CHICAGO -- The reasons for expanding the Division II Football Championship are simple and compelling.

The 16-team field has not expanded since 1988. Every other Division II team sport either has expanded its bracket since 1997 or has been approved to do so by 2003.

Division II football's ratio of playoff opportunities to sponsoring institutions is the highest by far of any Division II team sport. Only one of about every 9.5 sponsoring institutions qualifies for the football championship; the next highest ratio is 1:7. Three sports are 1:5 and one is as low as 1:4.

Moreover, football has by far the highest participation of any Division II sport. For 2000-01, 13,260 Division II student-athletes participated in football, almost double the number taking part in second-place baseball.

So, football has the most participation, the least inclusive playoff opportunity ratio and has gone the longest time without bracket expansion of any Division II team sport. Taken together, they form a powerful argument for the expansion of the field.

But if the devil is in the details, Old Scratch is going to have to work overtime on this one.

In reality, an entirely secular entity -- the Division II Football Issues Project Team -- is working its way through the matter. The group met for the second time June 23-24 in Chicago and made progress through a complicated political, financial and competitive maze.

And what a labyrinth it is.

Here is the principal issue: The division recently met a mandate from the NCAA Executive Committee to equalize championship opportunities among men and women. Because football involves so much participation, any increase in bracket size not accompanied by a commensurate increase in women's opportunities would tilt overall championships participation back in favor of men. Such an outcome would be unacceptable to the Executive Committee, a moot point since nobody in Division II is talking about unbalancing championship participation opportunities for men and women.

Instead, the project team is committed to creating corresponding women's opportunities. However, such an approach means that football bracket expansion will be doubly expensive and raises the question of whether women's championships will become diluted through expansion resulting from a larger football bracket.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the division has a potential hole card to fund bracket expansion for football and selected women's sports (expanded brackets in volleyball and lacrosse and a new championship in bowling have been discussed). That funding source would be the one-third of the $3.6 million Division II Enhancement Fund that is distributed equally to each Division II institution. This year, that amounted to about $5,000 per institution.

At first blush, that figure seems small enough to be of little consequence for individual campuses. Average annual expenses for Division II programs with football are $1.6 million; for programs without football, annual expenses average $1.15 million. Thus, the $5,000 check from the enhancement fund comes to less than one-half of 1 percent of a typical institution's athletics expenses. (In at least some cases, the money ends up in institutional general revenue accounts and does not directly benefit the athletics department or student-athletes.)

In addition, the money would be used only on a temporary basis until Division II revenue increases enough to cover the additional championship expenses, possibly as early as 2006-07. After that, disbursements to individual campuses from the enhancement fund could resume.

But not every Division II institution sponsors football. In fact, 107 of the 260 current active members (41.2 percent) do not. And therein lies one of the political rubs. Each one of those institutions would take a $5,000 hit and not get any football benefits in return. Further, the new women's opportunities might not benefit any specific institution.

"This would be a tough sell for my school," one administrator said. "We don't sponsor football, lacrosse or bowling, and we make the volleyball tournament every year anyway."

Division II team approach

Jerry E. McGee, president of the Wingate University and chair of the project team, said he understands the concern but believes the division can work through the issue.

"It's been my experience in the last 10 years when I've worked with Division II that people are pretty good about looking at the entire division family without an undue amount of concern about their individual operations," he said. "I think as long as they are convinced that this is a good thing to do for the long-term good of Division II, they will be willing to give up a small amount of money."

The football model with the most support at the moment appears to be a 24-team bracket, an expansion of eight teams that would cost about $650,000 annually. That would increase the field size by 50 percent, which is more good news. However, the expanded field would lead to another part of the maze, which involves how the field would be composed.

The issue is a big one since it involves the eternal debate over whether a championship should include the top teams or whether it should provide additional opportunity for conference champions.

The sentiment of the project team is to try to get the best of both elements through an "earned-access" philosophy that would apply to all football-playing conferences with at least six members. Football-playing institutions would be divided into four geographic regions, with two divisions per region (about 20 institutions per division). Each region would feature six playoff teams -- the two top-ranked teams (as ranked by advisory committees) from each division, plus four at-large teams from either division in the region. The two top-ranked teams from each division would earn a bye from regional competition the first week of the playoff. The "earned-access" standard would stipulate that a conference would "earn" (or be guaranteed) a qualifier if a member institution is ranked in the top 10 of the region's final football poll. The ranked team would not necessarily be the conference champion.

That means that rankings would be more important than ever, which leads to another section of the maze: What would the selection criteria be for 2003 and beyond?

Ranking the teams

The project team spent considerable time on that issue at its June meeting and came out focused on a model that involves a strength-of-schedule index and criteria involving such elements as head-to-head competition, overall won-lost record, results against common opponents, records against ranked teams based on the last regional ranking, the eligibility and availability of student-athletes, and results vs. non-Division II opponents. The project team is committed to making the weight provided to a strength-of-schedule index at least as much as the criteria used to measure a team's won-lost record.

While the centerpiece of the study involves finding ways to expand the championship bracket, the ultimate objective is the enhancement of Division II football in general. In that regard, the group is taking a "first-do-no-harm" approach. That was revealed in a discussion about how many Division II opponents should be required annually in football.

The subcommittee of the project team examining the issue originally believed that the number should be eight, but after a lengthy project team discussion, it became apparent that such a requirement could be a significant burden for West Coast institutions, where Division II opponents are few. In fact, committee members expressed concern that additional scheduling requirements could prompt some Western programs to give up the game.

Noting that the selection criteria under consideration would reward an institution for scheduling quality Division II opponents, one football coach said, "With the changes, is it necessary to go to eight? We don't want to push some programs over the edge."

Ultimately, the project team conducted a straw vote on the issue, with all members endorsing a minimum of six Division II opponents for playoff eligibility, the current standard.

And so it went throughout the June meeting. Ideas would hit the maze wall, take a turn and come out in what may be a better place.

The list of other important issues under consideration goes on and on:

The Division II Commissioners Association has floated a plan to conduct the first round of the tournament through "bowl games" that would be staged through corporate underwriting. The benefit is that the NCAA would bear no additional expense. The liabilities are that the event would be vulnerable if corporate support disappeared at some point in the future; also, the plan would need to be executed in a way that assures that postseason opportunities for men and women continue to be equal.

An expanded bracket will affect the existing balance between the regular season and the postseason. The options are to move the championship date back, eliminate the open-date flexibility of the current regular season, reduce the number of permissible regular-season games, permit exempted-contest dates in certain years or move up the start of the season.

Various health and safety issues will be addressed as part of the review. They include spring practices; skill instruction; out-of-season conditioning; preseason practices; length of season in the championship segment; nutritional supplements; whether to require seven game officials, rather than six; and tobacco use.

The project team also is exploring ways to promote Division II football through television, the Internet and other media.

Ultimately, not a single issue under consideration represents an earth-shaking change. Rather, the challenge is found in coordinating a long series of small- to medium-sized modifications, many of which relate at least indirectly to one another.

"We think we have a wonderful game," McGee said, "and it doesn't need a major overhaul. Regardless of the political ramifications, we need to move forward with the ideas that we think will make Division II football a better game for everybody."

Just don't look for three yards and a cloud of dust as the division moves forward to enhance football. The resolution of this issue will involve many open-field twists and turns.

McGee making the calls on and off the football field

The chair of the Division II Football Issues Project Team knows about a hands-on approach to football. In fact, he knows when a hands-on approach is permitted and when it's not.

Jerry E. McGee, president of Wingate University, is among the most veteran game officials in Division I-A football, having called about 300 games over 28 years. He has officiated Division I-A games for the last two decades and currently calls Atlantic Coast Conference games.

McGee was an alumni director at a small college when his officiating career began. He retained the avocation as he climbed the career ladder, serving as a vice-president at Gardner-Webb University, Meredith College and Furman University. But when he became president at Wingate in 1992, his officiating career faced fourth-and-long.

"The only reason I didn't give it up then was that I accepted the presidency in the summer, and I had already signed a contract with the Big East for that fall," he said. He planned to meet that commitment and then leave the game, but over that season, he discovered he could manage both tasks.

Not that it has been easy.

"Physically, we probably never get out of shape," he said, describing the preparation required of an official. "During the summer, you work awfully hard to get in condition. Every Monday night in June, July and August, the officials in the Charlotte region get together for an hour and a half session, go over rules changes and just basically work our way through the rules book three or four times and make sure we have a perfect understanding of the rules."

He must understand them better than most since his résumé includes postseason assignments for 14 of the last 17 years, including the Orange, Fiesta and Rose Bowls. He also has called two Army-Navy games.

Ultimately, it is a lot of labor, but at least it is a labor of love.

"I figure the amount of time I put into studying, visiting institutions and going to clinics, we probably make about 14 cents an hour," he said. "But it is well worth it because we truly do love the sport."