Unequal Application: Why the NCAA Should Revisit the FCS Transition Rule
For the second consecutive season, James Madison arrives at Georgia Southern week sitting pretty in the Sun Belt. Once again, the Dukes sport a 5-0 record, and they’re 2-0 in Sun Belt play, which has them leading the Eastern Division. They’re also a team that tests itself: they went on the road three games in a row and won all of them. Virginia’s not a strong Power 5 team, but it’s still a Power 5 school, and Madison won in Charlottesville. The Dukes also picked up a league win at Troy and went to Utah State and bested the Aggies.
With one more win, they’d secure a non-losing season and put themselves firmly in the driver’s seat for the best record in the Sun Belt East. And the worst thing about that is that as far as the postseason is concerned, absolutely none of that matters.
For the second consecutive season, Madison’s going to get victimized by the NCAA’s transition rule, which says any team moving up a level is ineligible for postseason play until completing the transition period. It happened to the Dukes last year when they went 8-3 and won the Sun Belt East, but the NCAA denied their waiver to compete in postseason play. This year, it’s even worse, because they’re not the only ones.
Down in Alabama, Jacksonville State is putting together a fine season in Conference USA. Winnable games with Florida International and New Mexico State remain, which should give the Gamecocks at least seven wins when all is said and done. With Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky at home, eight wins is likely, and nine is very possible.
But neither team will be eligible for the postseason this year, unless there aren’t enough 6-6 teams to fill all the bowl slots. And given the success of these squads, it’s time for the NCAA to revisit what was once a sensible stipulation.
The Cost of the NCAA’s Transition Rule
The NCAA knows going to Division I is a potentially big payday, and moving to FBS an even bigger one. It also knows that a school can bankrupt itself chasing those dollars if it doesn’t do so properly. For that reason, the NCAA wants to make certain a school can handle the move up before it allows teams to access those revenue streams.
As such, the NCAA requires a two-year period of transition from FCS to FBS before a team can play in a bowl game. A conference can let such a team play for a title, but no league wants its champion at home in the postseason, so that doesn’t happen. This is meant to give a new FBS school time to fill its schedule, start playing other FBS teams at home, get its stadium up to par and more.
In theory, the NCAA’s transition rule serves a good purpose. Nobody wants to see a situation like Massachusetts, which thought it was ready for the FBS transition in 2011 after Mark Whipple and Don Brown had elevated the program to a consistent upper echelon FCS team. The Minutemen met the benchmarks, found a partner in the MAC for football and made the jump, expecting eventual success.
It’s never happened. Since 2011, Massachusetts has gone 22-106 in FBS. Even bringing back Whipple couldn’t save things, as his best FBS team in Amherst won just four games. The Minutemen have never played in a bowl, and basically exist just to collect guarantee game checks for the school.
Why James Madison and Jacksonville State Are Exceptions
But what happened in Amherst isn’t happening in Harrisonburg or Jacksonville. And that’s because both James Madison and Jacksonville State had long prepared for these moves. James Madison is unapologetically a football school and has been for years. The Dukes have invested heavily in Bridgeforth Stadium, pay their coaches in a way that’s similar to Group of 5 programs and had high expectations of competing for championships.
While in FCS, Madison wasn’t competing with Colonial Athletic Association programs; it was competing with North Dakota State, the gold standard of FCS. When the chance came to move to the Sun Belt, JMU had been ready for years.
Jacksonville State sat in a similar situation. The Gamecocks hadn’t been quite at Madison’s level, but they had begun to dominate the Ohio Valley Conference. And when John Grass stepped down in 2021, the Gamecocks swung for the fences and grabbed Rich Rodriguez, who had shown he could really coach away from the glare of a job like Michigan’s.
Rodriguez is proving the same again, getting the Gamecocks to five wins in FBS play. Jacksonville State’s only defeats have come to good Group of Five teams in Coastal Carolina and Liberty. That’s the kind of team that can hold its own in a minor bowl game, and one that deserves that chance.
A Proposed Solution for Equitable Eligibility
The plight of Sam Houston State, which is 0-6 in its first season in FBS, shows that the NCAA’s transition rule shouldn’t be entirely eliminated. The rule might not serve everyone, but it’s clear that it still has a purpose for some schools. But the NCAA shouldn’t just enforce it blindly and ignore the reality that some schools have invested in their programs and are ready to go.
Making a visit to Harrisonburg and Jacksonville would have shown that the Dukes and the Gamecocks were both ready for this kind of transition. What the NCAA should do is set up an application process where schools can apply for immediate eligibility for a bowl game if they’ve hit enough benchmarks.
The NCAA can and has broken its own rules before for certain teams; we saw that with St. Thomas moving directly from Division III to Division I when the Tommies got kicked out of their league for winning too often. The association can be strict with deciding who gets approved for eligibility and make the standards stringent in that process. A school like James Madison would hit whatever benchmark it’s given, and such a process would have the Dukes and Gamecocks in a bowl where they belong.