Exactly!!!
UAB along with about fifty other schools should be IAA, but the big bucks are in IA. The NZAA is to blame for the current state of college football. Between it's stupid rules, selective enforcement, and the plethora of bowl games, college football is no where hear what it used to be.
The minimum attendance requirements are laughable. 15K ?? It should be
at least 30K, and they should count the people that actually come through the turnstiles and watch the game. Now it's tickets sold by the athletic department. Once the school sells a ticket, it doesn't matter whether it's used or not. And to top it off, any ticket sold by the school for at least 1/3 of its face value counts toward meeting their attendance requirements. In 2014 the city of Birmingham bought 5,000 season tickets for $225K. That's 5,000 seats for six home games...that works out to $7.50 per ticket. Between students, fans, the city, various businesses, and concession contracts, UAB should be able to meet NCAA requirements.
It would behoove both UAB and the NCAA for them to be IA. There are what, 42 bowl games now? That's 84 schools that need at least six wins
. A team could get an easy win over a IA UAB
and a IAA school. UAB could travel to, for example, Nebraska as a IA school, collect their million bucks and go back to Birmingham. You hear all the time about schools scheduling IAA teams, but if IA schools only played other IA schools, it would be impossible to have enough bowl eligible teams. Thanks NZAA. Bowl games should be a reward for a job well done...not mediocrity. There should be no more than probably 15 bowl games, but money talks I guess.
30K people actually attending the game and at least eight wins to qualify for a bowl...but we know that will never happen.