Divisions?

© Copyright 2005, Paul Kislanko

The NCAA is properly concerned about the status of Division 1AA and Divisions 2 and 3 are not without their own worries when it comes to college football. While it is often used as an argument that all divisions except 1A have a playoff system, it is worth remembering that none of them are revenue-producing.

Within division 1A there's also the argument that the BCS system is somehow "unfair" to the teams that are not in a BCS conference. In 2005, at least, that seems to not be very relevant - there is a larger performance gap between BCS and non-BCS teams as there is between division 1 and all the other divisions.

One could almost say that Division 1A is de facto subdivided into two divisions. Perhaps it would be worth while to look at divisional realignment instead of conference realignment in the next round of changes.

Through week three BCS teams are 68-6 (.919) against non-BCS teams, and 24-1 (.960) against division 1AA teams. Non-BCS teams have a similar record against 1AA teams (15-1, .938). That gives Division 1A as a whole a 39-2 record vs 1AA teams (.951).

Meanwhile, though week three (of division 1 play - some divisions began a week earlier) there have been 60 games between division 1AA teams and teams from division 2, division 3 and the NAIA. In those games, 1AA teams are a combined 46-14 (.767), indicating a greater gap between BCS and non-BCS than between Division 1 and all other divisions.

1A 1AA Pct
1A   39-2 0.951
1AA 2-39   0.049
D2   9-25 0.265
D3   4-6 0.400
NAIA   1-15 0.063
nD1   14-46 0.233
  BCS nBCS
BCS   68-6 0.919
nBCS 6-68   0.081

See the list of all interdivisional games involving Division 1 teams, and the list of games between BCS and non-BCS teams.

Also see the 29 September Update article.