS playoffs. (http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/odu-football-ticket-prices-to-increase-in/article_86374840-51b8-5c94-8086-1bf00ea0b747.html)

Apart from UMass, I'm curious as to why you claim Georgia State and Old Dominion are "realizing the mistake they made"?

[Borat]

Well talking to some socon and ur wm fans who remember those days said the I-A/I-AA split was voluntary on the part of some schools. I wasn't born yet and it doesn't seem to be well documented as to what specifically happened at each school or conference during the split and resulting realignment.
Didn't the Ivy want to de-emphasize big time college sports and voluntarily demote themselves to I-AA?
What is the current stigma? I thought that is pretty self-explanatory. The media doesn't even make an effort to properly distinguish FCS as not "division 2" and any given student at any Fcs school believes their school plays "division 2 football" because that's what fans of P5 schools are telling them.
If I had a nickel for every time at JMU I'd hear from a student, "yeah last year we won the national championship but it's for division 2". "No were division 1, it's just a subdivision." "No we're not division 1. My friends at tech and UVA said JMU is division 2".
No one wants to be the school that demoted themselves to Fcs. Many fans would rather see the school just drop the program all together first.

How many nickels would you have?

[Borat]

Well talking to some socon and ur wm fans who remember those days said the I-A/I-AA split was voluntary on the part of some schools. I wasn't born yet and it doesn't seem to be well documented as to what specifically happened at each school or conference during the split and resulting realignment.
Didn't the Ivy want to de-emphasize big time college sports and voluntarily demote themselves to I-AA?
What is the current stigma? I thought that is pretty self-explanatory. The media doesn't even make an effort to properly distinguish FCS as not "division 2" and any given student at any Fcs school believes their school plays "division 2 football" because that's what fans of P5 schools are telling them.
If I had a nickel for every time at JMU I'd hear from a student, "yeah last year we won the national championship but it's for division 2". "No were division 1, it's just a subdivision." "No we're not division 1. My friends at tech and UVA said JMU is division 2".
No one wants to be the school that demoted themselves to Fcs. Many fans would rather see the school just drop the program all together first.

The ENTIRE Socon moved to I-AA because NONE of the teams met the NCAA qualifications to remain I-A (http://stanforddailyarchive.com/cgi-bin/stanford?a=d&d=stanford19820203-01.2.38#).

UR and W&M were both I-A independents prior to 1981, and became I-AA independents when the NCAA put the qualifications in place. The same article I referenced above lists criteria for how teams could remain I-A. Neither of them qualified, so they had no choice but to move.

Also according to article referenced above, Yale was the only Ivy school that would have qualified to remain at the I-A level.

The "current stigma" of FCS is not "pretty self explanatory." I'm guessing you haven't asked any Big 10 fans about this? You're right, nobody remembers App State beating Michigan. And forget about any of the fans from the EIGHT FBS teams that North Dakota State has beaten since 2006.

How exactly is it the job of the media to "make an effort to properly distinguish FCS as not "division 2", apart from the already common method of identifying FCS teams as being part of FCS when they play against FBS teams? Should journalists be required to inform their readers of that fact every time they write an article? Maybe the name of the subdivision should be changed to "Football Championship Series (Not Division II)"?

[RootinFerDukes]

Georgia State went 6-7 in their sixth year of having a program, went 5-3 in the Sun Belt, and at one point won four in a row in 2015. Including a defeat of Georgia Southern on the road in Statesboro - a tough venue for anyone (and a team that went on to score 58 points in a bowl game win). AND THEY WENT TO A BOWL GAME.

Old Dominion has gone 12-13 over two years in FBS. They have NC State coming in to play in Norfolk in 2016. They just received $1.1M as a payout from the new FBS playoffs. (http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/old-dominion/odu-football-ticket-prices-to-increase-in/article_86374840-51b8-5c94-8086-1bf00ea0b747.html)

Apart from UMass, I'm curious as to why you claim Georgia State and Old Dominion are "realizing the mistake they made"?

No one shows up to ga state games and they have to have a cash drop to get a couple hundred more people to stay until halftime. Making a bowl game when nearly 2/3 of the fbs field goes to them means absolutely nothing. It was played in front of a couple thousand people while no one watched or cared. A number of Fcs playoff games were a bigger deal and had more people show up.
Odu may be lining up a number of P5 programs at home, thanks exclusively to their market and recruiting base the programs want to play in front of. They played nc state this past year at home btw. They're still searching for that elusive big boy win.
Meanwhile odu "sells out" games but if you're watching some of them on tv, quite a bit of the stands are empty. Who do they think they are, UR?
They are being saddled by the va legislation forcing them, as a G5 program, to not exceed 55% of their athletic budget being subsidized by student fees. News is they're struggling to find ways to make that work since they're well above that. Buckets of revenue are tough to come by when you're not a P5 team.
Finally, the are having trouble getting approval to fund a new stadium and may be forced to just renovate their very old current stadium. I believe part of their P5 hosting agreements was due to a proposed new, bigger stadium. I hope those don't fall through.
I wouldn't exactly call either a slam dunk in fbs, ga state especially.

[uni88]

The "current stigma" of FCS is not "pretty self explanatory." I'm guessing you haven't asked any Big 10 fans about this? You're right, nobody remembers App State beating Michigan. And forget about any of the fans from the EIGHT FBS teams that North Dakota State has beaten since 2006.

