After years of inconsistency between the NCAA and its football conferences, the NCAA record books will recognize players’ statistics in bowl games.
Sean Straziscar, assistant director for statistics for the NCAA, said starting this year football’s record keeping methods will be the same as other sports.
“Football was the only sport that we did not count postseason statistics up until now,” he said.
“It’s really just falling into place with all of our other sports.”
John Lewandowski, MSU’s assistant athletics director, said he supports the decision.
“I’m all for it,” he said. “We have advocated it for a number of years. Football’s traditionally been just a regular season schedule.
But with all the preseason games now and the conference championship games, it only makes sense for all the games to be included.”
The Big Ten and some other conferences around the country have already started counting bowl games in their respective record books.
MSU started the practice when the Big Ten began recognizing bowl game statistics in 1988.
The NCAA doesn’t have plans to make the decision retroactive to past bowl games, and Lewandowski agrees.
“Once the Big Ten began to recognize bowl game stats, we didn’t go back prior to that and try to make it a retroactive effect either,” he said
“We didn’t go back because there weren’t the number of bowl games.”
For the 2002-03 football season, there are 28 scheduled bowls, including new games in Charlotte, N.C., Hawaii and San Francisco.
Also, there are more preseason games, meaning some teams might play as many as 15 times this season.
Tom Schott, sports information director for Purdue University, agreed it’s time the NCAA made the adjustment.
“It was silly not to,” he said. “In every other sport they include the postseason.”
Schott added that he would like to see the NCAA go back into the record books and add in bowl games from the past.
“I think it’s doable,” he said.
“I can understand them not wanting to go back right now. I hope at some point they go back.”
John Heisler, associate athletics director at Notre Dame, said he’s a “traditionalist” who would have voted against the change.
But he understands the desire for conformity with other collegiate sports.
He said the average fan most likely already thinks bowl game statistics are included in the NCAA record books.
“I’m not sure it’s going to make a big difference,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
