The NCAA board of directors’ formal approval Thursday of a 12th regular-season football game starting in 2006 will keep the Colorado-Colorado State game in Denver on a permanent basis.
The schools had an oral agreement for the move if a 12th game was approved. This year’s game will be Sept. 3 in Boulder and will move to Denver on Sept. 9, 2006, when it’s CSU’s turn to host.
CU was tentatively scheduled to host CSU in Boulder in 2007, but the schools had an agreement in place to move the game to Invesco Field at Mile High once a 12th game was ratified. That would allow CU to schedule a sixth home game in 2007, a requirement former athletic director Dick Tharp insisted happen before agreeing to return the series to Invesco.
The teams have averaged about 74,000 fans in games at Invesco in recent years. The schools signed a nine-year extension to the series last year.
CSU AD Mark Driscoll has said a 12th opponent for the Rams would probably come from the Division I-AA ranks.
“The season will not be elongated; it just means the bye week would be taken out,” NCAA president Myles Brand said. “Nor will it lead to any additional midweek games.”
The NCAA also announced Thursday that Division I-A schools could use a win over a I-AA team annually for bowl qualification instead of once every four years. With a 12th game added, the board wants teams to have a minimum 7-5 record for bowl eligibility.
Also, the NCAA announced it was amending the I-A annual average home attendance requirement to 15,000 paid tickets once every two years, including students, from a 15,000 actual turnstile count.
Wyoming had raised the issue of using paid tickets instead of turnstile counts in case of poor weather or other circumstances beyond a school’s control that might have an impact on the turnstile count.
