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Division II football bracket expansion, women's flag football proposal among key …

Division II members voted to make football an automatic qualification sport, replacing the earned-access model. According to Division II championship policy, bracket expansion must be considered when automatic qualifiers make up more than 50% of the field. With 16 conferences eligible for automatic qualification in 2025, 57% of the current 28-team bracket would be composed […]

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4 weeks ago

April 16, 2025

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Division II football bracket expansion, women's flag football proposal among key ...

Division II members voted to make football an automatic qualification sport, replacing the earned-access model.

According to Division II championship policy, bracket expansion must be considered when automatic qualifiers make up more than 50% of the field. With 16 conferences eligible for automatic qualification in 2025, 57% of the current 28-team bracket would be composed of automatic qualifiers. To accommodate this shift, the bracket would need to expand to 32 teams. There will be no change to the championship date formula. However, the four No. 1 seeds will no longer receive byes under this new format.

“This move toward expansion reflects our commitment to fairness and opportunity across Division II football,” said Roberta Page, director of athletics at Slippery Rock and chair of the Management Council. “As the division adds automatic qualification in football for the first time this fall, it’s essential that our championship structure evolves to match that growth. Most importantly, this change gives more student-athletes the chance to compete for a national title and be part of the championship experience they’ve worked so hard to reach.”

Women’s flag football

The Management Council also sponsored a 2026 NCAA Convention proposal to add flag football as an Emerging Sport for Women.

The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics, which oversees the Emerging Sports for Women program, has recommended that each division sponsor legislation to add flag football. Once in the program, a sport must have a minimum of 40 schools sponsoring the sport at the varsity level and meet minimum contest and participant requirements (as reflected in the NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Database) to be considered for championship status.

Flag football has been one of the fastest-growing sports in the country. At least 65 NCAA schools are sponsoring women’s flag football at either the club or varsity level this year, with more slated to join in 2026. Flag football also has been added as a sport for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

Eligibility Review Working Group

The council received an update on the work of the Division II Eligibility Review Working Group, a 25-member group composed of members of the Division II Academic Requirements Committee and Legislation Committee. The chairs of the Division II Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Management Council and Executive Board also serve on the committee as ex officio, nonvoting members.

The review started with a focus on issues surrounding seasons of competition and period of eligibility. The group also reviewed feedback from the Division II governance structure and affiliated groups on areas that should be addressed due to the current landscape in intercollegiate athletics.

A Division II membership survey was sent this week to seek feedback on the initial concepts developed by the group. The group will use the survey results to make final recommendations to the Management Council and Executive Board this summer.

Division II operating plan

As part of the development of the Division II operating plan, the Management Council reviewed the results of the Division II Membership Survey, which was last distributed in 2018. The survey was the final phase of information gathering to receive membership input before the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee begins drafting initiatives, timelines and funding priorities for final approval by the Management Council and Executive Board this fall.

Management Council members discussed whether consistent issues raised in the survey results should be added to the operating plan for continued focus by the division.

Other items:

Football officiating: The council approved allowing officiating crews in the football championship to be made up of the same number of officials as their respective conferences use throughout the regular season.
Cross country selections: The council approved changing the cross country selection criteria so that head-to-head competition has more weight when selecting at-large teams, effective for the 2025 championship. A head-to-head win now counts as a 1.5 win, whereas second-tier comparisons count as a 1.0 win.
Third-party relationships: The council approved in concept a noncontroversial proposal to provide schools, conferences and the national office with more flexibility to enter into agreements with third-party organizations. If approved in legislative form in July, the proposal would be effective Aug. 1.
Tryouts clarification/medical exam: The council approved in concept a noncontroversial proposal to clarify that a medical examination for currently enrolled students must be administered within six months before their participation in a tryout. If approved in legislative form in July, the proposal would be effective Aug. 1.

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Related Topics:academic athlete competition finance flag football football group new Olympics review rock season sports team working

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Luke Fickell addresses potential roster limits, impact on players

Last week, the attorneys representing the NCAA and power conferences agreed to a revised plan to phase in roster limits as part of a revised House v. NCAA settlement before Judge Claudia Wilken in the U.S. Northern Districk Court of California. The proposal, which would effectively grandfather all current student-athletes and any that were preemptively […]

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May 11, 2025

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Last week, the attorneys representing the NCAA and power conferences agreed to a revised plan to phase in roster limits as part of a revised House v. NCAA settlement before Judge Claudia Wilken in the U.S. Northern Districk Court of California. The proposal, which would effectively grandfather all current student-athletes and any that were preemptively cut before the settlement was finalized, would appear to satisfy Wilken’s request last month.

And while Wilken is currently considering the revised proposal, if approved, the House v. NCAA settlement would pave the way for revenue-sharing between NCAA schools and student-athletes, with some programs able to share between $20-22 million annually, or 22-percent of the average Power Five school’s annual revenue, along with approximately $2.75 billion in back damages to former college athletes over a 10-year span. It would also mean strict roster limits in football (105), men’s and women’s basketball (15), baseball (34), softball (25), men’s and women’s soccer (28) and volleyball (18).

