MVFC needs to make a scheduling mandate

[mvfcfan]

They can start by not allowing members to schedule D2 schools anymore. My team (ISUb) spends 4 million a year on football and we have people in our athletic dept. that are too cheap or stupid (or both) to schedule a Pioneer League school. It just cost us making the playoffs last season and these morons decide to just screw over the whole team next year as well. Why schedule them if they don't count. I have also seen other MVFC schools schedule D2 or NAIA teams in the past. It needs to stop. End rant.

[WestCoastAggie]

They can start by not allowing members to schedule D2 schools anymore. My team (ISUb) spends 4 million a year on football and we have people in our athletic dept. that are too cheap or stupid (or both) to schedule a Pioneer League school. It just cost us making the playoffs last season and these morons decide to just screw over the whole team next year as well. Why schedule them if they don't count. I have also seen other MVFC schools schedule D2 or NAIA teams in the past. It needs to stop. End rant.

You know, those D2/NAIA games are just as much revenue-sharing games as the FBS/FCS games we play. Taking these games away take away the revenue sharing which is sorely needed, and puts more pressure on schools to raise student athletic fees.

[SUPharmacist]

I dislike teams scheduling down, but I would be reluctant to put a mandate in place for two reasons. Occasionally teams get caught having to schedule a D2 after a buyout, and since I generally enjoy FBS games I find it hypocritical to eliminate scheduling down when I want the FBS to do so. It seems like teams face enough consequences with the hit on their playoff resume that a mandate isn't necessary.

[Professor Chaos]

I dislike teams scheduling down, but I would be reluctant to put a mandate in place for two reasons. Occasionally teams get caught having to schedule a D2 after a buyout, and since I generally enjoy FBS games I find it hypocritical to eliminate scheduling down when I want the FBS to do so. It seems like teams face enough consequences with the hit on their playoff resume that a mandate isn't necessary.
Yep, if you don't like scheduling sub-D1s take your beef up with your school not your conference. Same with the insane Big Ten rule forbidding FCS games for a few years before it was scaled back. Ohio St doesn't have to do it if they think it'll be such a blemish on their playoff resume but who cares if Illinois, who will never sniff the playoffs and they know it, wants to schedule an FCS game.

[uni88]

I dislike teams scheduling down, but I would be reluctant to put a mandate in place for two reasons. Occasionally teams get caught having to schedule a D2 after a buyout, and since I generally enjoy FBS games I find it hypocritical to eliminate scheduling down when I want the FBS to do so. It seems like teams face enough consequences with the hit on their playoff resume that a mandate isn't necessary.Ditto.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

[JayJ79]

I've heard of conferences issuing a scheduling mandate in attempts to improve their overall conference RPI and such for NCAA tournament purposes.
But that doesn't really apply to football and it isn't like the MVFC struggles to get teams into the playoffs anyway.

Don't really see any point in a conference-wide scheduling mandate.

[Bisonator]

They can start by not allowing members to schedule D2 schools anymore. My team (ISUb) spends 4 million a year on football and we have people in our athletic dept. that are too cheap or stupid (or both) to schedule a Pioneer League school. It just cost us making the playoffs last season and these morons decide to just screw over the whole team next year as well. Why schedule them if they don't count. I have also seen other MVFC schools schedule D2 or NAIA teams in the past. It needs to stop. End rant.
Or your school can man up and schedule differently on it's own.xcoffeex

[Sycamore62]

I suspect our game in 2020 vs a D2 school has to do with our non-conference games being 1 FBS, 1 @EIU and needing a home game to get us to 5 home games on the season and keeping our home opener from being vs NDSU on 10/10. Im betting that all the pioneer teams were booked and nobody else was available for a Home/Home and we probably cant afford to buy a game vs any scholarship FCS team. I also dont know why our fans assume that if we pick up a FCS game that its going to be a win.

[Redbird 4th & short]

They can start by not allowing members to schedule D2 schools anymore. My team (ISUb) spends 4 million a year on football and we have people in our athletic dept. that are too cheap or stupid (or both) to schedule a Pioneer League school. It just cost us making the playoffs last season and these morons decide to just screw over the whole team next year as well. Why schedule them if they don't count. I have also seen other MVFC schools schedule D2 or NAIA teams in the past. It needs to stop. End rant.
I didn't know you were a Redbird fan all this time ?????????????????

Do NOT get me started about our St Xavier (NAIA) game in 2018 .... nobody was more relieved we went 6-5 that year, than our AD. Because if we had gone 7-4 with an NAIA win to be 6-4, and not made playoffs .. oh my our AD would have been crucified. Our fans and press were giving him a real hard time as soon as the game was posted on our schedule. We assumed it was a placeholder, a plan B til plan A got worked out. He was quoted as saying this to a reporter when asked about the NAIA game, when we got to summer of 2018 ... "scheduling is hard". We play 8 of 11 conf games, we have a standing h&h with EIU every year, the FBS games are money games scheduled years in advance ... how hard can it be to schedule one patsy game at home ???? St Xavier was a 90 minute bus ride away ... couldn't have cost much to buy them out. WIU did exactly this the year before with the exact same NAIA team ... but we didn't ????

