Scheduling at the FCS level in the West is a slippery slope. As you all know, there aren't any West Coast non-Big Sky schools other than San Diego, and they don't want to play strong non-league scholarship schools outside California. In the last six years, they have played home-and-home series with No. Colorado and So. Utah. Neither have been regular post-season contenders.
So, how should EWU go about friendlier schedules? Keep in mind that losing money to play a home, non-league game isn't an option. That means the price you pay is limited, if you are going to buy a home game. Then you must keep in mind that some of these weaker schools (scholarship or non-scholarship) can play closer to home for just as much money, if not more money. If they want to play a money game, why play one where their travel costs are going to be $40-50,000 instead of $10,000? For the experience of playing outside their region? For the experience of playing on the Red Turf? I'm sorry, but $30-40,000 for most of these schools will pay for fall camp prior to school starting, or help with coaches salaries, or scholarships, or travel the rest of the year, or, or, or.
If you want to do a home-and-home with a school, who gets the first home game has to be negotiated. And over the years, EWU has almost never gotten the first home game in the series. Just last year, Cal Poly had the first home game. Next year, Sam Houston gets the first home game in that series. I know some of you remember Nichols State. I can go back to NE Louisiana in the early 90's on to Southern Utah in 2009, and almost every series has started on the road. Schools don't want to come up here. It's not a recruiting area for them. It's expensive to get to. It's hard to win in Cheney. So on and so on...it's been a problem for years that no AD has been able to solve consistently.
Stadium expansion will help, provided it leads to better crowds. If EWU can start attracting crowds of 10-12,000 paid, then obviously they have roughly twice the amount of money to work with. Plus stadium expansion and increased crowds will help balance the budget in times of decreasing state support and increasing tuition costs.
I understand many fans might not be happy to have Toledo on the 2013 schedule. If you look at next year's league schedule, you will see some road trips to very difficult-to-get-to places. Specifically San Luis Obispo, Grand Forks and Pocatello. Would any opinions change if you knew some of the guarantee money would be used for charter flights to one, two or even all of these cities? I have absolutely NO inside information that this is happening. But it wouldn't surprise me if it was the case. From experience, it becomes much tougher to win on the road if the team spends most of the day Friday traveling on planes, buses and finally packing in on burros to get where they are going. Their travel to Cal Poly last year was brutal and the trip home was worse. It won't be easy to win in any of those places, but easy travel would help in all of them.
What if the guarantee money will be used to fill in for increased scholarship costs next year, so there are no cuts to number of athletes or number of out-of-state athletes that are recruited? Again, I have NO inside information, but increased tuition has to be expected. If revenue stays static and costs continue to increase, eventually something has to give.
Maybe some of the money will go to increasing the recruiting budget, or to the strength coach for nutritional supplies, or to academic support, or to helping pay for housing athletes prior to school starting, or any of the other dozens of ways dollars are used in the athletic department.
Athletic administration has to make difficult decisions nearly every day, just as we all do in our personal and professional lives. Not all of those decision are going to be popular. But there are always reasons behind those decisions. And it's not just to make life difficult for the teams or the fans.
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