The NCAA News - News and Features

July 20, 1998

III Championships Committee refines selection principles

At its meeting July 7-9 in Kansas City, Missouri, the Division III Championships Committee finalized its recommendations on several issues relating to national championship selection principles.

The committee's recommendations will be forwarded to the Division III Management Council for consideration at its July 27-29 meeting in Philadelphia.

With regard to conference automatic-qualification requirements, the committee recommended requiring Division III conferences to have at least seven NCAA members that sponsor the sport on a varsity intercollegiate basis.

Current legislation requires six qualifying members, and the previous Championships Committee recommendation to the Management Council in April had been eight. The committee noted that it had revised the requirements for automatic qualification to ensure greater access for conference champions.

The committee also recommended requiring existing conferences that fail to meet all of the requirements for automatic qualification (as of February 1, 2000) to fulfill all requirements for one year prior to receiving automatic qualification. In essence, this rule would place a one-year waiting period for automatic qualification on conferences that do not meet one of the requirements by the deadline.

In another related action, the committee recommended that members of the conference must play a minimum percentage of their published schedule against conference competition.

However, instead of setting the requirement at a specific percentage for all sports, the requirement would vary by sport. For example, in volleyball, 30 percent of the schedule would need to be played against conference opponents (seven dates if the team played the maximum allowed). In football, 50 percent of the schedule would need to be played against conference opponents (five games if the team played the maximum allowed).

The other proposed percentages were: baseball, 35 percent; basketball, 45 percent; field hockey, 40 percent; soccer, 40 percent; ice hockey, 45 percent; lacrosse, 40 percent; and softball, 35 percent.

The Championships Committee recommended that each sports committee review and react to the proposed minimum percentage requirements in that sport.

In another action, the committee recommended increased emphasis on regional competition. The committee recommended that the primary criteria for selection principles--all regional--be prioritized as follows: (1) winning percentage; head-to-head results; results against common opponents; (2) opponents' winning percentage; and (3) results against teams already in the tournament.

Also, the committee recommended that if all the primary criteria are equal, the remainder of the schedule (for example, NAIA opponents and out-of-region play) may be considered.

Football recommendations

The Championships Committee recommended that consideration be given to expanding the football championship from a 16-team, four-week bracket to a 24-team, five-week bracket, effective with the 1999 championship.

The committee noted that it had had extensive discussion with the membership in developing a model that would meet both the principles set by the Presidents Council and the desires of the membership.

The committee reviewed bowl, subdivision and regional models, in addition to the recommendation it is forwarding, in an attempt to find a format that would fit into an acceptable time frame and provide a postseason experience for student-athletes that is comparable to that offered in other sports without shortening or extending the regular season.

The committee also noted that football student-athletes miss less class time than any other student-athletes; the physical nature of the game precludes playing more than once a week; there is no nontraditional season; and the sport is played in an 18-week period rather than in the 21-week period used for most sports.

In other actions, the committee: