As the 2005 college football season nears, changes on and off the field since the end of the 2004 campaign have served notice that the game many believe to be stronger than ever also is more volatile than ever.

In Division I-A, for example, schools already are adapting to the changes necessitated by the adoption of the 12th regular-season game beginning in 2006.

A new Bowl Championship Series format that substitutes the soon-to-be-formed Harris Poll in place of the Associated Press Poll as part of the formula for determining teams that play for the national championship and the expanded use of instant replay among various conferences are hot issues, too.

At the I-AA level, a proposal sponsored by the Ohio Valley Conference to grant football student-athletes five years of eligibility will garner attention this year. Administrators also are talking about the nomenclature of the subdivisions themselves in light of concerns that the current I-A and I-AA labels are incorrectly applied to sports other than football, a clear disadvantage for I-AA schools.

There's bowl eligibility, attendance requirements and the new Academic Progress Rate to consider as well.

All of those issues figure to be elevated as one of the NCAA's two most visible sports gets underway this month.

Debate over a dozen

The 12th game drew heavy criticism from the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics and the faculty-based Coalition for Intercollegiate Athletics. All recommended that the Division I Board of Directors defeat the proposal in April, but the measure passed by a wide margin.

Opponents had posed the health and safety of student-athletes and additional time demands as reasons to stay the 11-game course, but the Board found no threat of additional injuries, and CEOs pointed to the notion that student-athletes preferred a game to practice during a bye week anyway.

Now that the additional game is here, it will be up to those who make their living in the sport to adapt.

"We certainly understand the rationale for the 12th game," said Grant Teaff, the executive director of the AFCA. "But our coaches wanted people to know their thinking on this issue. Our membership was overwhelmingly against playing 12 games, but that's what the presidents wanted and that's what we're going to do. Everyone will just make the best of it."

Teaff said making the best of it might be difficult under current scholarship parameters. He pointed to attrition rates among scholarship players over the last two decades that show most programs starting with about 80 players and descending from there.

"You start out with 80 scholarships, then redshirt eight or nine players, and say you get five or six hurt and you have two or three hurt coming in. All of a sudden you're down in numbers," Teaff said.

The obvious answer would be to increase the number of scholarships for football, but most everyone agrees that the ripple effect would create too many fiscal and gender-equity concerns.

From a fiscal standpoint, the 12th game -- if it's a sold-out home game -- will surely add revenue to most athletics departments. For example, Pennsylvania State University, which traditionally sells out its home games at Beaver Stadium, can generate upwards of $3.5 million for one contest.

How to schedule the 12th game is another play for athletics directors to design.

Some may schedule I-AA opponents and give them a guaranteed payout in exchange for what most likely will be a victory, but that could affect a team's standing in the BCS formula where the average of six computer ratings take strength of schedule into account.

At this point, I-A teams must have a winning record to become bowl eligible. Unless legislation is proposed, 6-6 won't earn a holiday trip in 2006, and institutions can count only one game against I-AA opponents per year.

But institutions from I-A conferences such the Mid-American see the 12th game as an opportunity to increase exposure.

"Our philosophy is to have a balance, making sure we're meeting our financial guarantee but having a balanced competitive schedule in which we're playing attractive opponents, especially at home -- playing teams that people want us to play," University of Akron Athletics Director Mike Thomas told the Akron Beacon Journal.

The Pacific-10 Conference has told its members to keep the 12th game in-house, which will allow for a true round-robin.

"What that does for you is give you a true champion," said Pacific-10 Assistant Commissioner Jim Muldoon. "We supported the 12th game all the way. We surveyed our senior football players in the years that 12 games were allowed and found that most of them were in favor of the 12th game."

Determining a I-A champion

The BCS has been under heavy media scrutiny since it was established in 1998 as the way Division I-A would determine its national champion.

Through the years the formula has been tweaked to make the process as smooth as possible. Last season, the University of Utah became the first institution from outside the so-called six major conferences (the Atlantic Coast, the Big 12, the Big East, the Big Ten, the Pacific-10 and the Southeastern) to receive a bid to one of the major four bowls.

But criticism emerged when Texas leapfrogged California in the final ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll for a Rose Bowl berth despite the Bears winning their final game while Texas was idle.

That led to a demand that votes in the poll should be made public. The AFCA has decided to make its final poll public, but ESPN has taken its name off the coaches' poll.

The Associated Press has also told the BCS that its rankings are not to be used in the calculations.

Seeing media outlets defect from the procedure hasn't deterred BCS administrators or AFCA members from the current system, though.

"If you stick your finger in a gallon of water and take it out," Teaff said, "there wouldn't be a hole left. This has the same effect."

