ACU GOING DIVISION 1?
By mark rogers
May 4, 2011
It certainly looks like that's the direction the ship is heading, but let's breakdown some key terms before we discuss.
Division 1 used to be broken into two classes: Division 1-A and Division 1-AA (referred to as "one-double-a"). Several years ago, the NCAA changed the parlance of their heirarchy and renamed them to FBS and FCS which stand for Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision.
Football Bowl Subdivision is the division formerly known as "d1". It inluces the big boys: Texas, Alabama, Florida, OSU, Tech, etc.
Football Championship Subdivision is the division formerly known as "one-double-a". It includes the schools that you don't really hear of on a national stage unless one of them beats a ranked FBS school (aka Appalachian State over Michigan or James Madison over Virginia Tech) or a big name coach comes from the FCS ranks to big time success on the next level (aka Jim Tressel).
Soon after the change was made, no one had adopted the new terms. Everyone still says "d1" or "one-double-a" much to the NCAA's chagrin I'm sure. Oh well...worse things have happened to the NCAA - see "Cam Newton" "Reggie Bush" "Marcus Dupree" or "Ryan Leaf".
All that to say that if ACU does join the ranks of D1, it will be as a member of the FCS division. Pretty obvious, just want to be clear.
Committees, groups, pundits and just about everybody else has looked at three options for ACU: 1 - stay in D2, 2 - move down to D-3, and 3 - move up to FCS.
Option 2 would pretty much be an atmospheric move, so we can rule that one out.
Negatives of moving up revolve around a large "application" cost and the risk of losing the school's national prominence on the track and football stages which those programs enjoy right now.
If ACU goes up, they would join the Southland Conference and would have to undergo a 5-year transition period in which no sports could compete for a national championship.
The NCAA REALLY wants schools to be serious about the move. Thus the 1.4 million dollar "fee" and 5-year transition period.
The positives revolve around changes in how scholarships are awarded and divided, academic improvements, and an increase in visibility and prestige (which is huge for universities nowadays).
I didn't realize that Butler is about the same size as ACU as far as students and student-athletes. Butler is also similar in cost of tuition. All they've done is play for a national basketball championship the last two years.
Small schools can compete in some sports - everything but football unfortunately.
The ACU facilities already meet FCS standards so there would be no need to renovate or add anything that doesn't need to be renovated or added anyway (see "new track stadium" or "Elmer Gray is falling apart").
So will ACU move up? Only time will tell. The decision will likely be made sometime towards the end of the year.
I'm in favor of moving up. Now if we can just get all the naysayers to sit down.
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