Big Sky vs. Sun Belt
Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 7:46 pm
This article was posted on the Red Zone. Some interesting remarks from BSC commish, Doug Fullerton about Cal Poly and Davis squeezing the WAC, how BSC athletics budgets are "bigger and healthier" than the Sun Belt, and the possible future BSC being separated into FBS and FCS divisions.
http://missoulian.com/college/griz/spel ... _form=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;“We’re probably in one of the most interesting times in college athletics that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been in the business since 1971,” he said recently at the Big Sky Kickoff in Park City, Utah.
Fullerton has this competitive edge that serves him well. He’ll tell you flat-out one of the benefits of adding Cal Poly and UC Davis to the Big Sky football lineup was squeezing the now-defunct football WAC.
“There are only three of us playing football in the West – the Pac-12, Mountain West and Big Sky,” said the former Army helicopter pilot. “Our access to quality student athletes will continue to go up.”
Fullerton would love for the University of Idaho to join the Big Sky football ranks. He talks with school officials all the time and he’s not real impressed with the Vandals’ Sun Belt Conference affiliation.
He expects a new NCAA governance structure to give the top five FBS conferences more freedom to pay athletes beyond full-ride scholarships. Leagues like the Sun Belt will have a terrible time keeping up financially, leaving them in a precarious position.
“Our athletic budgets right now are not only bigger, they’re healthier,” Fullerton said in comparing the Big Sky to the Sun Belt. “We built our budgets on success. They built their budgets on getting beat by the bigger schools.
“They need the money and the big FBS schools need the win to support their bowl (hopes).”
Here’s the real kicker when it comes to the straight-talking Fullerton: He has this idea to cut the next big crises off at the pass by dividing the ever-growing Big Sky into two leagues – one playing football on the FBS level and one in the FCS. The unprecedented move would appease the ambitious and solve some ongoing Big Sky scheduling problems in multiple sports.