Sports

Published: Saturday, Jul. 04, 2009

John Madden Series: One possible Poly future: FBS football

If the Mustangs were to move up, the WAC and Mountain West would be fitting conferences

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If Cal Poly were to move its football program from the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (I-A), the Western Athletic Conference would seem like the most fitting league for the Mustangs to call home.

At new Cal Poly head coach Tim Walsh’s introductory news conference Jan. 9, university president Warren Baker commented that Walsh “has had success winning on the road against WAC teams, as well, and (the hiring committee) noted that.

“Tim has had experience in moving and developing programs,” Baker added, alluding to when Walsh was the head coach at Portland State during its transition from Division II to the FCS in 1996. “That experience was very important to us because, as we look at the future, we need to put together a team that’s going to get us where we want to be.”

In August, Fresno State head coach Pat Hill told The Fresno Bee that Cal Poly, Sacramento State and UC Davis (also FCS schools) are “three universities that have very solid football programs and, in time, I really believe they’ll be a part of the Western Athletic Conference.”

A month later, WAC commissioner Karl Benson told the Reno Gazette-Journal, “The majority of us would like a 10th team,” and, “It’s just a question of who is available and does it make sense.”

It would appear to make sense for John Madden, arguably Cal Poly’s most famous alumnus, who is renowned for his careers as a longtime NFL broadcaster, video-game icon and product endorser.

Madden, an offensive and defensive tackle for the Mustangs in 1957 and 1958, became a public advocate and fundraiser for the school’s football program in the early 1980s but distanced himself from the university in the early 1990s. He said he desired for the school to return to regularly playing and even defeating Fresno State, San Jose State and San Diego State, as the Mustangs did in his playing days.

“That’d be good,” Madden said in a recent phone interview of Cal Poly joining the WAC (in which Fresno State and San Jose State play) or a somewhat similar FBS affiliation, such as the slightly stronger Mountain West Conference (in which San Diego State plays). “My whole thing when I’d say ‘big-time’ didn’t mean I thought (Cal Poly) should go out and schedule USC and Notre Dame — just getting back to where we were.”

Under head coach Rich Ellerson, who took over in 2001, the Mustangs began to do just that.

A renaissance of rivalries

When he met Madden in 2001, Ellerson — who left in December to become the head coach at Army — told The Tribune, “I just want to be an ambassador to the program.”

He certainly did his part in that regard.

Thirty-nine years after their previous meeting, Cal Poly beat San Diego State in 2006 and did so again in their next meeting in 2008. Also in 2006, 48 years after their previous encounter, the Mustangs took on San Jose State, losing 17-7. Cal Poly will play at San Jose State this year and at Fresno State (for the first time since 1985) in 2010 and 2013. Last season, the Mustangs also raised eyebrows nationally by never trailing perennial FBS power Wisconsin before the final play of a 36-35 overtime loss.

“I talked to Rich,” Madden said of the program proving it could handle FBS competition. “We talked about it. But just like all big sports, they become businesses.”

FBS barriers

If it were to move up to the FBS, Cal Poly would have to offer 22 more football scholarships than the 63 it’s allowed to allot in the FCS. Also chief among the financial obstacles for making Madden’s dream a reality would be adding nearly 4,000 seats to Alex G. Spanos Stadium.

“We have several different ways to accomplish the additional seats,” Cal Poly athletic director Alison Cone said of the stadium with one tier of movable bleachers behind one end zone and a garden behind the other. “We’ve had some designs.

“If a donor were really interested in the project and chose to put significant funding in, it happens quicker rather than later,” Cone added.

Cone said she couldn’t comment on specific donors being identified, potential or actual.

“The thing that hurts SLO is that there isn’t a lot of industry,” said Carl Bowser, a former Mustangs fullback who was a year behind Madden in school at Cal Poly. “So where are your corporate sponsors? If you could get the (Central Coast) wine industry involved, those are big-money people.”