In the NCAA, Division III universities are the smallest and non-scholarship. Iowa has a bunch of them (Wartburg, Luther, Simpson, Central, etc.).
Division II allows for scholarships. Upper Iowa is the only one in the state, which creates the fun oddity of Fayette being a town with a university but not a high school.
Division I-AA (no I will not use the Newspeak term “Football Championship Subdivision”) is made up of the smaller universities from the Division I split in 1978, and the designation is for football only. This includes UNI, of course, and Drake, which is one of a handful of non-scholarship universities in the division (they have their own conference, the Pioneer League).
And then there’s Division I-A, which consists of the teams you hear about every day and their less-moneyed brethren. The top 64(ish) teams in this division are the BCS, soon to be Power Five, teams.
Anyway, with all that said, my question is: If the biggest teams want to create their own division of NCAA sports, since the size and money involve increase as the number gets smaller, shouldn’t the chatter be about a “Division 0” instead of a “Division 4”?
To further the Iowa angle of this post, UNI has found itself as a somewhat unintentional poster boy for the lower-tier have-nots because former UNI/Iowa AD and current Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby remarked at media days, “Northern Iowa and Texas aren’t much alike.” That got Dennis Dodd (linked above) to opine,
Northern Iowa has almost nothing in common with Texas but has the ability to vote down a stipend because it can’t afford it. What the BCS commissioners are saying: Why is Northern Iowa voting on the issue in the first place?
UNI may also reflect the situation at hand more than some because state demands to be self-sufficient (thanks, Big Ten Network!) have put athletics programs in something of a cash crunch. That’s why the Panthers got a paycheck from Wisconsin last year and why they’re regularly on ISU’s schedule. And that’s the reason for voting against a stipend.