WHO IS TIRED of these weak schedules?

[greenarmy.fh]

Rant: WHY are we playing Eastern Oregon!? Every year, we play a lower Division school, I know that it is more like a "scrimmage game," but we ARE paying these schools to come in to play us. Why did we not schedule another guranteed game against an FBS opponent or maybe a high level FCS team like most of our others Big Sky foes. I know that Weber St. usually is part of our "non-conference" slate, but really? Is it that hard to schedule a game somewhere else? I would love to see us schedule a school like University of San Diego or South Dakota. We did ALMOST lose to Southern Oregon of the NAIA 2 years back, games like this does not draw more attention to the program. Thanks for reading my rant, tell me what you think about this.
2015 BSC out of conference schedule
Eastern Wash. - Oregon (PAC12) & Northern Iowa (MVFC)
Montana - North Dakota State (MVFC) & Liberty (Big South)
Idaho St. - Boise State (MWC) & UNLV (MWC)
NAU - SF Austin (Southland) & Arizona (PAC12)
Cal Poly - Arizona St. (PAC12) & Northern Iowa (MVFC)
North Dakota - Drake (Pioneer), Wyoming (MWC) & North Dakota State (MVFC)
Southern Utah - Utah State (MWC) & South Dakota St. (MVFC)
Portland State - Washington St. (PAC12) & North Texas (C-USA)
Weber State - Oregon State (PAC12) & North Dakota State (4 times FCS Champions)
UC Davis - Nevada (MWC) & South Dakota (MVFC)

 

[superhornet]

Here's the deal, at least as SH sees it. SD and the other mods might have different opinions, which is good.

First, a D-II game, if sequenced correctly, either provides a first game which SHOULD be a blowout, thereby giving scrubs some real game time, or provides a breather after a FBS game. Second, the common take on U of SD is that they're FCSINO, and should REALLY be sent down to D-II. Their conference does NOTHING for them, and by the time they hit the playoffs, they're shown for the fools they really are. Third, on the west coast, there's not really all that much of a choice. It's SOU/CWU/Humboldt and the like, plus the cheater conference/non-conference game. The only way out of that would be to pay extra travel costs to play a legit FCS peer. We've done that before (remember the Hofstra games), but the AD doesn't seem to want to play that game right now. The other option, a second FBS game, given what's in our area, is NOT in our best interests because that would essentially schedule us out of the playoffs. We COULD try to get a 2-for-1 with the MAC, but I don't think they'd bite. Our best bet for a 3-game OOC schedule given our geographic and economic reality is a P5 (namely, the Pac-12), a D-II, and a cheater conference/non-conference game.

That's just the way it is until the AD wants to fork over some bucks for an east coast swing for a lower-tier G5/peer FCS game. The problem is that the lower-tier G5 game probably won't get a return game in Sac unless it's 2-for-1 or 3-for-1, and they'll probably buy their way out of it, anyway. The peer FCS schools back east probably see us in the same light as UNC (wrongly so, but they probably do), so it'll be hard to get a home-and-home out of them, too. This is just the "new reality," and it sucks....

 

[greenarmy.fh]

Some valid points SH! But my logic is pretty simple, if lower tier BSC football schools like Weber, UND, SUU, and yes, Davis can get multiple Non conference FCS schools to be on their schedule, so can we. I think being part of a TOP3 FCS conference should not hurt us, if anything, it should help. I think schools in the east-coast and south do not see us as UNC, but more in the same ball park as Idaho St. as far as being medicore but have solid playoff caliber years now and then. And Davis have a power FCS school on their schedule this upcoming year, (South Dakota). It seems like theirs a natural rivalry between the BSC and the MVFC, as more than half of the teams from the BSC have atleast one game against the MVFC. We should really jump on that bandwagon; I bet having a school like North Dakota State come to our house give us an opportunity for a second sell out (Causeway Classic as the other ofcourse). If Weber can do it, I am sure we can too! :nod:

 

[josephpoint]

Do agree that it would be great to see an MvFC school on our schedule. Hopefully this can happen in the future. And agree that other Big Sky schools have made that move as a positive.

