Eliminate D2? Or make D1 more exclusive?

DII is losing members every year. It probably makes more sense to have a scholarship level and non scholarship level.

How many DIII schools are offering under the table scholarships? What does that even look like? In recruiting against DIII schools, I have never had an athlete tell me they were getting any kind of aid offers for anything thing other than academics at a DIII school.

It is very rare for me to run up against a DIII in recruiting, and I can only think of three athletes I have ever recruited who have seriously considered a DIII school.

Track and field is *completely* irrelevant when deciding to be in division 1 or 2. It's all about major sports. Track and field is not a major sport. Sorry to break the news. It's extremely expensive to sustain a Division 1 football team.

"DII is losing members every year. It probably makes more sense to have a scholarship level and non scholarship level."

I'm not sure you're correct on this one... In our region (DII) we've been adding an average of 2-3 schools a year that are bumping up from the NAIA. At the same time we're losing maybe 1-2 every 8-10 years to DI. Our regional meet has nearly doubled in size in the past 10-15 years.

I can echo that. We have exploded recently with new members from the NAIA.

well..... wrote:

Track and field is *completely* irrelevant when deciding to be in division 1 or 2. It's all about major sports. Track and field is not a major sport. Sorry to break the news. It's extremely expensive to sustain a Division 1 football team.

That is true both in terms of popularity, but also the nature of the sport. T&F is a sport where you can come from a tiny country like Jamaica and compete vs a huge rich country like the USA, or from a third world crap hole like Kenya but lead in every distance race known to man. Fast is fast, no matter what school you run for or what color the uniform is that you wear.

well..... wrote:

Track and field is *completely* irrelevant when deciding to be in division 1 or 2. It's all about major sports. Track and field is not a major sport. Sorry to break the news. It's extremely expensive to sustain a Division 1 football team.

1. Not all D-1 schools have football teams. I.E. Wichita State, Gonzaga, and PORTLAND.

2. D-1 has 2 football levels. FBS 85 scholarships, FCS 63 scholarships, D2 36 scholarships. The big difference for FBS is attendance requirements and maybe travel cost for all but the MAC. I'd bet Dayton and Butler football cost more than Bowling Green or Ball State.

3. D1 schools have to sponsor 14 sports. Cross country is cheap and is a major sport to meet NCAA sport requirements. Last time I looked is was the most sponsored sport after basketball.

First you say eliminate D2, then you say split up D1. Make up your mind.

The only sport where having a bunch of teams is tough is football. There could easily be 6 levels of football. Boise State or Central Florida have no shot at a Nationals Championship.

Other than that, crappy basketball schools just lose in their conference tournaments. Crappy XC schools just lose at regionals. They really don't get in the way.

Mid Major wrote:

How many DIII schools are offering under the table scholarships? What does that even look like? In recruiting against DIII schools, I have never had an athlete tell me they were getting any kind of aid offers for anything thing other than academics at a DIII school.

D3 schools are mostly private and no one should pay the sticker price. Most coaches figure out a way to get more academic or financial need money to there incoming athletes. If they are going to an instate flagship it's still probably cheaper and a better education. Maybe still a better education at a mid major.

Okay let's pause here. You're treating the NCAA as if xc/tf is the only sport. There's always going to be bad teams and good teams in any sport. Some schools will care about certain sports or have the money to treat them properly and some won't. Reclassifying the divisions won't change that.

As others have pointed out, you seem to think that cross country and track drive decisions about which division a school competes in, e.g, your comment about a D1 minimum and maximum of five to eight scholarships. That would never fly even for basketball, let alone football. You'd force a lot of D1 schools that don't give scholarships in cross country or track either to drop their entire athletic program to D3, drop cross country and track altogether, or give at least five scholarships. The first choice won't ever happen, the second isn't allowable under NCAA rules and would require a rules change, and the third seems unlikely unless dropping a sport would put the school below the required minimum number of sponsored sports. I think you're plan would kill tons of cross country and track teams.

And why do you want to do this anyway? What's the problem with a group of schools deciding that they want to be somewhat good at, say football, but not good enough to require 63 or 85 scholarships (substitute other sports and other scholarship numbers) and then agree to compete against other similarly minded schools?

