Move to cost of attendance closer

— -- NCAA president Mark Emmert said Monday there is a "reasonable chance" the five power conferences in college football will be able to offer athletes the full cost of attendance after being granted autonomy to do so sometime after the upcoming NCAA convention.

Emmert, speaking with a group of reporters following a speech to the American Football Coaches Association, said he senses that providing a stipend to student-athletes seems "less controversial" and "less threatening" than it did in the past year.

Later this week in San Diego, more than 1,000 presidents, commissioners, athletic directors and other athletic department officials will discuss the future structure of the NCAA.

In order to decide if schools with the resources should be able to pass rules that would allow for autonomy for the power conferences, the NCAA board, consisting of 17 school presidents, will listen to debate and discussion that could lead to the autonomy being granted.

In this scenario, those schools would be permitted, for example, to grant athletes the full cost of attendance and possibly pass rules in other areas such as agent regulation. It would not preclude other conferences from also deciding to do so.

Emmert also is working toward the consolidation of councils and committees.

A decision on allowing some conferences to have autonomy to vote in certain areas won't be final before this spring, at the earliest.