NCAA

Doug Fullerton has proposed changes in the Football Championship Subdivision playoff selection process twice in recent years. He’s about to do it again. Fullerton has spent three decades working on behalf of college student-athletes. He’s been a coach, athletic director and, for the last 20 years, commissioner of the Big Sky Conference. This year, his league was treated harshly by the football selection committee. On the field, the Big Sky was ranked as the No. 2 FCS football conference in the country. Yet, co-runner-up Portland State received the league’s highest national seed — No. 6. “It’s not politically correct for me to be talking as frankly as I am,” Fullerton said the other day in a conference room next to his office at Big Sky headquarters in Ogden. “… We know there are hard decision to be made in that [selection] room. I just think, in the grand scheme of things, the FCS has so much traction right now. The autonomy group [of big schools] has broken away and the Group of 5 is sliding back toward us. “One way to continue what’s happening is to keep things extremely professional. And one way to be extremely professional is to make sure people understand our [selection] process is done correctly.” “Unfortunately, I think the public looks at the process this particular year and doesn’t like it,” he continued. “It doesn’t do anything for our credibility.” Fullerton’s solution? Streamline the selection committee so it does not include athletic directors from every FCS conference who, consciously or not, can become advocates for their own leagues. -Steve Luhm, Salt Lake Tribune, Read More