Let’s Stick Together, Sky Commish Says

Doug Fullerton, in only his second year as commissioner of the Big Sky Conference, seems convinced that his league must bargain strictly from a position of strength - even if it be at the Division I-AA level if it hopes to stay afloat in the turbulent waters of college football.

Fullerton, addressing a gathering of media members at this year’s 16th annual Big Sky Conference Football Kickoff, acknowledged that Montana and a couple of other longtime league schools might have already been targeted by the Big West Conference for future expansion.

But he said he hopes the commitment the Big Sky has made to its nine member institutions, including newcomers Cal State Northridge, Cal State Sacramento and Portland State, will be enough to stave off any advances from the Big West and let his conference map out its own future.

“Obviously, (the Big West) is looking for members,” Fullerton said of the Division I-A conference that lured Idaho and Boise State out of the Big Sky last year. “They have to be looking for members and stability.

“Are the University of Montana and Montana State attractive to the Big West? I think they are. But I think there are still a lot of advantages to being I-AA.”

Fullerton pointed out that the Big West is not among the eight biggest Division I conferences in the country and does not have a vote on legislation governing college football’s elite universities, nor a say in the Bowl Coalition, which is swiftly moving toward a system to determine a national champion on the playing field.

By contrast, he noted, the Big Sky had six teams under consideration for a spot in last year’s Division I-AA national playoff, which was won by Montana. And despite the fact that only two teams - Montana and Idaho - made the playoffs, each of their postseason games was better attended and more widely hyped than the Las Vegas Bowl, which played host to the champions of the Big West.

Fullerton said the problem the Big Sky faces is lack of media exposure, particularly on television.

“We have great institutions, we just don’t have enough television sets to get to I-A,” he explained.

Fullerton hopes that beefed up coverage as part of the league’s contract with Prime Sports, along with the addition of substantial television markets in the Sacramento, Northridge and Portland areas, will help remedy that problem. And he indicated the league might eventually decide - as a block - to make the step to Division I-A, provided the current member institutions stay the course.

“Our strategy is to consolidate our efforts as a conference on being the best I-AA conference in America,” Fullerton said, “to keep our television strong, to keep our football and academics strong and to keep our student-athletes strong.

“Then, in two to three years, if it’s to our advantage to maybe accept teams or to do some other restructuring as a conference, I’ve told the (league’s) presidents I’ll lead that effort. But it won’t do us any good if, in two years, we’re not the strongest I-AA conference in America. We won’t have any cards to play.”

If the league remains united and strong, Fullerton said, it might have the opportunity to accept other schools into the league and perhaps move up to Division I status.

One factor working against that scenario is a recent NCAA decision that prevents schools from being multi-divisional with their athletic programs.

A prime example, Fullerton explains, is Georgetown, which, until recently, was able to build a nationally renown Division I basketball program while allowing its football program to stumble along at the non-scholarship Division III level.

Most of those schools, Fullerton said, have opted to upgrade their football programs to the Division I-AA level in order to keep scholarship costs at a minimum. And there is increasing pressure among those perennially powerful basketball schools to decrease the football scholarship limits even further.

“So all of a sudden we have a voting block moving into I-AA that has a different focus than the Big Sky Conference schools, where we have big institutions with a great commitment to football,” Fullerton explained. “But again, I’m saying the Big Sky should be strong enough to dictate, as a block, what we want to do in two years, rather that being fragmented and have people pick us off.”

Down the tube

Prime Sports, in the fifth year of its seven-year contract with the Big Sky, will provide live television coverage of seven conference football games this fall.

The network, which is scheduled to begin a new affiliation with Fox Broadcasting in October, will open its Big Sky football package with a Sept. 21 telecast of the Northern Arizona-Portland State game from Portland. Kickoff is set for 12:30 p.m.

The other six telecasts, with Pacific Standard starting times, are as follows: Oct. 5 - Montana State at Eastern Washington, 12:30 p.m.; Oct. 26 - NAU at Montana, 11:30 a.m.; Nov. 2 - Idaho State at NAU, 7 p.m.; Nov. 9 - Portland State at Montana, 11:30 a.m.; Nov. 16 - Cal State Sacramento at MSU, 11:30 a.m.; Nov. 23 - Weber State at ISU, 11:30 a.m.

Each conference school, with the exception of Cal State Northridge, will get at least one Prime exposure. Three NAU games will be televised.

Sac State fits

Cal State Sacramento coach John Volek made it clear during Friday’s opening day of the Big Sky Media Day that his school and the inland northern California region known as Superior California is a better fit with the Big Sky Conference than most people realize.

“Superior California is a different state,” he said. “It fits with the Big Sky. We have snow, we have mountains, we have rivers and we catch salmon and steelhead.”

To strengthen his point, Volek pointed out that Tony Corbin, his starting quarterback, hooked a 5-pound salmon last fall and brought it to practice to give it to his head coach.

“He hung it in his locker in his ice bag,” Volek said. “That (fishing) is what he did between classes. That’s what relaxes him.

“And if he give me a fish, I don’t care.”

, DataTimes