Big Ten Will Stop Scheduling FCS Opponents

[SLCBengal]

Is this the beginning of the end for FBS-FCS games, or simply a strategy for the Big Ten to catch up with the likes of the SEC? Either way, no more trips to Nebraska...

The Big Ten has agreed to no longer schedule Football Championship Subdivision opponents during non-conference play, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said Tuesday during an appearance on his radio show.

"The nonconference schedule in our league is ridiculous," Alvarez said, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It's not very appealing.

"So we've made an agreement that our future games will all be {Football Bowl Subdivision] schools. It will not be FCS schools."

Read more: USA Today: Big Ten Agrees to no Longer Schedule FCS Opponents

 

[SLCBengal]

The ACC is not following the Big Ten's lead and plans on continuing FCS games...

"Geographically the Big Ten has a different set up. They have a relationship with the Mid-American Conference, which works philosophically, geographically, competitively on a lot of levels. We live in an area where there’s an awful lot of FCS football. We have some responsibility, and I think the SEC will do the same thing. I don’t think they’re going to do what the Big Ten has done, either. We feel like we have a responsibility to the sport in our region to continue to play some of those games."

Because if these games go away, many of these FCS programs will not have the money to support themselves. Payouts from these guarantee games support the entire athletic department.

"I just think it’s not something we would feel good about as a league," Bobinski said. "There’s a lot of FCS teams that are important to the sport of college football and we don’t necessarily want to cut them out."

Read more: ESPN: College Football Nation Blog