For WKU - 1A or not 1A ?

[MeanGreen61]

Off the MUTS board

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.d...452/1002/SPORTS

Louisville Courier-Journal

June 26, 2005

Jerry Brewer

For Western, it's a question of I-A or not I-A

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.

Wood Selig dreads this one question. Like most irritants, it returns over and over to test the Western Kentucky University athletic director's patience, sanity and even professionalism. Consider it the big rat he can't catch.

"Is WKU Division I?"

Even knowledgeable sports fans have asked him this.

"Are we Division I?" Selig asked last Thursday while revisiting those painful memories. "Our women's basketball team has been to three Final Fours. Our men have been to one. Our men have been in 19 NCAA Tournaments.

"It's all because we play I-AA football that people define, or misdefine, our program. The nomenclature makes it difficult to ascertain who's Division I, who's Division II, who's Division III."

Selig spoke of this frustration during a 45-minute conversation about the Western football program's future. There's no new news here, really, but Selig provided plenty of insight into the issues facing Western as it contemplates whether to leap from Division I-AA to I-A in football.

It's a huge decision. A successful jump could "redefine the scope and magnitude of WKU athletics," Selig said.

A move to the MAC?

The Mid-American Conference approached Western in February and asked for a profile of the school's athletics and academics. Western supplied the information, and ever since there has been great speculation about a conference switch and jump to I-A in football.

Selig said he has had "minimal" contact with the MAC since then. It's a let's-keep-in-touch relationship right now. You get the feeling something could work out in the future, but no move is imminent.

That's good because Western has plenty of thinking to do. For starters, it boasts a strong basketball tradition. The MAC is a better men's basketball league than the Sun Belt Conference, but it normally gets only one NCAA Tournament bid. And women's basketball is not a MAC priority.

Also, Selig must continue to crunch I-A-versus-I-AA numbers. Hilltoppers football coach David Elson has one of the top 10 programs in I-AA, but Western doesn't make anything off it. Postseason runs actually cost the school significant money.

A move up would allow Western to make more money in football, but expenses would rise dramatically, too. And the Hilltoppers averaged only 8,769 fans per home game last season, extremely low for a Division I-A team.

Western doesn't want to make an illogical leap. It doesn't want to sell out to make money and play a bunch of guarantee games against the nation's elite. As much as Selig admitted that the status of being in the highest college football division matters, he doesn't want to be there to go 1-10 every year.

Make-or-break decision

Do it right, and the entire athletic department benefits. Do it wrong, and the department gets chained to a 3,000-pound burden. Don't do it at all, and you either stay the same or fall behind, depending on how you view it.

So Western has two options: do it right or don't do it at all.

"It's a difficult sell in many regards," Selig said.

One plus: Western figured out several years ago how to fund a $35 million renovation of Smith Stadium by using a percentage of its tuition increase. That project could begin early next year and be finished in time for the 2008 football season.

It's one of several progressive moves Selig has made in six years at Western. Ultimately, however, this stay-or-jump decision might decide his legacy.

"I think it goes beyond one decision," he said, "but that one is certainly the lightning rod."

Jerry Brewer can be reached at (502) 582-4373 or jebrewer@courier-journal.com.

[NT80]

This article never mentions WKU playing 1-A football in the Sunbelt, in fact the only Sunbelt mention is that it's not as good as the MAC in basketball. It does talk about a change to 1-A and move to the MAC in the same sentence, as if that was the only way for it to happen. I'm sick of hearing about WKU's decision and their ~8,000 football fans wanting to be bigtime in the MAC. Let 'em move!

[GreenBat]

I say throw them out. Then they'd have to go I-A in football to get into a conference. They think they are so big and bad in hoops. Let them try to get into a conference as good as the Sunbelt without Football. Wright Waters needs to tell them if they want to stay in the Sunbelt, then they need to play Football. If not, then tell them Bye, Bye!