Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009
A resumption of rivalries is complicated for Cal Poly football
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closeJohn Madden’s deepest desire for the Cal Poly football program has long been to see it return to regularly playing and upsetting well-known California schools — namely Fresno State, San Jose State and San Diego State — like it did when he was a lineman for the Mustangs in 1957 and 1958.
Doing so on an annual basis more than 50 years later, however, is a proposition fraught with complications.
In order to acquire guaranteed games against those teams, Cal Poly would have to move from the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (I-A). After that, it would likely have to join either the Western Athletic Conference (in which Fresno State and San Jose State play) or the Mountain West Conference (in which San Diego State competes).
And, perhaps most importantly, the Mustangs’ 74-year-old stadium would need to grow.
Cal Poly completed a $21.5-million renovation in 2005, but the newly named Alex G. Spanos Stadium seats just 11,075 — and during the past two years, Cal Poly averaged crowds of 9,603. In order to move up to the FBS, Cal Poly would have to average at least 15,000 in actual or paid attendance. The NCAA has put a freeze on any school switching divisions until 2011.
The program is in conceptual planning phases of stadium expansion and is seeking external money to expedite the process, Cal Poly athletic director Alison Cone said.
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