The mounting debt left over from Fry's tenure reach a point where the NCAA ruled the program could not financially compete at the Division I-A level and the team was subsequently demoted to Division I-AA status. In 1982, the university recognized that the athletics program had a deficit of $1.6 million and voted to join the Southland Conference. The program experienced little success in subsequent years, but in 1995, a coordinated campaign by donors to purchase large blocks of seats at Fouts Field spiked the average attendance enough for the school to enter Division I-A once again in 1995.