Matadors’ II-for-I Switch Will Be Rough

For Cal State Northridge, 1992 might be a good time to remember what Division II football is like.

The Matadors should think fondly of last Saturday’s 16-14 victory over UC Davis.

That’s because next year Northridge, and the rest of the Western Football Conference, will move into Division I-AA.

Northridge got a taste of Division I the first week of the season when it was defeated by Cal State Fullerton, 28-7. Fullerton’s program has been so shaky that it narrowly escaped being discontinued the last two seasons.

So is this what the WFC has to look forward to? Losing to Division I weaklings?

Probably. But much depends on how many non-WFC games each team decides to schedule.

“You understand that we will probably not be competitive for the I-AA championship because I-AA financial aid is at 65 (full athletic scholarships),” said Vic Buccola, commissioner of the WFC. “Our schools are at 44, and that will be going down to 32.

“We were pleased and happy with where we were (as a Division II conference), but the NCAA legislation is causing us to make the move.”

That legislation says that by 1993, Division I universities must conduct all their sports at the Division I level. Thus, schools such as Northridge, which is Division I in every other sport, will have to move its football program to Division I.

The least painful way to do it is to move into Division I-AA, which has a lower scholarship limit than Division I-A.

“As we go on to Division I-AA, we’re going to go much below (32 scholarships),” Buccola said. “In April we sent out a letter indicating a conference will be established with scholarship models of 20 full-equivalent scholarships, based on athletic ability, with a cap at 38, counting all aid.”

However, that letter brought only four schools that would align with the WFC. Santa Clara decided to drop out of the WFC this year and Portland State will remain in Division II, though both will continue to play WFC schools. That leaves Northridge, Southern Utah, Cal State Sacramento and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as the teams moving up. UC Davis indicated that it intends to join, but not immediately.

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Northridge is coming off a 3-7 season and is not expected to challenge for the conference championship, so a loss to the Titans was expected. Portland State will probably win the conference title with a little pressure from Cal State Sacramento.

But after defeating UC Davis, Northridge can be optimistic about challenging, since Davis and Sonoma State are considered the top teams in the Northern California Athletic Conference.

College Division Notes

Cal Poly Pomona’s new women’s volleyball coach is Rosie Wegrich. She replaces Gene Krieger, who resigned last spring. Wegrich had been the coach at Arizona for the last 15 seasons.