College football could be saying goodbye to the bye week.
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors will meet at its annual conference in Indianapolis Thursday to discuss and decide on a number of proposals that will have an immediate effect on college athletics. Although the board will debate several policies affecting non-revenue sports, most debate entering the meeting has centered on adding a 12th regular-season game in football.
Despite the ACC’s lone dissenting vote, the Division I Management Council passed the proposal allowing schools to play 12 games at its April 11 meeting.
“I think it provides an option for those schools and conferences that choose to have the extra game, but at the same time it doesn’t require anyone to do so,” said board member Dr. Sidney McPhee of the change, which would begin in 2006. “If you look at the football season with the basketball or soccer seasons, it is not a very long season in comparison, so I don’t think it keeps our athletes out of the classroom for too long.”
Currently, schools can only schedule 12 football games if 14 Saturdays fall between the NCAA’s opening and ending dates for the regular season—a scenario that occurred in 2002 and 2003 but will not happen again until 2008. Duke elected to play 12 games in both 2002 and 2003.
Although the Management Council passed the legislation by a wide margin, the ACC representatives and some coaches around the country have questioned both the physical and academic strain the change would place on student-athletes. The proposal comes at a time when many college presidents are opposing a playoff system in college football because of the additional academic burdens it could incur.
The Knight Commission, a privately-funded group that promotes reform in college sports, sent a memo to the NCAA last week urging the Board of Directors to oppose the 12th-game proposal. The commission cited academic concerns as the main reason for opposing the proposition and encouraged the Board to wait until the impact of the NCAA’s recent academic reforms is evaluated.
“The 12-game schedule eliminates a period toward the middle of the season where student athletes can catch up both physically and academically,” said R. Gerald Turner, president of Southern Methodist University and co-vice chair of the Knight Commission. “With the new academic standards, which are definitely tougher, and this being the first class to come in under them, we ought to see how the students do before we allow for this kind of schedule.”
Another proposal, which would require an average of 15,000 fans at home football games for Division I-A membership, is also expected to be debated hotly at the meetings. McPhee said there are other ways to judge public support besides actual attendance and that the board is likely to adopt an alternative policy. His school, Middle Tennessee State University, averaged just over 13,000 fans last year, putting its standing in jeopardy if the measure passes.
“Obviously I do think that there needs to be some measurement of public support for the football program of a Division I-A school,” McPhee said. “I don’t think you should rely solely on attendance because of outside influences like weather and competing events in major cities where many colleges are located.”
Over the last four years, 16 Division I-A colleges have had at least one season in which they have averaged less than 15,000 in home attendance. Although Duke’s 22,505 average home draw was the second-lowest among schools in BCS conferences last year, it does not have to fear losing its I-A status even if the measure passes.
The Board of Directors will also discuss two scholarship proposals passed by the Management Council. In the first, women’s volleyball, gymnastics, track and field and soccer teams will be allowed increased scholarships because of a growth in the number of participants. The other would end the current practice of counting academic or need-based scholarships against a program’s scholarship limit.
The Management Council opposed two proposals that would increase basketball coaches’ access to recruits, but the Board of Directors can still overrule the council and implement these measures Thursday.
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