CSUN’s Big Sky Ties May Hinge on Football

If Cal State Northridge joins a proposed West Coast-based Division I-AA cost-containment, football-only conference, its chances of joining the Big Sky Conference in other sports, including men’s and women’s basketball, could be hampered.

But Big Sky Conference Commissioner Ron Stephenson said that his expansion committee will still visit the Northridge campus Feb. 11.

“They would be a little less attractive if they weren’t bringing football,” Stephenson said Friday. “I would suspect we would not expand to institutions without football, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and track and field.

“But I can’t respond to how the (university) presidents feel.”

Northridge officials will take part in a meeting of potential members of a proposed cost-containment, football-only conference Jan. 31 at Northridge.

But CSUN Athletic Director Bob Hiegert is keeping an open mind to playing football, and other sports, in the Big Sky.

“I talked to them (Big Sky expansion committee) and they are as excited about visiting us as we are about having them,” Hiegert said Friday.

Hiegert reiterated, however, that he is interested in the Big Sky only if it adds several members so it can divide into divisions and thereby save on travel costs.

Although the Big Sky does not offer seven of the sports that CSUN sponsors, Hiegert is encouraged because some of the other candidates that might join the Big Sky (Cal State Sacramento, Southern Utah, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Davis) do offer most of those sports.