So glad that Sac State held on to football somehow as

Cal State Northridge
Long Beach State
Cal State Fullerton
Saint Mary's
Santa Clara
SF State
Hayward State
Chico State
Sonoma State
Cal Poly Pomona

and other schools in California dropped football many years ago.

So we have the small Oregon schools apparently to draw from if we are not looking for any other opponent equal to us west of the Mississippi River.

 

[GoAgs72]

Also, add UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara to your list. If we kept even half of those teams we could have an all-California FCS conference by now. UC Davis may not have the DII team this year but we have had a lot in the past. Two FBS teams just about eliminates the post-season with 11 games and the over-all strength of the Big Sky. We have a shortage of FCS teams in the West and almost no DII teams left, so we take what we can get.

 

[josephpoint]

Also forgot about

UOP


Back to what we have today.

Everyone wants the University of San Diego on the schedule as USD is FCS like Sac, Davis and Poly, the only left in CA. Believe the only NCAA Div II football teams remaining are Humbodlt State and Azusa Pacific but guessing for some reason we want to give our money away to the Div II Oregon schools for visiting Hornet Stadium. But there is really know school around other than Davis that attracts interest for the casual fan. Hornet Stadium would be bursting with fans if we ever draw an FBS school but that ain't gonna happen.

Was thinking that Unil. of Idaho would be a good out of conference game for the Hornets to go after. But guessing the Vandals might be very careful when looking at booking a Big Sky opponent as most Big Sky schools are on par with them and would have a good chance of winning.

Do Like what they require in Oregon and Arizona. Oregon and Oregon State are required to host Portland State every other year and the same for Arizona and ASU hosting NAU. Would love to see Sac, Davis and Poly get the chance to play either SJSU, FSU, SDSU, Cal, UCLA on a yearly basis and keep the monies in CA that the games generate.

 

[SDHornet]

I’d prefer to see 1 payday FBS/P5 game and FCS matchups filling out the OOC slate every season, but then that would hamstring future scheduling opportunities/flexibility which is probably why it doesn’t happen here. The OOC FCS matchups are typically home and home agreements, and the road FBS money games are scheduled years in advance. The play down games against D2/NAIA opponents are one and dones which provides for scheduling flexibility.

Since a typical FCS season is only 11 games (8 of which are BSC games), I think the hiccup with locking in all FCS OOC opponents means there is the chance for only 4 home games if not done properly, or if games need to be jockeyed to different seasons due to scheduling conflicts. Something going wrong resulting in only 4 home games (I think this happened to Weber a few years back) would be a complete disaster.

I agree with jpoint’s last part of his post. Since we are dealing with public funds (almost all college FB programs operate at a loss at the expense of their university’s general fund), CA public universities should get a “right of first refusal” if teams are looking for a play down game. This could apply across all college FB classifications (and even into other sports) and would keep the funds in state…but this makes too much sense so it won’t happen.

 

[superhornet]

UOP's last season was a disaster of epic proportions, and at least part of the reason was as SD describes: mismanagement of the schedule. Of course, THAT came about because the AD overplayed his hand in nabbing bodybag games (Fresno State, Arizona, Nebraska, Oregon, AND Oregon State in the first five games). The one positive out of all of that was a home win against the Beavers (still not sure how OSU allowed THAT to happen), but the schedule ensured that the Tigers were too beat up to compete for a Big West Conference title. Losing to SW LA and USU on the road and NMSU and Reno at home later on didn't help things any. (Yes, there was a BIT of a positive blip in the win over SJSU on the last play of the game on the Spartans' cr@p field.)

Of course, nobody's talking about the Hornets jumping up for three FBS games. (And, yes, at the time, if memory serves, the I-AA Big Sky was Sagarin-rated over the I-A Big West despite having just accepted Sac
State moving up from D-II.)

SD's arguments are germane. FBS games generate revenue and are thus a positive, so long as they're not over-done. D-IIs provide a break in the schedule and a chance to recuperate from the FBS game, and are ALSO a positive, so long as they're not over-done. Peer FCS games would be nice, but there aren't all that many in our area, barring those crazy in-conference OOC games. (Can we really call U of San Diego a "peer," given their non- or limited-schollie status?) I think SD's perspective is the best way to look at a bad job. Perhaps Sac should hire SD as a scheduling consultant to avoid these types of scheduling disasters.