NCAA Imposes 4-year Moratorium on DI Move-ups

[star2city]

Report of the August 9th NCAA Division I Board of Directors meeting

Used its emergency authority to adopt Proposal No. 2007-10

[star2city]

I am interested to see how this effects UND/USD and it's conference aspirations. I'm mostly interested in what happens to the GWFC as any admission to the Summit League will largely be dependent upon movement which with the new "Summit Plan" will likely not happen soon.

Douple himself has said the Summit may go to 12 or 14 teams. The only candidates are now SIU-E, USD, UTPA, Houston Baptist, UND, and UVSC. Schools that have publicly stated DI ambitions like Oklahoma City, Tarleton State, Northern Kentucky, Wayne State, and Bellarmine can not by definition be candidates for at least four more years.

This will certainly make the GWFC more stable but I still do not believe that there will not be an autobid waiting if and when the conference is eligible. There has been talk about stripping autobids from other conferences.... I just don't see that happening. While the primary argument to granting the GWFC an autobid seems to be based on the idea that the conference is very strong, I doubt that they would strip from another conference just because at this present moment their conference is not as strong. I believe that the only way that the GWFC gets an autobid is if they expand the playoffs.

Has anyone seen/heard anything about that happening or is this just speculation from a previous post...

Any talk of the GWFC gaining autobid status is seven years premature until at least one new member is added (e.g. like San Diego or possibly Pacific) and UND and USD are both active members for two years.

[Riverman]

Wasn't Grand Valley State thinking of jumping up also?

[dakotadan]

Wasn't Grand Valley State thinking of jumping up also?

No, their AD and president have said before that GVSU has no intentions of moving up to DI. Actually, GVSU is a fairly young school that is still building up it's alumni base. It was only started in the 60's.

[Shawn-O]

No, their AD and president have said before that GVSU has no intentions of moving up to DI. Actually, GVSU is a fairly young school that is still building up it's alumni base. It was only started in the 60's.

Look for them to win the Director's Cup in Divsion II for about the next 10 years in a row (after 07-08 that is...UND's winning it this year ). Isn't their enrollment about 23,000? Gigantic compared to the rest of D-2.

[star2city]

[url=http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/15/ncaa]Inside Higher Ed: What

[GeauxSioux]

This is what I find most interesting. Are they talking about reclassifying the whole NCAA system? Is it possible that they will decide that the only "full" DI schools will be those in conferences such as Big 10, Pac 10, ...

As always, nice find S2C.

[RD17]

(MAAC Commissioner) Ensor said newly admitted colleges feel financial pressure to find conference affiliations and not enter as independents. One fear among the sports powers is that as mid-major conferences grow, they may split off. In the case of the NCAA basketball tournament, more conferences mean more automatic bids and fewer slots for at-large teams in major conferences.

[star2city]

Doesn't the MAAC play non-scholarship FCS football? And their commissioner is criticizing others for running a shell of an athletic department that only focuses on basketball? What a joke.

One of the first thing D-I needs to do coming out of the moratorium is force every school that sponsors football at the D-I level to operate with a minimum number of scholarships (45 might be a nice starting point).

It's a shame a conference like the MAAC has a voice. They may have had influence in pushing the moratorium on single sport move-up, based on their recent behavior.

This summer the MAAC was responsible for one of the most disturbing conference membership eviction in recent history. Le Moyne College, a DII school in Syracuse that played up to DI in the MAAC for 17 years in the sports of baseball and women's lacrosse, won the MAAC's autobid in both of those sports and performed well in the NCAAs. With LeMoyne becoming the power program, an apparently jealous MAAC pulled their associate membership with no notice. The MAAC's commissioners statements about schools focusing on basketball, when they just evicted a school performing well in baseball and lacrosse, is just further hypocrisy from a conference that is basically a DIII conference masquerading as a DI conference.

MAAC Dumps Le Moyne

If you visit the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference website, you won

[NDSUguy]

Report of the August 9th NCAA Division I Board of Directors meeting

[star2city]

Correct me if i'm wrong but.... the United Basketball Conference isn't REALLY a conference. The NCAA does not recognize this group of independants as anything more than a group of schools who joined together to help with their scheduling woes. I do not think that there is any chance that this conference could get an autobid.

The UBC was a scheduling alliance, not a conference in the true sense. But if six core members together for five years + one additional core member petition the NCAA for an autobid (and schedule a minimum number of sports), the NCAA must, by current rules, grant them a men's BB autobid. It would take a number of years (notice I said a remote chance).

The Higher Ed article implies that the NCAA is concerned with lower level conference splits (i.e. The Summit going to 14, as Douple has proposed, or the MEAC going to 14 and then splitting in two later), which is more likely to happen than a UBC gaining an autobid. Either way, more autobids are formed. Revealing that the NCAA isn't alarmed at the prospect of the Big East splitting.