But, at least for any coaches concerned about having to cut players three months before the start of the 2025-26 academic school year, the amended settlement would seem to be a welcomed relief. Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell, for one, explained the complicated balancing act football coaches have faced in recent months amid the ongoing uncertainty about the true impact of the settlement.

“I think the hardest thing about that is (that there are) some of the guys within your program that even in the winter we had some conversations with to say, ‘Hey, I don’t know what this thing is going to go to. If it goes to 105, we’re going to have to make some tough decisions.’ So there are some guys I think that could be looming in their head,” Fickell said last month during Spring practice. “If they do make this decision and it does come down and it is across the board, meaning everybody is going to have to conform to it, and there’s going to be obviously somebody paying attention and making sure everybody is on the same page. Then we’ll address that.

“(But) no, we can’t go about doing the things and building the things expecting to have to cut down, but I know that could be difficult on some guys that are curious what’s going to happen, and what their opportunities are going to be.”

Fickell admitted many of those conversations have already taken place at Wisconsin, though no definitive decisions will be made until the settlement has been approved and guidance is provided to programs.

“We have. And just trying to be forthright, … we care about all these kids, especially the guys that have been here for a while. If and when they do go to that, there’s going to have to be some tough decisions made. And it’s not going to be easy,” Fickell continued. “We don’t know the parameters to it all, we don’t know what that entails. Can guys be in waiting, can they still be apart of some things? We have no idea. So for us to jump too far ahead other than just being really honest and open with guys, and making sure they know what we feel and where we are with things, but not making any decisions.”

The devil is in the details, and until Wilken officially approves all parts of the revised House v. NCAA settlement, college football coaches like Fickell remain in wait-and-see mode.

— On3’s Pete Nakos and Nick Schultz contributed to this report.

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Tommy Tuberville: “NIL is in dire need of restructuring”

A college sports commission is coming. And it’s coming for the money the players are now making. If that wasn’t obvious, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) made it so in comments to CNN that were broadcast on Sunday. “He’s got a commission that he’s putting together,” Tuberville said regarding President Trump’s plan to save college sports […]

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1 hour ago

May 11, 2025

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A college sports commission is coming. And it’s coming for the money the players are now making.

If that wasn’t obvious, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) made it so in comments to CNN that were broadcast on Sunday.

“He’s got a commission that he’s putting together,” Tuberville said regarding President Trump’s plan to save college sports from itself. “I’ve recommended some people to go on it, of course. I’ve been working on it for four years. Nick Saban is gonna be involved. I think the NIL is in dire need of restructuring.”

And there it is. When Tuberville says “NIL is in dire need of restructuring,” he means that the players need to be making less money. And that they need to have less flexibility to go from one school to another, in order to make more money — or to simply be happier with their situation.

Earlier this month, Tuberville made his views clear regarding the preferred outcome during a radio interview: “Everybody would be on the same level. We’ve got to come up with some rules for the transfer portal, possibly a contract for players. We do not want to turn into minor league sports. I talked to [Auburn men’s basketball coach] Bruce Pearl a few weeks ago, he says it’s a disaster, absolute disaster in basketball, and I’m sure it goes over into football and some of the other sports.”

It’s a “disaster” for the schools, not the players. It’s a “disaster” for the school because decades of antitrust violations have yielded to a free market for player services. And, like so many other issues that aren’t really issues, some in politics are trying to take a trumped-up “disaster” and make it into a crisis that cries out for a solution that isn’t actually needed.

And, of course, Tuberville believes that anyone who opposes an outcome that saves the colleges to the detriment of the players hates America.

“I think we can get [legislation] on the floor, the problem is getting it past a Democrat group that really wants nothing to do with making this country better,” Tuberville said in the same radio interview. “They don’t care about college sports or education, they worry about the power that they control in this country.

What of caring about the players who will see their compensation drop and mobility restricted as a result of the NIL reform? Does it “make the country better” to artificially restrict someone’s earnings and flexibility?

Aren’t we all supposed to have the right to pursue happiness?

Tuberville, Saban, and their ilk are trafficking in multiple false presumptions, in an effort to engineer “happiness” for the colleges and the coaches. One, that college sports is broken. Two, that the colleges shouldn’t be expected to fix the problem on their own. Three, that big-time college sports is truly about education. Four, that there’s something bad about young men making as much money as they can.

It’s all one gigantic crock of shit. At its core, this is about a certain group of people making things the way they want them to be, not the way they need to be. And if, as we predict, the upcoming college sports commission has no true voice to advocate for the rights of the players, it will be a sham aimed at turning back the clock to the days when the colleges (and the coaches) had the power and the players didn’t.

Here’s what they want, in a nutshell: Amateur sports from the perspective of the players who will once again be exploited by the system, and professional sports from the fat cats who can return to the days of lighting their backroom cigars with $100 bills.

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Rich Rodriguez Openly Discusses NIL Issues on College GameDay Podcast

Share Tweet Share Share Email While it’s no secret that college football is in an awful spot, West Virginia‘s new head coach, Rich Rodriguez, made a powerful statement about just how tough things are. Rodriguez recently appeared on the College GameDay Podcast with Rece Davis and Pete Thamel and referred to college football’s current landscape […]

Published

1 hour ago

May 11, 2025

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