Big Sky dreams for football

Toreros’ perennial dominance raises questions about a change of conference

Eric Boose / Opinion Editor / The USD Vista

When the University of San Diego football team took the field against the University of Northern Iowa on Saturday, it marked the Toreros’ fourth consecutive postseason appearance, and their fifth in the last six years. A week earlier, USD won their 37th consecutive Pioneer Football League (PFL) game, defeating the Jacksonville University Dolphins 47-28. The Toreros have not lost against a PFL opponent in the last four seasons, and have won the conference title for the last six, winning it outright every year except for 2015, when they shared the title with Dayton University. 

San Diego is undoubtedly the king of the PFL, and they frequently are in the top 10 best offenses in the entire Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Quarterback Reid Sinnett ranks 9th in the nation in passing yards this season, and fourth in passing touchdowns. Sinnett is third in completion percentage, and second in quarterback rating. Receiver Michael Bandy is seventh in FCS in receiving yards, and eighth in receiving touchdowns. As a team, USD had the third-best scoring offense this season, averaging just under 42 points per game. The Toreros dispatched each of their PFL opponents with ease, winning conference games by an average of 27.25 points this season. 

In some ways, Torero football is like Gonzaga University’s men’s basketball team. Both teams cruise past their conference opponents while putting multiple players at the top of national statistics charts. In 2017, the Zags considered leaving the West Coast Conference for more competitive regular-season games in the Mountain West Conference. And though the Bulldogs elected to remain in the WCC, it might be time for USD’s football team to consider a similar move, leaving the Pioneer League for the Big Sky Conference.

A move to the Big Sky would certainly bring, among other things, tougher regular-season competition. At season’s end, four of the top 10 FCS teams in the nation played in the Big Sky, with three of them making the top five. On Sept. 7, USD hosted the then fourth-ranked UC Davis Aggies, who finished eighth in the Big Sky. In that game and others, the Toreros proved to be up for the challenge. San Diego came within one yard of upsetting the Aggies, losing 38-35. The Toreros held this year’s playoff opponent, the sixth-ranked Northern Iowa Panthers, to only 17 points in Cedar Falls on Saturday. 

The Toreros are also no strangers to Big Sky opposition. The Toreros’ only playoff wins both came against Big Sky opponents, San Diego beating Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo in 2016 and Northern Arizona in Flagstaff in 2017. Over the past six years, San Diego has played a total of 10 games against teams from the Big Sky conference, with eight of those games being against regional opponents Cal Poly and UC Davis. Proximity is another benefit that a move to the Big Sky would bring USD. No FCS team currently travels further during a season than the Toreros, who made two trips across the country to Florida this year, plus trips to Ohio and North Carolina. The furthest the team would have to travel to play a Big Sky opponent would be to Eastern Montana to play Montana State. 

With the proximity to conference opponents would also come some smaller, tangential benefits. There are four teams in the Big Sky which could qualify as regional rivals for the Toreros: Cal Poly, UC Davis, Sacramento State, and Northern Arizona. A local conference rival is something San Diego football is currently missing, with the closest PFL team being Drake, located in Des Moines, Iowa. 

However, the decision to change conferences comes with some serious obstacles. For what it is worth, Gonzaga still plays its basketball in the WCC, not the Mountain West. 

For San Diego football, a change in conference would bring a lot more losing. San Diego has not beaten a Big Sky team at Torero Stadium in over a decade, cruising past Northern Colorado in 2007 and beating UC Davis in 2008. USD has not improved in recent years. The Toreros are 2-8 against Big Sky Conference teams over the last six years, and those two wins both came on the road. Even then, the teams the Toreros beat finished in the middle of the pack in their conference standings. The same Cal Poly team that walloped the Toreros 52-34 in the season opener finished last in the Big Sky this season. While the Toreros may breeze through their current conference, there is no overwhelming evidence that they would even be competitive following a move to the Big Sky Conference. 

However, any potential on-field thumpings are by no means the biggest obstacle to a change in conference for the Toreros. That would be scholarships. Currently, USD does not offer scholarships for football — no school in the PFL does. For USD to start offering football scholarships would open a can of worms that the school has so far kept closed. 

Of course, San Diego would not be required to offer scholarships in order to change conference, but they would almost certainly be left well behind their new opposition if they did not. Scholarships are essential for recruiting players of the highest ability — players who could help the Toreros compete in one of the best football conferences in the country. Essentially, if USD joined the Big Sky while not offering scholarships, they would be condemned to the bottom of the standings for the foreseeable future.

Preventing that fate is not as simple as just finding room in the budget for football scholarships, but even that would be a feat in itself. If USD were to hand out scholarships which only covered tuition, each scholarship would cost the school $50,450. Under FCS rules, USD could hand out 63 of those scholarships, or almost $3.2 million — more than the school currently spends on its football program as a whole. Even if room was made in the budget to pay for scholarships, there would still be the issue of complying with Title IX restrictions.

Generally, Title IX serves to ensure equity between men’s and women’s college athletics. Among the rules created by Title IX to serve that purpose is the rule that schools’ scholarship spending must be the same proportional to participation. That means if a school gives out $200,000 in athletic scholarships, and the school’s athletes are 50% men and 50% women, $100,000 must be awarded to women and $100,000 to men. Currently, USD pays $7.75 million in athletic financial aid and, thanks to football not receiving scholarships, 40% of that aid goes to male student athletes. 

However, if Torero football players became eligible for scholarships, then that breakdown would almost entirely be reversed, with men representing 56% of scholarship-eligible athletes. The addition of football scholarships at USD could, at the very least, mean less financial aid for female student athletes. It could also mean that more of the financial aid money for male student athletes is funneled into football and less into other sports. Granted, these are hypothetical, but what is guaranteed is that USD would have to make tough decisions about how to handle the inflated cost of being competitive in the Big Sky Conference. 

Those tough questions are certainly worth asking, and may be worth answering. A move to the Big Sky would put San Diego in a conference with some of the strongest football schools in the West, setting up tough games and rivalries with regional opponents. In the long run, the move could set the Toreros on a course to be a national powerhouse, not just a predictable conference-topper. There may not be a clearly right answer, and there are benefits to both staying and moving. At this point, the only wrong choice would be to not consider the move at all. The Toreros are scheduled to visit Montana State in 2021, and will play Cal Poly in each of their next four seasons. Perhaps by 2023, the showdown with the Mustangs will be a conference game.