If you couldn’t make it to the NFCA Convention earlier this month, fear not, because we have you covered. Day two of the NFCA Convention in New Orleans included the individual college caucus sessions. Division I, II, III and NAIA, were broken up into separate rooms for a three-hour long session. Topics of discussion at the Division I caucus were updates and reports on legislation, the direction things are heading, possible rule changes, and the hot topics. See the five key takeaway notes from the NCAA DI Softball Caucus below:
- Change in Super Reginal Format: In 2017, the Super Regional format will be three days long instead of two. If there is a game three, the third game will be played on a third day, unlike in years past when game three was played as a double header following the outcome of game two. There will also be a post season 64 team conference call after the selection show for the first time ever this year – good luck to all participants.
- Additional 48 team tournament: There will be a 48 team tournament added in 2017 for the teams who don’t make it to the postseason. This tournament will be similar to the NIT Tournament in College Basketball. The 48 participating teams will be selected one hour following the NCAA Selection Show. There will be 32 automatic qualifiers and 16 at-large qualifiers. 8 teams will be regional hosts that welcome four to eight teams to their venue. The masterminds behind this additional tournament are Triple Crown Sports.
- Possible survey items: This was a pretty long list that surprisingly wasn’t discussed in full detail at the Division I caucus. The list of items was highlighted and left at that. The list below, are a few of the “possible” rule changes that will be voted on this Spring.
- Obstruction Calls, defense player ball in glove
- Illegal pitches, ball on batter only, base runners will not advance
- International walk, pitchers not required to throw pitches
- Allow coaches to just point for a substitution
- Limit # of offensive and defensive conferences per game
- Limit # of player to player conferences in an inning
- Give pitchers four warm-up pitches rather than five
- Clock between innings, speed things up
- Experiment with use of instant replay
- Rawlings: Is now the official Softball for NCAA Championship play, whereas it used to be Worth in the past. The audience was assured that it’s the same softball, just with a different brand name stamped on it.
- Scholarship Expansion: This is happening in other women college sports as well. For those who don’t know, every women’s sport is given 12 full ride college scholarships. There has been a discussion about expanding the scholarships to 13 or 14 which would make a huge impact on college softball, especially recruiting. A few other adjustments regarding college softball teams are the credentials listed below:
- 20 Student Athletes in Uniform
- 30 person travel limit
- 35 People allowed in the dugout
For more information regarding the Division I Caucus, as well as the other Division’s, check out the NFCA Convention App for the presentation outline/agenda and the legislation talking points.
