The Division I-AA Football Committee is joining with the Greater Chattanooga Sports and Events Committee to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the southeastern Tennessee city hosting the Division I-AA Football Championship game.

The committee — which met February 15-17 in Key West, Florida — and representatives from Chattanooga are in the brainstorming stage of ensuring that the current and past student-athlete experience will be enhanced.

“It’s a wonderful concept to look at the 10th anniversary and highlight the various games throughout that span,” said Division I-AA Football Committee Chair Roachel Laney. “One of the ideas is to bring back certain athletes at the banquet/luncheon and show highlights from previous games. They could do something on the Internet where people could vote on the most outstanding play in the 10 years the game has been held there.”

Stakeholders in Division I-AA football have been happy with Chattanooga as the host city, and they point to recent trends to support their contentment. For example, attendance has increased in each of the last three years, including a crowd of 19,219 for the 2005 championship game between nearby Appalachian State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Finley Stadium’s capacity is 20,000.

The fact that both institutions were making their first appearance in the final contributed to the big crowd in 2005 — both teams had reached the semifinals multiple times only to be disappointed in semifinal defeats.

“We have a good relationship with Chattanooga,” said Laney, who is a professor at Appalachian State. “If you look at the last few years, the improvements in the game in television exposure and facility upgrades have been positive.”

In other action, the committee:

n  Discussed ways to improve crowd control during all rounds of the championship, with an emphasis on instances in which fans storm the field to tear down goalposts at the end of games.

“Anytime you enhance the product, you have to look at managing it,” Laney said. “We have to look at it from operations to security. All of those things will be re-addressed.”

• Recommended legislation to allow a postseason bowl game between teams from the Pioneer Football League and the Northeast Conference that were not selected to participate in the Division I-AA football bracket.
• Recommended that neutral officiating crews be used in all rounds of the playoffs, even if the participating teams are from the same conference. Currently, an officiating crew from that league could call the game between two conference rivals.