Two-Tiered Setup Deserves a Chance

Best thing the Big West Conference did this week: Decided to move its postseason bowl game from Fresno to Las Vegas in 1992. Intended result: No more tanking of late-season Big West games to avoid second trip to Fresno. Possible ramification: Name change from California Raisin Bowl to I’ll See You And Then I’ll Raise You Bowl.

Next-best thing the Big West Conference did this week: Invited Nevada to replace Fresno State in 1992. Intended result: Killer Vegas-Reno trips for Big West basketball writers. Possible ramification: Groundswell movement to add Nevada Lake Tahoe just as soon as they build one.

Not-even-close-to-the-best thing the Big West Conference did this week: Taunted the keepers of the fiscal-sanity flame with a “two-tiered football consortium” proposal--one tier for Division I-A traditionalists, another for Division I-AA realists--and then shelved the lower tier plan “for further discussion.” Intended result: To show the nation that the Big West is committed to playing big-time football, damn it! Possible ramification: Scores of Georgia 56, Cal State Fullerton 3 through the end of the century.

Given the chance to step boldly this week, the Big West settled for the sidestep. Two-tiered conferences? Consortium football? This was radical talk, an unprecedented departure in Division I athletics, and you know the climate on college campuses now. The two-tier plan was lucky not to have been burned, censored or slapped with a warning sticker.

Basically, the Big West’s two-tier proposal was this:

Those schools that wish to keep chasing the Division I-A dream will be allowed to do so, provided they meet such requirements as stadium capacity (at least 30,000) and average attendance (17,000 for home games or 20,000 for all games).

Those schools that don’t, or can’t, or simply desire a football program that doesn’t sap the lifeblood out of the rest of the athletic department could opt for the second tier, the Division I-AA tier, while maintaining Division I eligibility in other sports.

For such financially strapped institutions as Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach, this made loads of sense and would save thousands of dollars. At last, a viable off-ramp on the highway to madness.

Ideally, the two-tiered alignment would pave the way to a Bigger West. In the newly fragile state of college football, with conferences melting down and reassembling every week, it is widely rumored that BYU will be the next to jump, and if that happens, WAC rivals San Diego State and Hawaii might be in a mood to follow. Elsewhere, schools such as Cal State Northridge might be looking to upgrade their football programs and schools such as UC Irvine (ahem) might be looking to start one.

And there the Big West could sit, offering sanctuary.

Someday, Tier I could include San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State, San Diego State, Hawaii and Tulsa. At the same time, Tier II could harbor Fullerton, Long Beach, Irvine, Northridge, UC Santa Barbara, Boise State and Sacramento State.

“They’d all belong to the same consortium, but they’d be under different names,” Big West commissioner Jim Haney says. “You could call them, maybe, the Big West and the Small West.”

Those on the outside looking in would have no problem with that. At the moment, Santa Barbara plays Division III football. Irvine plays Division 0. “Both of them have interest in the second tier,” Haney says.

The problem rests with those already in. Suggest to Fullerton and Long Beach that it might be wise to drop a notch in football?

Why, they’d rather play Clemson and Miami.

“I want to stay,” says Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy, whose 1990 team, at 1-11, had the worst record in Division I-A. “No ifs, ands or buts about it. I think it would be foolish to consider anything else right now.”

Willie Brown, inheriting Long Beach’s multitude of woes from the late George Allen, attaches a Remember-The-Alamo mentality to the 49ers’ Division I-A quest. “If we drop to another level,” Brown reasons, “all the hard work done last year by a great man named George Allen will have been wasted.”

That’s the rhetoric.

Now, to the facts and figures.

For Fullerton and Long Beach to retain Division I-A eligibility in the Big West, by 1995 they will need to average 17,000 per game inside 30,000-seat stadiums or average 20,000 for all games. Fullerton’s in-process on-campus stadium will seat 10,000 when it opens, with the capability to expand to 30,000. But will the Titans ever average 17,000? Same goes for Long Beach, which, according to Brown, hopes to have its own on-campus stadium built “within three or four years.”

That leaves one way to stay: Average 20,000 for 11 games.

And for Fullerton and Long Beach, that leaves only one way to do it.

Murphy calls them “body-bag games.” Long Beach at Clemson. Fullerton at Auburn. Lambs to the slaughter. It used to be that the Titans and the 49ers played them for the money. Now, they’ll be playing them for the turnstile count.

Bill Shumard, the new athletic director at Fullerton, appears to have a firmer grip than most on the reality of the predicament. He looks at a future Fullerton schedule laden with Clemson in 1993, Temple, Syracuse and UTEP in ‘94, Army and Colorado State after that, and observes, “There are some contractual commitments I need to look at.” He’s already looked at the second-tier proposal and says, “We’ve got to study it further. . . . Obviously, we know some schools within our area who can play at that level.”

Shumard also knows the direction sought by the football die-hards is strewn with blood on the Astroturf. Give them Division I-A or give them death. “We have until 1995 to meet the requirements,” Shumard says. “We have a couple of years to test the waters.”

Then he adds, almost ominously, “We have an excellent opportunity now to see if our community truly answers the call.”

Officially, the Big West has tabled the two-tiered plan until its November meetings. Officially, Haney says, “Our first priority is to I-A; we want no confusion to where our commitments lie,” but unofficially, he hopes the conference members use the next three months for additional study.

Big West athletic directors and administrators, you have nothing to fear but one-tier itself.