Despite coming six yards short of pulling off another miraculous come-from-behind victory last Saturday, the Southern Illinois football program at 6-1 is enjoying another successful season under coach Jerry Kill.

The days when the Salukis were the doormat of the Gateway Conference are gone and in the past four years SIU has gone 35-9, including 3 trips to the playoffs and 58 straight weeks of being ranked in one of the major 1-AA polls.

I heard from many people during the past few years who think the Salukis should ditch 1-AA football and the Gateway Conference to move to the 1-A football level.

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This week, I thought I’d delve into what I call the “D-One” question. Before getting into my opinion in the matter, let’s look at some background on what it takes to make the move from 1-AA to 1-A in football.

According to the NCAA, there are several requirements that must be met in order to move from 1-AA to 1-A Football. The first requirement has to do with minimum attendance at home games.

Over a two-year span, the team has to average 15,000 fans. Division I schools also must meet minimum financial aid awards for their athletics program, and there are maximum financial aid awards for each sport that a Division I school cannot exceed.

Despite the success of our football teams over the past few years, the Saluki program is still not drawing enough interest from the southern Illinois region to support us going 1-A in football.

Consider last week’s homecoming matchup vs. Youngstown State. In a thrilling match up of two ranked teams in 1-AA, only 13,188 people managed to attend the game.

Another problem is that if SIU were to leave the Gateway, where would we go? Currently the only viable options, the Sun Belt or MAC conferences don’t offer anything worth making the move up. They don’t have ties to major bowl games. Their basketball conferences are far inferior to the Missouri Valley Conference.

Is moving to 1-A in football also worth having seasons like Western Kentucky is having this year? Is joining the MAC or Sun Belt worth being crushed by Texas or USC and only hoping for a victory against other bottom feeder 1-A schools?

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In my opinion, jumping to 1-A in football right now would be a bad idea. We aren’t even close to averaging enough fans to even think about going 1-A for the next few years. Put the talk about the Salukis moving to 1-A to rest and put the focus on supporting the team.

When the attendance builds higher than it’s current 11,344 average, then would be the time to talk about going 1-A.

But even then, it would have to be a deal that would improve the program, not turn it into another doormat of 1-A Football.

Fruth is a graduate student studying curriculum and instruction.