With new requirements, the NCAA may just be sly enough to rewrite the basketball autobid rules, further endangering the Summit and the Atlantic Sun (which are the most vulnerable)

The number of active D1 members is irrelevant if the NCAA doesn't know that you exist.

The NCAA is acutely aware of the number of schools moving up as well as the independents. Why do you think they slapped a moratorium on move ups?

[RD17]

It's a shame a conference like the MAAC has a voice. They may have had influence in pushing the moratorium on single sport move-up, based on their recent behavior.

This summer the MAAC was responsible for one of the most disturbing conference membership eviction in recent history. Le Moyne College, a DII school in Syracuse that played up to DI in the MAAC for 17 years in the sports of baseball and women's lacrosse, won the MAAC's autobid in both of those sports and performed well in the NCAAs. With LeMoyne becoming the power program, an apparently jealous MAAC pulled their associate membership with no notice. The MAAC's commissioners statements about schools focusing on basketball, when they just evicted a school performing well in baseball and lacrosse, is just further hypocrisy from a conference that is basically a DIII conference masquerading as a DI conference.

MAAC Dumps Le Moyne

[Herd]

If the ncaa didn't want everyone jumping to DI, moving DII football scholarships up, not down, would have been a good idea 10 years ago. The main factors driving teams to DI are obviously football and Basketball. For ndsu, it was football, but in hindsite, basketball needed DI just as bad.

The gap in football between DII and DI 63 continues to grow fueled by the move-ups and schollies levels. There is now no middle ground for great DII conferences like the NCC. A higher % of DII's are now well below the 36 level maximum. It would be a breath of fresh air if the ncaa would take some responsiblity for what it has done to DII and have some long range plans. The ncaa has been driving the train for the DII exodus.

[The Sicatoka]

I recall this guy , back in 2002, both here and at Bisonville, saying there is a "missing level" and the NCAA system is broken.

[Diggler]

I recall this guy , back in 2002, both here and at Bisonville, saying there is a "missing level" and the NCAA system is broken.

Since I can't find just the part I want, watch 1:30-1:45 of the clip to see how everyone feels about this.

[dakotadan]

Since I can't find just the part I want, watch 1:30-1:45 of the clip to see how everyone feels about this.

How about this one?!?!

[star2city]

These schools, which were all rumored or planning a move up, will now have to wait:

W Georgia

Valdosta St

Tarleton St

N Kentucky

Bellarmine (Ky)

Indiana Pa

Wayne St (Mich)

Harding (Ark)

Oklahoma City

A school that seems to have officially pre-announced its DI move in 2012 is Central Oklahoma.. They are going to have to compete with Tarleton, Oklahoma City, UTPA, Houston Baptist, and maybe even W Tex A&M for a Southland or Summit bid. Not sure how UCO's vision was worded prior to August 11th, but hard timelines in public documents like this one just add further fuel to Division I's attempts in keeping schools out.

D-I Athletics

Note: As of August 11, 2007 the NCAA has placed a moratorium on any new admissions into D-I. UCO will use this time period to prepare to go to D-1 when the moratorium is lifted in 2012.

Goals:

Increase visibility and prestige of UCO

Increase the student life experience for UCO students and alums

Respond to high student demand for D-I experiences

Suggestions:

Consider moving two sports to D-I to generate excitement for an eventual move to D-I

Build resources at D-II level to best in nation to expidite the move to D-I

Build full business plan to accomplish this move

Seek conference affiliation

Measure of Success:

Division I Athletic status

Champion:

n/a

Time Frames:

Fully prepared for a D-I conference invitation by 2012

[The Sicatoka]

Is this moratorium just time to give the superconferences time to enact a different option?

[dakotadan]

The NCAA has been under pressure to stop the run of schools moving up to DI. These are the 20 schools that will be allowed to complete their transition.

Exploratory year 2007-8

SIU-E

UND

USD

Seattle

Houston Baptist

Bryant

New Haven

4 more years:

Florida Gulf Coast

South Carolina- Upstate

NC Central

Presbyterian

3 more years:

Cal State-Bakersfield

Central Arkansas

Winston-Salem St

Two more years:

Kennesaw St

N Florida

Utah Valley

NJIT

One more year:

NDSU

SDSU

Already full members (but not core members):

UC-Davis

UNC

Longwood

UNH to join DII Northeast-10

New Haven will be joining the DII Northeast-10 conference and bringing back football. I guess their administration decided that bringing back football was more inportant than moving to DI. Their football program had been an independant for years and was dropped after the 2003 season for lack of a conference. Looks like their move to DI might have been in the hopes that they ultimately ended up in a DI conference that sponsored football. Finding a DII conference that sponsored football apparently was enough for them.