The Big South spring meetings concluded last week, and there was a considerable bit of legislative action that went on, nothing that most readers would be interested in. Two nuggets from the meetings are worth noting, though. Per the Big South’s press release on the matter:

1. In other business, the Big South Conference will distribute more than $630,000 in excess marketing revenues from the 2008-09 season back to its full-fledged Division I member institutions, an average of approximately $70,000 per school.

2. That transitioning member Presbyterian College become eligible for the football regular-season championship beginning with the 2011 season when it reaches full Division I status.
The second one is very interesting, because Presbyterian is eligible for regular-season championships in every sport it competes in now, save for football. Why not on the gridiron?

I’m not sure how many folks here followed the end of the Southland Conference season last year. Central Arkansas went 6-1 in the league and was poised to accept the official Southland Conference championship trophy. But toward the end of the year, it was brought to the attention of the league office that only the conference champion would be eligible to receive the Southland’s automatic bid to the NCAA FCS playoffs. Central Arkansas, like Presbyterian, was in the middle of its transition from Division II to Division I, so it was ineligible for the NCAA Division I postseason. See where I’m going here?

The Southland didn’t want to risk its automatic bid, so it chose, more than halfway through the season, to declare UCA ineligible for the regular-season championship. Texas State was recognized as the Southland’s champion and earned the league’s bid to the playoffs. UCA, understandably, was upset at the whole thing, considering the Bears earned the title on the field.

So it was smart for the Big South to make this distinction early. Presbyterian will play a full slate of Big South games in 2009 and 2010, and those games will count in the regular-season standings for each Big South team. But the Blue Hose cannot be crowned league champs, even if they run the table. The Big South champion will earn an automatic bid to the expanded 20-team FCS tournament beginning in 2010.