Somehow this story slipped through the cracks over the weekend, but the Washington Post has reported that the NCAA Division I-A Athletic Directors Association instituted a written policy mandating that athletic departments interview at least one minority candidate for open head coaching positions in football.

Of course, this is a derivative of the so-called “Rooney Rule” that the NFL utilizes, which requires every team to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching vacancies, and has been cited for helping to increase the number of minority coaches in the NFL to its current level.

There are a couple of things about this new rule that I find interesting. First, where is the fanfare? After all the browbeating that’s taken place over the last five years regarding low minority hiring rates for head football coaches, I figured this story would get a lot more play. Even though there’s no enforcement arm attached to this new rule, it’s still a substantial step in altering the hiring process, as noted in the article.

Second, I find it very interesting that they’ve only applied this rule to football programs. Why stop there? I understand that college basketball has a better track record of interviewing and hiring minority candidates than college football, but still — if this is really about “best practices”, as the representatives for the AD’s Association are claiming, why stop with just one sport?