I kind of made a mess of that post. One of the alternatives I was thinking of but didn't write was dropping cross country and track to D3 while keeping other teams at D1, that's what is not allowable under NCAA rules now. Sorry about that.

I've coached at the D1, D2, and D3 level and seen many changes over my time. I do think the current state of D1 athletics is unsustainable. If Michigan has this shiny new facility, then Ohio State will need one to be relevant, and if Ohio State has it then Kent State needs it too, etc. Just an example but it trickles all the way down from those who can afford it to those that cannot. There is going to be a breaking point.

My suggestion would be to still have three divisions.

D1 - Power 5 conferences as we know them now will make up D1 (18 track + 5 XC Scholarships)

D2 - Current D2/Current D1 mid-majors (Current system of 12.6 or newly 18 scholarships total)

D3 - Non Scholarship

NC Eh Eh wrote:

I've coached at the D1, D2, and D3 level and seen many changes over my time. I do think the current state of D1 athletics is unsustainable. If Michigan has this shiny new facility, then Ohio State will need one to be relevant, and if Ohio State has it then Kent State needs it too, etc. Just an example but it trickles all the way down from those who can afford it to those that cannot. There is going to be a breaking point.

My suggestion would be to still have three divisions

D1 - Power 5 conferences as we know them now will make up D1 (18 track + 5 XC Scholarships)

D2 - Current D2/Current D1 mid-majors (Current system of 12.6 or newly 18 scholarships total)

D3 - Non Scholarship

I was one of the first D2 athletes. I believe it was in 1973, my senior year, when they split the College Division into D2 and D3 and what you're proposing here was pretty much how things were set up originally. A lot of schools that are now called mid-majors had been in the College Division prior to the split, Delaware, U Mass, the directional Michigan schools (Eastern, Central, etc.,) Lehigh, Bucknell, Cal Davis, the list could go on for quite a while and immediately after the split they went to D2 where they could give scholarships and compete at a higher level generally than if they were in D3 but at less cost than if they were in D1.

What seems to have begun happening very soon afterward was that these schools started moving to D1. The common reason as far as I can tell was that the D1 basketball tournament got very popular and lucrative and there were many more opportunities to play football on TV, and get paid. So the schools decided that if they were giving scholarships anyway it might make more sense to give a few more and get a cut of the money that was coming into D1. That's all driven by revenue sports. No school is going to decide what division to be in because it's best for their cross country program so as long as there's money to be made in the D1 revenue sports you're going to have schools that probably are better suited to D2 in D1, giving no scholarships for cross country or track ,and fielding teams in those sports that are really D3 teams that are "playing up."

I agree with those saying to have a scholarship level and a non-scholarship level. I don't think you need to make D1 more exclusive. Just give each college the choice, do they want to offer scholarships or not? That should be the only criterion for membership.

Questions, seems semi relevant to this discussion. DI has strict requirements on scholarships for football, each school is required to give a specific number of scholarships in football.

How does Ivy League fit into those rules while giving no athletic scholarships?

IvyLeagueCurious wrote:

Questions, seems semi relevant to this discussion. DI has strict requirements on scholarships for football, each school is required to give a specific number of scholarships in football.

How does Ivy League fit into those rules while giving no athletic scholarships?

The requirements for football are for 1-A. Ivies are 1-AA and there are no minimum requirements there.

come again wrote:

"DII is losing members every year. It probably makes more sense to have a scholarship level and non scholarship level."

I'm not sure you're correct on this one... In our region (DII) we've been adding an average of 2-3 schools a year that are bumping up from the NAIA. At the same time we're losing maybe 1-2 every 8-10 years to DI. Our regional meet has nearly doubled in size in the past 10-15 years.

95' - 245 schools

00' - 262 schools

05' - 281

10' - 288

17' - 300 (per NCAA membership website)

Div II has 7 schools currently in the process of transitioning to their level (3 yr process). They have grown leaps and bounds over the past 20+ years and there is nothing to say they won't keep growing.

so extra who tf cares