Recent National Collegiate Athletic Association membership recommendations could leave several programs, including the UB Bulls, struggling to retain their elite Division I-A football status.
The recommendations, made by the association's Division I Football Oversight Committee in September, include proposals for new scheduling, attendance and scholarship requirements that would attempt to create a more competitive division.
University of Kentucky President Charles Wethington, who is also the committee's chairman, told USA Today the requirements were proposed "to assure that institutions that are participating at the I-A level have the commitment to provide the programs necessary for a high quality of competition."
As many as 20 of the 122 D I-A programs could be eliminated by the proposal, which the committee recommended take effect August 2004 at the earliest.
The recommendations include: requiring schools to provide 90 percent of the permissible maximum number of full football scholarships, a minimum of five regular-season home games against D I-A teams, maintaining at least six men's sports teams and eight for women, a minimum of 200 athletic grants across a program, the elimination of criteria waivers, and an average measured home attendance of 15,000.
The final requirement could spell disaster for UB, which recorded an average attendance at home football games of 9,765 last year. The school retains its eligibility because of the Mid-American Conference attendance waiver, which allows up to six of the conference's 13 schools to remain eligible for DI-A competition if the other seven record over 17,000 attendees at a home game during a four-year period.
If the NCAA recommendations are instituted, the waiver would be abolished and each MAC school could be forced to meet the attendance requirement to preserve its eligibility.
The new attendance guideline would measure the actual number of people in attendance as opposed to the number of "paid attendees," which includes all students covered under the school's student athletic fee - regardless of whether they show up at the games.
What remains very unclear, however, is how attendance will be counted when that changes," said Robert Arkeilpane, UB director of athletics.
Arkeilpane said the school met the existing requirement this year and is covered for the next four years. Despite current attendance gap, Arkeilpane is confident UB is on its way to adapting to the new standard.
"We will make the attendance requirement, and given the time frame we're working with, I think there's no question of [UB's success]," he said.
While some schools within the NCAA view the recommendations as a reaction from established I-A teams to the division's expansion, Arkeilpane believes "it's not coming from the Penn States of the world, it's coming from the I-AA's over their shrinking membership."
"If [DI-A's] plan was to level the I-A field, they've cut off their nose to spite their face," said Arkeilpane. Playing lower-ranked I-A teams, he said, is "a guaranteed revenue source and crowd-pleaser" for those teams, and if less-experienced programs are dropped from the division, "they'll all be playing teams that look a lot more like them."
According to the NCAA, approximately 30 DI-A schools offer fewer than the proposed 200 scholarship minimum and some 14 schools sponsor fewer than 16 sports - guidelines which would exclude even powerhouses like Michigan State and Florida State.
UB football coach Jim Hofher believes any recommendation that would eliminate such top-notch schools is "really a non-issue at this point."
"[Players] aren't even aware of this at the moment. . It's nothing that's even going to affect playing whatsoever," said Hofher, who predicts the requirements would have little effect on UB's recruiting.
UB currently sponsors 10 men's and 10 women's DI sports programs, has offered over 90 percent of its allotted 85 football grants, and gave away 220 athletics scholarships this year. According to Arkeilpane, UB will continue to bring in I-A teams outside the MAC, such as this year's Rutgers game, until the year 2008. The team is scheduled to play the University of Connecticut during its next two seasons and Syracuse University the year after, in order to meet the five-game requirement.
Paul Vecchio, assistant director for athletics communications, believes along with Arkeilpane that UB's football program could meet the proposed attendance requirements if it continues its current growth.
"We made the case back in '98, we went out and made it clear to the university community that if you want to see UB move forward in collegiate athletics, we need to have people in the stands," said Vecchio. "We've got to be able to sell our product on our own campus first."
Vecchio believes that as the Bulls' win record improves, off-campus ticket sales will increase as well.
"It's no secret that Western New York likes a winner," said Vecchio. "They'll support anything, as long as they're giving it their best."