How exactly is it the job of the media to "make an effort to properly distinguish FCS as not "division 2", apart from the already common method of identifying FCS teams as being part of FCS when they play against FBS teams? Should journalists be required to inform their readers of that fact every time they write an article? Maybe the name of the subdivision should be changed to "Football Championship Series (Not Division II)"?

Michigan fans still remember App St beating them. It was the nail in the coffin for Lloyd Carr and the end of Bo's coaching legacy at the school.

It is the media's job to properly distinguish between the divisions and subdivisions because as professional journalists they are supposed to be accurate. To do less is incompetence. Talking heads and former players should not be exempt from this standard of professionalism.

[UAalum72]

It is the media's job to properly distinguish between the divisions and subdivisions because as professional journalists they are supposed to be accurate. To do less is incompetence. Talking heads and former players should not be exempt from this standard of professionalism.Standards? You think they care about standards? It's more important to boost their own egos by not lowering themselves by learning about lower divisions.
The Subdivision (and I've heard somebody ask why would you call yourself something less than a division, not realizing FBS is also a subdivision) has been FCS for TEN YEARS now, yet how many times will one of these clowns still say "FCS or one double A or whatever they're calling it now"?

[uni88]

Standards? You think they care about standards? It's more important to boost their own egos by not lowering themselves by learning about lower divisions.
The Subdivision (and I've heard somebody ask why would you call yourself something less than a division, not realizing FBS is also a subdivision) has been FCS for TEN YEARS now, yet how many times will one of these clowns still say "FCS or one double A or whatever they're calling it now"?
I don't disagree but their failure to hold themselves to the basic standards of their chosen profession doesn't mean that I can't. I might be Don Quixote tilting at windmills but I'm still going to do it.

[RootinFerDukes]

I couldn't agree more. I expect journalists to actually know about college sports that they're supposed to be experts on. I would also the NCAA just go back to calling it I-A and I-AA. It was less confusing IMO.

[Casey_Orourke]

What was the last I-A school that unilaterally moved to I-AA? Villanova?

After Hayden Fry left the University of North Texas, the team was demoted to 1-AA by the NCAA because of mounting debt. In 1982 it joined the Southland Conference from 1982 to 1995 when it rejoined the 1-A

[walliver]

I suspect their are a lot on comptrollers at G5 schools who wish their schools would move down. And more than a few presidents who would be willing to be "voluntarily forced" to FCS levels.

Would MACtion games be any more or less entertaining if some of the players were only receiving partial scholarships? If the MVFC could move as a group to FBS would the rivalries somehow become more intense.

Unless you share a P5 conference paycheck or have a unique national attraction, such as Notre Dame, BYU, or the Service Academies, there is not a lot of new revenue to be created at FBS level over FCS.

The real issue is the institutional stigma of participating at anything other than the highest level. This is a stigma that extends beyond athletics into institutional marketing.

Another issue is whether schools moving from FBS to FCS would be allowed to eliminate their 22 extra female scholarships.

[Herder]

I couldn't agree more. I expect journalists to actually know about college sports that they're supposed to be experts on. I would also the NCAA just go back to calling it I-A and I-AA. It was less confusing IMO.

Is JMU basketball Team I-AA? Your Baseball team 1-AA?

Maybe Not then. Maybe they should just call JMU DI, and DI FCS for football only. I don't want any part of the 1-AA label, a label that labels all your sports. Why do you think they got rid of it? It's not about FB, it's about the rest of the DI sports.

[JayJ79]

Is JMU basketball Team I-AA? Your Baseball team 1-AA?

Maybe Not then. Maybe they should just call JMU DI, and DI FCS for football only. I don't want any part of the 1-AA label, a label that labels all your sports. Why do you think they got rid of it? It's not about FB, it's about the rest of the DI sports.

regardless of what football calls itself, there will always be idiots who will label such university sports as something subpar. for example "mid-major"

[RootinFerDukes]

regardless of what football calls itself, there will always be idiots who will label such university sports as something subpar. for example "mid-major"
what this guy said. There's the P5 programs and then there's everyone else. If you're not one of those P5 programs, you're viewed as subpar regardless of what you want to label anything. At least when it was Division I-AA, you had Division One in the name.

[UNIFanSince1983]

In the end no one knows what FCS is. I say FCS to anyone here in Lincoln they have no clue what I am talking about. I am not sure it really matters though. No matter what you call it everyone is going to think you are at a lower level. Everyone is always surprised that UNI plays basketball in the NCAA tournament with the D1 teams since we are a lower level football team.

It is what it is. Call it whatever you want you are still going to be thought of as a lower level. I personally liked 1-AA better than FCS, but I might be in the minority.

[dgtw]

I thought IAA was less confusing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Laker]

I thought IAA was less confusing.

Everyone knew what it was right away. They should have stuck with it.

I remember when they used the term IAAA for schools without football. Now I suppose they are known as D1 schools without football instead...........

[DFW HOYA]

Everyone knew what it was right away. They should have stuck with it.

I remember when they used the term IAAA for schools without football. Now I suppose they are known as D1 schools without football instead...........

There's I-A (FBS), I-AA (FCS), and I-AAA (FDS), the Football Deficient Subdivision...

[Laker]

There's I-A (FBS), I-AA (FCS), and I-AAA (FDS), the Football Deficient Subdivision...

There ya go!