lot of people in Division I-A (FBS) football sat up and took notice last week when Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and SEC commissioner Mike Slive raised the possibility of expanding athletic scholarships to include "the full cost of attendance."

Delany and Slive, the two biggest powerbrokers in big-time college sports, said the time has come to consider giving athletes a stipend to cover incidental living expenses, something major academic scholarships already do.

Schools on the lower end of Division I-A, whose budgets are already deep in red ink as they try to keep up with the big boys, feared such a move would further widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots. They were concerned this was just the first shot across the bow in a process where the six BCS conferences will eventually break away and operate as a separate division in college football.

But you know who else noticed what Delany and Slive had to say last week? Guys like Charlie Cobb.

Cobb is the athletic director at Appalachian State University, one of the very best programs in Division I-AA (due to public confusion over the labels, we don't use the official NCAA designations FBS and FCS). The Mountaineers of Jerry Moore won three straight national championships from 2005-2007 and have led the nation in Division I-AA attendance (at 28,000-plus) three times in the last four years.