Stop Scheduling FCS Opponents

#52
#52
AboveAllNations said:
This is such a cop-out argument. Sure, we play in the toughest conference, but what's the point in scheduling glorified scrimmages against cupcakes guaranteed to lose by five or six touchdowns? That wastes a home game for the fans and validates criticism from other fan bases that SEC teams are scared of testing themselves against opponents from other conferences.

We just beat one of the best teams from the MAC conference by 29 points. There are plenty of bad FBS teams to play against without having to pay a 200k bonus to host an utterly outclassed FCS team. Even the Vanderbilts and Kentuckys of the SEC should be embarrassed about their FCS games.
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A home game's worth of ticket sales and revenue.


That's honestly about all I've got.

(And the coaches want to keep it because a guaranteed win on the year can make their job easier.)
 
#54
#54
ntxVOL said:
It's more expensive to get an FBS opponent to play in Neyland than an FCS opponent. If the AD schedules a home/home you lose a home game one year. Again, that costs the AD money.

When we played an 11 game season we didn't schedule FCS opponents so there's that.
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That was also because, back then, a win over an FCS/I-AA team could only be used towards bowl eligibility once every 4 years. There wasn't any real advantage or gain to playing one every year.


When the NCAA changed it from 2006 onward to allow teams to schedule 12 regular season games and it started allowing a win against an FCS team to count towards bowl eligibility every season (which I think was changed around the 2004, 2005, or 2006 season)...well, pretty much every school started doing it this way.


(To UT's credit, though, it at least took until 2010 before the school started to schedule an FCS team each year.)
 
#55
#55
ntxVOL said:
A 9 game conference schedule actually hurts the conference as a whole. You give every team another 1/2 loss, which means fewer bowl eligible teams. You would have fewer games overall which reduces game inventory for TV.

Also, it becomes a math problem but, because all your conference opponents now have another 1/2 loss, it hurts the strength of schedule calculations for the whole conference.
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Except that's pretty much the same argument that Majors, Ray Goff, and the other SEC coaches were making in 1991 for why the conference couldn't change from a 7-game conference schedule to an 8-game conference schedule plus an extra conference championship game and still have an overall level of success.


Seems like that had turned out fine.
 
#56
#56
SayNoToJorts said:
I understand that argument but my thinking is that it should eventually become mandatory for all power 5 conferences. SEC has always lead the way and should continue to do so.
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That ship's already sailed.

The Pac-12 already plays a 9-game conference schedule plus a conference championship game.

The Big 12 plays a 9-game conference schedule.

The Big 10 will start playing a 9-game conference schedule plus a conference championship game next year (2016).


The SEC has been pretty resistant to making that change. While some people in the conference (Nick Saban and UT's Dave Hart) had pushed for the change, most of the smaller/non-"big 6" members in the conference (at least Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Miss St, Arkansas and I think A&M too...maybe South Carolina also) and their coaches were heavily opposed to it (mostly because of how difficult it would make becoming bowl eligibility for them...though their ADs tried to pull the home game revenue argument also).



The conference is eventually going to have to make the change, but those last spring meeting talks pretty much showed that it's not going to be until they have to...i.e., when everyone else has and it's becoming detrimental to the SEC not to do such.



(I think the conference is also still using the ACC's current set up as a means of support for what we do, but the only reason they're still playing 8 conference games is because their set up requires 5 members to play Notre Dame each year...so it's really more like they do an 8.5 game set up. They had been planning on changing to 9 conference games a year before Notre Dame joined the ACC, though).
 
#57
#57
ntxVOL said:
I hate playing FCS schools as much as everyone else but I understand why we do it.
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Yeah, easy home game money and all coaches love an extra guaranteed win. It can make their jobs easier (and even more secure).
 
#58
#58
Shakinthefat said:
2014..no FCS games...no Gator Bowl!
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Not true. We could have just as easily played another mid-major (Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, or two independents); those are all winnable matchups last season and we would have still made a bowl game.
 
#60
#60
No need to play FCS teams when you play Kansas, Iowa State, Kansas State, and Okie Light all year.

Oh yeah, the opened up with the tough OOC of Georgia Southern, Liberty, and Maryland.

color me unimpressed.
 
#61
#61
TNnative said:
Your reaching gator. There are around 120 teams in the FBS conferences, and the 4 independents. And there are several that have never been to Knoxville. They have never been asked. Plenty of them would do the one and done.

PS: Are you really a congressman? Figures.
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Though he does have a fair point, as well.

A lot of the mid major conference schools won't take a 1-season/1-game contract (or at least, not regularly) without getting a second game, and more are starting to ask for return home games rather than just taking a slightly higher payment to play it at the bigger school a second time (or to move the game to a neutral stadium).

It's why you saw Mississippi State playing a home game at Southern Miss this season. Another example, why we're seeing Missouri play at Arkansas State this week (Missouri had tried earlier o get the game moved to St. Louis, but by the sound of it Arkansas State wasn't having it).
 
#62
#62
VFL-82-JP said:
I absolutely disagree with the OP.

We're gonna play 8 SEC games each year.

We're gonna play 1 challenging (Power 5) OOC game, on top of it.

The other 3 games are going to be less of a challenge, by design. Every program does it. Including W Va.

Now, whether you're playing #127 Directional Michigan (FBS) or #131 Wofford (FCS), it doesn't really matter to your program. It's a cupcake, you're gonna win, and it doesn't help your SoS.

But to those regional FCS programs, getting a payday for playing you may mean the difference between being able to afford new lights for the football field; being able to hire a sports medicine therapist; being able to try to take the big step up into the FBS ranks.

Why on earth would we NOT want to help out the UT-Chattanoogas and West Carolinas, our neighbors, in this way?

Keep the one FCS game a year. And let the W Va coaches of the world pretend that they're doing a far better thing by playing FBS Georgia Southern of the Sun Belt instead.
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I understand this argument, but you guys kind of act like the bigger FBS schools are scheduling and playing these games as some sort of charitable intention. They're really not.

These games are about getting another home game's worth of revenue (ticket revenue, etc) and playing a school we don't have to pay a lot (or reciprocate too much) in return.

(And on every head coaches' end, it's about getting an extra easy/guaranteed win on the year...in the case of some for bowl eligibility and/or job security.)
 
#63
#63
bamawriter said:
While I get bored with the cupcake games, they are going to happen.

If you make a rule against scheduling FCS opponents, then you'll have an influx of FCS teams moving up to FBS, and the Power 5 teams will wind up playing the same exact schools. This just seems like much ado about nothing.
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That's also a good point.
 
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