Division I

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This article is about the NCAA division. For the Swedish Association football (soccer) league, see Division 1.

Division I (or DI) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States.

1 History
2 Subdivisions
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

"D-1" schools are the major collegiate athletic powers, with larger budgets, more elaborate facilities, and higher numbers of athletic scholarships. This level was once called the "University" division of the NCAA in contrast to the "College" division; this terminology was replaced with the current numeric (I, II, III) divisions in 1973. In football only, Division I was further subdivided into Division I-A (the principal football schools) and Division I-AA in 1978. Subsequently the term "Division I-AAA" was added to delineate Division I schools which do not field a football program at all.

A controversy recently arose in the NCAA over whether schools will continue to be allowed to have one showcased program in Division I with the remainder of the athletic program in a lower division, as is the case of, notably, Johns Hopkins University in lacrosse and Colorado College in ice hockey. This is an especially important issue in hockey, which has no Division II competition and has several Division II and Division III athletic programs competing in Division I. This controversy was resolved at the 2004 NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tennessee when the members supported Proposal 65-1, the amended legislation co-sponsored by Colorado College, Clarkson University, Hartwick College, Johns Hopkins University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rutgers University-Newark, St. Lawrence University, and SUNY Oneonta. Each of these schools is allowed to grant financial aid to student-athletes who compete in Division I programs in one men's sport and one women's sport.

[edit] Subdivisions

Subdivisions in Division I are important only in football. In all other sports, all Division I conferences are considered equivalent. The subdivisions were recently given names to reflect the differing levels of football play in them. Additionally, the sport of ice hockey has a completely different conference structure that operates outside of the normal NCAA sports conference structure.

[edit] Division I-A

Division I-A (Football Bowl Subdivision) football is the only NCAA-sponsored sport without an organized tournament to determine its champion. Schools in Division I-A compete in postseason bowl games, with schools from the most elite conferences competing in the Bowl Championship Series to determine a national champion.

Division I-A schools are currently limited to a total of 85 football players receiving financial assistance. Due to the fact for competitive reasons a student on partial scholarship counts fully against the total of 85, virtually all I-A schools that are not on NCAA probation give 85 full scholarships. The service academies—in this context, Army, Navy, and Air Force—are exempt from this rule, as all of their students receive full scholarships from the federal government.

Conferences competing in Division I-A

^$ These conferences are members of the Bowl Championship Series. This means that their conference champions receive automatic bids to the highly lucrative BCS bowls.

^ These conferences are "mid-major" football conferences, and do not receive automatic bids to play in the BCS. Their conference champions may still be invited to play in the BCS as one of the four available "at-large" or open BCS slots, provided that they finish high enough in the BCS polling procedure.

[edit] Division I-AA

Division I-AA (NCAA Football Championship Subdivision) determines its champion in a 16-team, single-elimination tournament.

Division I-AA schools are currently restricted to giving financial assistance amounting to 63 full scholarships. Unlike I-A schools, I-AA schools may give partial scholarships, but are limited to 85 players receiving any sort of athletic financial aid for football. However, competitive forces mean that a substantial number of players in I-AA programs are on full scholarships. Yet a few I-AA conferences are comprised of schools that offer no athletic scholarships at all, most notably the Ivy League, as well as the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and the Pioneer Football League, a football only conference. Until very recently, the Northeast Conference also sponsored Division I-AA non-scholarship football, but starting in 2006, the NEC will allow a maximum of 30 full scholarship equivalents. Still, the Pioneer Football League, MAAC, and NEC will continue to be classified, at least for now, as Division I-AA "mid-major football" conferences. A national championship team for this level of football is determined annually (since 2001) by a poll conducted by The Sports Network. The #1-ranked Division I-AA mid-major team is awarded The Sports Network Cup on the eve of the overall Division I-AA championship game. (The non-scholarship Ivy League is not part of Division I-AA mid-major football. In fact, the Ivy League operates independently from all other college football conferences and does not participate in postseason play. However, the NCAA still considers its teams to be part of Division I-AA.)

Conferences competing in Division I-AA

Atlantic Ten Conference (A-10)^$†
Big Sky Conference^$
Big South Conference^
Gateway Football Conference^$
Great West Football Conference^
Ivy League ^{^}
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) ^
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)^$
Ohio Valley Conference (OVC)^$
Patriot League^$
Pioneer Football League ^
Southern Conference (SOCON)^$
Southland Conference^$
Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) ^

^$ The champions from these 8 conferences receive automatic bids to the 16-team postseason tournament to determine the national champion. The other 8 slots are filled by at-large bids.

^ These conferences do NOT receive automatic bids to the postseason tournament. Teams in these conferences are still eligible to be selected for one of the 8 "at-large" spots, however. It should be noted that the Ivy League, while eligible under this system, does not compete in postseason play and its teams would turn down any offer to play in the tournament. The winners of the two subdivisions within the SWAC play in the SWAC title game; as this game conflicts with the I-AA playoffs, these teams do not participate in that tournament. Schools in a transition period after joining I-AA from Division II are also not playoff eligible (for example, North Dakota State is ineligible until 2008.)

^† The Atlantic 10, a former non-football (I-AAA) conference, began football play when the former Yankee Conference disbanded in 1997. Most of these schools did not join the A-10 in other sports. The A-10 will return to non-football status with the disbanding of football operations following the 2006-2007 season. The Colonial Athletic Association will join Division I-AA to take over football operations for these schools.

[edit] Division I-AAA

Division I conferences that do not sponsor football leagues are informally known as Division I-AAA. These conferences still compete in Division I for all other sports. In addition, several I-A and I-AA conferences have member institutions that do not compete in football. For example, the Big East Conference has 5 Division I-AAA members: DePaul University, Marquette University, Providence College, Seton Hall University, and St. John's University, New York.

Conferences competing in Division I-AAA

^† The Colonial Athletic Association will take over football operations from the Atlantic 10 Conference following the 2006-07 season. The A-10 took over operations from the Yankee Conference, a single-sport football conference which disbanded in 1997. As most A-10 football schools competed in the CAA for other sports, it is a more logical arrangement

[edit] Division I Ice Hockey

As ice hockey is limited to a much smaller number of almost exclusively Northern schools, there is a completely different conference structure for teams. These conferences feature a mix of teams that play their other sports in I-A, I-AA, I-AAA, and even Division II and Division III. There is no correlation between a team's ice hockey affiliation and its affiliation for other sports. For example, the Hockey East men's conference consists of one ACC school, one Big East school, four schools from America East, one from the A-10, one CAA school, and two schools from the D-II Northeast Ten Conference.

Conferences competing in Division I Ice Hockey