Just a single additional letter makes such a difference.

Once again it’s the shameful “A” — not colored scarlet, but still a marker that separates the lords and the serfs of college football. One “A” (as in Division I-A) and you’ve got it made. Two “A’s” (as in Divison I-AA) and you’re indebted to a life of wiping floors and serving cold cabbage soup.

In college football, Division I-A means bowl appearances, national television games and top-selling merchandise.

Division I-AA means obscurity, games tape-delayed on cable access and merchandise that only sells if the team’s nickname can somehow be construed into sexual innuendo.

There are other indicators of the power — or lack thereof — held in a single, additional letter. On the occasion that teams from these two divisions meet on the football field, as did I-A Syracuse and I-AA Rhode Island on Saturday, the single A invariably prevails.

Syracuse’s 63-17 victory this weekend, although expected, only fortified the importance of its Division I-A status. Take the I-A out of Virginia, for example, and it’s nothing but a Virgin.

Which is fitting, because I-AA teams come packaged as the forbidden fruit for Division I-A schedule-makers. Only once every four years can I-A teams like the Orangemen count gimme wins against I-AA teams toward their official victory total.

Such a rule comes with good intentions, essentially the NCAA’s mandate that the big boys shouldn’t pick on the little kids with (two) straight A’s. And here, much like in the schoolyard, size reigns supreme.

Just a brief tale of the tape: the smallest I-A stadium (Idaho) is 16 times larger than the smallest I-AA field (Canisius).

The Orangemen fielded an offensive line Saturday that featured four players at 300 pounds or higher, all of whom pounded away at a Rhode Island team without a single player — offense or defense — weighing over the 300 mark.

The SEC has 12 teams, or exactly three times more than the I-AA Big South Conference.

And it’s not just the stadiums or the players or the conferences.

Size also applies to the media guides. Powerful I-A schools like Tennessee or Notre Dame put out media guides that looks like the Holy Bible (and for some of their fans, the two are indistinguishable). On the other hand, Division I-AA teams have media guides that could be written entirely on the backside of a Hallmark card.

True, once in a while these tiny schools will find a stroke of luck. Randy Moss, now a star receiver for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, fell into the hands of I-AA Marshall in 1996 after failings with Notre Dame and Florida State. In his freshman season, Moss led the Thundering Herd to a 15-0 record, a I-AA national championship and some rare notoriety. So what did Marshall do just one season later?

It proudly tore the second A into ribbons and made the jump to I-A.

This is no slight to the underlings of I-AA. To be sure, they’ve produced a share of remarkable players — Steve McNair from Alcorn State and Jerry Rice from Mississippi Valley State, just to name two. Their decision-makers also somehow escaped the brainwashing of the I-A bowl-game advocates and created a 16-team championship playoff.

Still, the differences were shown once more this weekend in SU’s victory. Coaches could have taken all their numbers — 4-3 defenses and eight-yard curls and double coverages — and let them blow through the vacuum-compressed doors of the Carrier Dome. They were irrelevant.

Because every once in a while, all the scientific game planning and strategizing makes no difference. Sometimes, football is as simple as a single letter.

Chico Harlan is a staff writer for The Daily Orange. His column appears each Tuesday — except for this week. E-mail him at apharlan@syr.edu.

Published on September 17, 2002 at 12:00 pm