For 2005, the BCS formula will be composed of the coaches' poll, a new Harris Interactive Poll and the average of six computer rankings. Each poll will be equally weighted on a one-third basis in the composite standings, with the top two teams meeting January 4 in the Rose Bowl.

Harris Interactive, a Rochester, New York-based market research firm, will have a poll of 114 voters by the start of the season with nominees presented by 11 major conferences, independent schools and the University of Notre Dame.

Unlike the coaches' poll, which has preseason rankings, the first Harris Poll won't be published until September 25, four weeks into the season.

"We always felt that preseason human polls are a weakness -- it is important to see the results of games played in that season before ranking the teams," said BCS coordinator and Big 12 Commissioner Kevin Weiberg during a July news conference to announce the new poll.

Play it again

As unsettled as the BCS formula may be, instant replay is settling in as a fixture in the college game.

Last season, the Big Ten adopted a review system to overturn mistakes made by on-field officials. After receiving positive feedback, other conferences and several postseason bowl games will implement a replay system.

The idea wasn't expected to be well-received early on, but many people have given instant replay the benefit of the doubt after seeing it implemented correctly.

"The important point for the majority of the coaches is that the decision is still being made by an official," Teaff said. "A coach doesn't have to throw a flag out there and defend his timeout (like the NFL system requires). It's not going to be in 'peanut' situations, either. It's going to be in a game-changing critical situation."

The NCAA Division I Football Issues Committee has set some parameters for conferences to follow, but it will be up to individual leagues as to how any replay system is designed.

In general, there will be a replay official in the press box, and it will be up to his discretion to contact the on-field officials on whether play should be stopped for review.

One more year

The Ohio Valley Conference has submitted a proposal calling for a fifth year of eligibility. Though the proposal covers only I-AA football student-athletes, OVC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher has talked with I-A peers about co-sponsoring the measure. He preferred not to say who the possible co-sponsors would be, but the ACC had a proposal on the same issue in the last legislative cycle before withdrawing it in January.

On the surface, the proposal may seem to favor the elite programs, but Steinbrecher doesn't see it that way.

"When you look at the data on how long it's taking our kids to graduate, it is taking essentially five-plus years," Steinbrecher said. "Given that, why not do this? It simply makes sense. It will increase our graduation rates. It certainly will help motivate our kids to stick around for that fifth year and earn their degree. Why not provide an opportunity to play? It won't increase our scholarship costs, and I don't see a downside to it."

Steinbrecher said a fifth year also will help programs meet the new Academic Progress Rate standards.

It also would end the common practice of redshirting. That, Teaff said, would reduce paperwork for hardship waivers.

When the ACC made its proposal last year, it found that leaders in sports other than football were opposed.

"With any piece of legislation there are pros and cons," said ACC Associate Commissioner Shane Lyons. "People in some sports feel kids are graduating in the four-year window with a couple of summers thrown in. They may feel four years is long enough, because they don't have the redshirting that football has.

Football's argument, though, is, 'We are different because of the redshirts.' It really didn't surprise me, however, that some other sports felt it may not be a good idea."

Like the Ohio Valley Conference, the ACC believes a fifth year will benefit the student-athletes academically.

"We feel a lot of students who aren't redshirted play their four years of eligibility, and then they have to decide whether to go somewhere else and play football or stay and graduate," Lyons said. "Some make that choice to go elsewhere even if they don't make it to the NFL; they go play arena football or Canadian football. They might leave being short 20 hours or so from graduation."

What's next

If those issues aren't enough, the AFCA is looking at others. One of them is the proliferation of combines and off-campus football camps. In recent years, some institutions have allowed their football coaches to conduct camps several states away from campus. That practice doesn't break any NCAA bylaws, but it is pushing the envelope on whether it is a positive for the sport.

The AFCA has set up a task force to study the matter.

"We have surveyed our coaches on all of these issues, and there is an overwhelming feeling that we need to pull the ol' Barney business and 'nip it in the bud'," Teaff said. "One of the things we're concerned with is the poor assistant coaches. They can only do so many camps in a summer. I have been extremely impressed with the wisdom of the coaches and the recognition that enough is enough."

The AFCA also is looking for feedback on the new recruiting standards that include institutions no longer being able to fly prospects in for an official visit on private planes. That particular legislation was part of a recruiting reform package developed by an NCAA task force last year. Some institutions whose campuses are not located near a major metropolitan airport have complained that the legislation puts them at a disadvantage.

"But coaches adapt extremely well," Teaff said. "They take negatives and turn them into positives. Youngsters by and large have a pretty good idea, particularly nowadays, where they want to go. I doubt seriously that making a 60- or 70-mile drive is going to affect anybody adversely at all."

If it does, the powers-that-be will have another issue waiting on the table.