{"id":1554,"date":"2010-10-08T09:06:35","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T15:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2010-10-08T09:06:35","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T15:06:35","slug":"ncaa-football-parity-apparent-in-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/ncaa-football-parity-apparent-in-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Football Parity Apparent in 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sixteen Years Ago, Rule Change Finally\u00a0Offering the Have-nots a Chance to Compete<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Schools like Boise State now have a chance to compete nationally.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The changes actually\u00a0began to take shape thirty-two years ago in 1978.\u00a0 That’s when the NCAA<\/a> decided that bullying in big-time football would no longer be allowed.\u00a0 Bullying might be a bit harsh, but it is true that smaller DI programs were being left in the dust of fast moving DI powers as they annually scooped up practically all the available prep talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, after a steady reduction in permitted scholarships over a three year time frame,\u00a0the final\u00a0reduction occurred\u00a016 years ago in 1994 when all DI\u00a0programs were assigned a fair number of scholarships to\u00a0offer, 85.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1973, a school could offer an incredible 105 football scholarships.\u00a0 That was reduced in 1978 to 95, in 1992 to 92, in 1993 to 88, and in 1994 to the current 85.\u00a0 No longer allowed to recruit anybody and everybody, the traditional powers were finally put on the same recruiting\u00a0platform as\u00a0the also-rans.\u00a0 But, it’s taken\u00a0that full\u00a016 years for the impact of the scholarship reduction\u00a0limits to finally bear fruit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking at the most recent NCAA DI\u00a0football polls offers proof.\u00a0 Yes, you still\u00a0see some of the same\u00a0familiar\u00a0names of long time power schools like Alabama<\/a>, Ohio State<\/a>, Oklahoma<\/a>\u00a0and Nebraska<\/a> affixed once again in the Top Ten<\/a>, but programs which in the day would have been\u00a0relegated to the second-tier are\u00a0now regularly showing up\u00a0alongside the big boys.\u00a0 Boise State<\/a>, Utah<\/a>, TCU<\/a> and Nevada<\/a> are in the current Top 25.\u00a0 Five, ten or fifteen years ago, such a thing was unheard of for the most part.\u00a0 Out?\u00a0 Texas<\/a>, Notre\u00a0Dame<\/a>, Tennessee,<\/a> Clemson<\/a> and Colorado<\/a> are a few schools experiencing an uncommon down year.\u00a0 They may not be\u00a0in the basement very long, but the point is that they are there now and it’s shocking to see.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Was the NCAA wise to put the brakes on?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0\u00a0Genuine\u00a0parity has emerged.\u00a0 The NCAA scholarship limitation rules are working as intended.\u00a0 And, college football is better for it, and more interesting than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sixteen Years Ago, Rule Change Finally\u00a0Offering the Have-nots a Chance to Compete The changes actually\u00a0began to take shape thirty-two years ago in 1978.\u00a0 That’s when the NCAA decided that bullying in big-time football would no longer be allowed.\u00a0 Bullying might be a bit harsh, but it is true that smaller DI programs were being left … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}