SFU makes 'difficult' decision to end Canada's only NCAA football program

Canada's only NCAA varsity football program was discontinued Tuesday, according to an announcement from B.C.'s Simon Fraser University.

In a statement, the university's president described the decision as a difficult one.

"I want to thank all the student-athletes and coaches, past and present, for being part of that history," Joy Johnson wrote.

"However, the football landscape has changed significantly in recent years and we no longer believe we are providing an exceptional experience for student-athletes."

Johnson goes on to explain that the discontinuation of a number of programs in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference left SFU's Division II program as only one of three west of Colorado. Since 2021, the team has been competing in the Lone Star Conference. However, the conference has opted not to continue its affiliate agreement with SFU.

"With the recent announcement that the team will not be invited to continue with Lone Star, we don’t have a conference to play in for 2024,” said Wade Parkhouse, provost and vice-president academic pro tem, in a statement.

"The ongoing uncertainty creates an unacceptable experience for students. As a leadership team, we concluded that football is no longer a feasible sport for SFU."

SHOCKED, SADDENED, DISAPPOINTED

TSN West Coast reporter and SFU alumnus Farhan Lalji says he thinks despite some obvious hurdles in their way, the school could have put up more of a fight to keep the program alive.

“I think we put up the white flag definitely too early,” Lalji told CTV News.

While the obvious solution may appear to be going back to Canadian-governed U Sports, Lalji points out that with the rest of the school's athletic programs still competing in the NCAA, it wouldn’t be that simple.

“They don’t want one-off programs coming in for just a single sport," he said. “So we knew that at some point it was going to require some creative solutions and some pushing, quite frankly.”

“The first answer is probably going to be no, but you expect your student-athletes to be resilient and push back and keep trying, and I’m just not convinced that that’s happened here,” Lalji said.

With SFU out, UBC is now the lone university football team left in B.C.

“This is awful, there’s more B.C. high school players playing at SFU than UBC, it’s just going to drive more players out of province,” said Lalji. “You’ve got to find a way to make this work, if it’s not about money or health and safety, then what are we doing here?”

Lalji says SFU alumni are planning to fight this decision.

The school says students with athletic scholarships for football will be able to keep them for the upcoming academic year. Those who want to transfer to other schools will also be supported.