I-A vs I-AA: Divisions explained

The setting: your couch, a few days past Christmas Day. Bowls of queso, salsa and chips rest on your coffee table. You're sitting in your comfy armchair, awaiting every college football fan's favorite time of the year: Bowl Season. You get to see all those marquee match-ups, like the infamous USC-UT game only a year ago. You'll hear about the Division II champs and the Division III champs, but you probably just nod your head, store the facts in some useless corner of your brain and then settle in for your game of choice. But, unknown to most college sport fans, there's one more division, one that even lacks its own defining number.

Division 1-AA football? Huh?

Not only is there such a thing, but Division I-AA is the division Princeton plays in.

That's not to say that our entire athletic program does, however. You won't find Division 1-AA hockey, soccer or basketball. That's because the Division 1-AA designation is reserved exclusively for football. But why?

"I'm guessing it came from a philosophical difference between Division 1-A schools," Associate Athletic Director Erin McDermott said. "Some want to invest more in their programs than others, from an athletic scholarship point and a stadium viewpoint — a revenue viewpoint, as opposed to other schools who aren't able to generate that revenue for their programs."

Football is by far the most expensive of sports, simply because of the large number of players necessary to put a team on the field.

"There's a lot of expense attached to football," McDermott said. "Programs hope they can generate enough revenue to make up for that expense, some have above what they spend and some don't."

Naturally, one would expect the dividing line between Division 1-A football and Division 1-AA football to be centered on money. Essentially, it is.

There are certain conditions that determine whether a school is classified as a Division 1-A or a Division 1-AA football program.

"1-A sports have a minimum requirement of at least 16 varsity sports," McDermott said. "There's also a scheduling requirement — 60 percent of the schedule must be against other 1-A schools."

In addition to administrative matters, 1-A schools also have two other requirements that deal with scholarships and attendance.

"The first one is an attendance requirement. Attendance at your home games needs to be 15,000," McDermott said. "You have to average 15,000 over two years at your home games. The other one is a financial aid requirement. For that one, you need to be an athletic grant and aid school, as in your school provides athletically-related aid. In other words, athletic scholarships. Additionally, 90 percent of the permissible maximum in football must be given to football, and Division 1-A institutions must offer a minimum of 200 grants in aid across your athletic programs."

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1-AA requirements differ from 1-A requirements in a variety of ways. 1-AA schools need only have 14 varsity sports, and only 50 percent of their games need to be against 1-A and 1-AA institutions. When it comes to the other categories, however, no rules are stipulated.

"I-AA football doesn't have the scholarship or the attendance requirements," McDermott said. "All Ivy League schools are 1-AA because of the scholarship requirement. Some schools do offer athletic scholarships, but in the Ivy League no one offers scholarships."

Princeton and the other Ivy League schools differ further from their fellow 1-AA teams because they are not allowed to contend for the 1-AA championship — an issue that has been widely debated in recent months.

"It's a presidential decision that football can't participate in the postseason playoff, even though all of our other NCAA-sponsored sports are allowed to," McDermott said. "There are two main issues — concern over missed class time and tradition. Football has the largest traveling squad, so more players would miss class time. Also, there's the tradition of the Ivy League Champion. The season culminates in an Ivy League Champion, it's a tradition."

Asked whether she thinks there's a possibility for change on this issue, McDermott replied that there's always a possibility for change, but that it's highly unlikely.

"The issue has sparked more discussion among athletic directors, the presidents, and so forth," McDermott said. "There's a possibility for change, but I don't see it happening."

What will change, however, is the delineation of the two divisions. Often, third parties will call other university athletic programs Division 1-AA, when that simply isn't the case — only football can be regarded as a Division 1-AA program. All other programs are referred to as Division 1.

Consequently, the NCAA is going to implement a name change. Division 1-A is to be called the Bowl division, while Division 1-AA will be referred to as the Championship Division, hopefully reducing misnomers in the future.