2005 Attendance figures - all of NCAA football

[bgsuman]

sorry if this is old...but it's still interesting.. (PDF)

http://www.ncaa.org/stats/football/atte ... ndance.pdf

[kdog27]

It is pretty bad that there are about 15 1-AA teams that have close to or better attendances than we do.

[cbjhack]

Ever the reason for the MAC schools to drop to I-AA. No team cracked 85.

How sad.

[BGSU33]

Ever the reason for the MAC schools to drop to I-AA. No team cracked 85.

How sad.

I will never agree the MAC should drop to I-AA. There's way more to D-I football than attendance figures. Our wins over BCS teams, our wins over ranked teams and are bowl victories are some of the proof in the pudding.

[transfer2BGSU]

I'm still trying to figure out how attendance comes into play for determining if you should be I-A or I-AA.

If your institution wants to spend the necessary funds to sustain a I-A football program, then let them play a I-A schedule.

Wait a minute - we're not good enough to be I-A because we don't average 15,000 people per game, yet we'd be good enough as a I-AA for a I-A team to schedule us for a home game so they can get a victory and have the victory count towards bowl eligibility? Sounds like someone wants to have their cake and eat it too.

Instead of the NCAA trying to legislate attendance, why not do something they can actually control with the various conferences.

A. Mandate that I-A schools will play I-A schools and no I-AA schools.

B. Mandate that you must play X number of games on the road. Mandate that you must have a winning record to be bowl eligible (.500 is one victory shy of a winning record).

C. Mandate that if your APR drops below a certain percentage that you are not going to appear in post-season play.

[It's the Journey...]

I agree with everything except this:

A. Mandate that I-A schools will play I-A schools and no I-AA schools.

I see that as hurting the I-AA schools. Perhaps a school would like to schedule a few I-A school to test the waters on making the jump up. Why limit that? You said it yourself. If they want to spend the money, let them play I-A. But before they spend the money make sure you won't totally embarras yourself. I think that game should not count to bowl elegibility for the I-A school though. And, what is the APR other than a bunch of letters put together??

[Bleeding Orange]

1AA schools don't need to test the water. They should all know that, yes, they are going to get embarassed for at least a couple of years because it takes time for a program to adjust to the jump in level of competition, so that really shouldn't be a factor in ending inter-level play. In fact, I believe that the quickest a program has jumped to competitiveness after moving up has been Connecticut, and there were still some serious growing pains in that program.

Now, I'm sure a lot of I-AA's would miss the big payday, but I really don't see myself giving a crap about that...well...ever.

[transfer2BGSU]

I understand what you're saying Matt, but in this case I have to disagree.

I am tired of the BcS constantly trying to come up with ways to keep from playing us. Texas A&M and many others scheduled I-AA schools because they know they can beat them and it's only going to cost them a litttle bit of money (which to the I-AA school is BIG money). The fact that Duke and Colorado lost to I-AA opponents is FANTASTIC but why didn't Colorado offer that opportunity to Troy, or North Texas, or Toledo, or BG? They wanted a win and didn't want to have to pay so much money.

If they want to knock us down to I-AA becuase we can't average 15,000 people, then why should they be allowed to play I-AA schools? And why should that even count towards bowl eligibility? They can't have it both ways.