I told you not to get me started.

[Sycamore62]

I wonder if scheduling is harder than saying we should get a D1 team to come here. I think Nick Saban did a pretty good job of addressing this when they asked him about playing lower caliber schools.

[JayJ79]

I wonder if scheduling is harder than saying we should get a D1 team to come here. I think Nick Saban did a pretty good job of addressing this when they asked him about playing lower caliber schools.
People seem to forget about (or ignore) the fact that you have to get the other school to agree to the game as well, and that these other schools are also trying to put together schedules that are beneficial to their own programs and are wanting their own home games.

[mvfcfan]

You would never see NDSU, SDSU, or YSU schedule a game against a non D1 opponent. Reason being their AD's get that they can't make the playoffs if they do. Maybe the Pioneer is taken up but there are other leagues out there. Or go on the road and try to beat a MAC or Sun Belt school. There is surely someone else out there we could get even if it was a home and home.

Also FCS teams count for bowl eligibility for FBS teams. If they didn't they wouldn't schedule us. There is no reason to schedule D2 games because in reality they do not count for us.

[Sycamore62]

You would never see NDSU, SDSU, or YSU schedule a game against a non D1 opponent. Reason being their AD's get that they can't make the playoffs if they do. Maybe the Pioneer is taken up but there are other leagues out there. Or go on the road and try to beat a MAC or Sun Belt school. There is surely someone else out there we could get even if it was a home and home.

Also FCS teams count for bowl eligibility for FBS teams. If they didn't they wouldn't schedule us. There is no reason to schedule D2 games because in reality they do not count for us.

I gave you a reason. couldnt get anyone do to the home of a home/home, we had 4 conference home games scheduled and our first home game would have been October 10th. just because there are other FCS teams out there doesnt mean they were open for a road game week 3 or 5

[uni88]

You would never see NDSU, SDSU, or YSU schedule a game against a non D1 opponent. Reason being their AD's get that they can't make the playoffs if they do. Maybe the Pioneer is taken up but there are other leagues out there. Or go on the road and try to beat a MAC or Sun Belt school. There is surely someone else out there we could get even if it was a home and home.

Also FCS teams count for bowl eligibility for FBS teams. If they didn't they wouldn't schedule us. There is no reason to schedule D2 games because in reality they do not count for us.

That's not what I remember from the interview with Kent Haslem. I'm not sure how it works when looking at records but D2 wins can be considered. The quality of the D2 team should be a factor, a win against Ferris State should be a pretty good win.

[NDSUKurt]

You would never see NDSU, SDSU, or YSU schedule a game against a non D1 opponent. Reason being their AD's get that they can't make the playoffs if they do. Maybe the Pioneer is taken up but there are other leagues out there. Or go on the road and try to beat a MAC or Sun Belt school. There is surely someone else out there we could get even if it was a home and home.

Also FCS teams count for bowl eligibility for FBS teams. If they didn't they wouldn't schedule us. There is no reason to schedule D2 games because in reality they do not count for us.

This is not entirely true.

In 2013, Montana State bought out of their game at NDSU to play at SMU of the FBS. NDSU was screwed and pissed, specifically because of how late the buyout came (in January if I remember correctly).

NDSU athletic director Gene Taylor looked high an low for a game to get NDSU to 11 games. It also happened to be that 2013 was a 12 game season for FCS, so NDSU had 3 open dates to work with that season to find a game.

As time went along, NDSU was turned down by Northern Arizona and "an east coast team" that I think was either Villanova or Georgetown (Gene Taylor had stated that there was a contract offer out to a team from the east coast, but he never confirmed what team it was). I even read that NDSU offered to play Northern Arizona at their place, and all that NDSU wanted was for NAU to cover the travel costs and nothing more, but NAU still said no.

Gene Taylor stated that he called the NCAA and asked if NDSU would be penalized if they played only 10 games in a 12 game season as teams were demanding over $300k to make the trip to Fargo or would not play NDSU at all. He stated that he was told "playing any game is better than not playing one at all."

It was after this information that NDSU scheduled Division II Ferris State, which was actually a better opponent then the College Gameday opponent of Delaware State.

So I do not believe that playing lower division opponents is totally hurts FCS teams, but I think the committee will look and consider Division II as better than Division III and NAIA teams. Also, I have to believe that playing multiple lower division teams in the same season may be looked at less favorably.

[mvfcfan]

I get that there would have to be exceptions to the rule once in a while, especially if someone else backed out. However I think it would be wise to schedule your games a few years in advance. I personally think it is a sad excuse to wait around a year before the next season starts and then say "Oops, we couldn't find anyone else". I was fine with us scheduling Quincy back in 2009 and 2010 because we were trying to break the losing streak. However in 2012 we played Quincy and finished 7-4, including a road win against #1 NDSU, and were left out. Then last season we played Quincy again, finished 7-4, and were once again left out.

It took me 5 minutes to find a potential opponent. Tennessee State is playing Clark Atlanta (whoever that is) the same day we play Lindenwood. It's not that hard to say "Hey we'll play you in Nashville this year if you play us up here some other year". I'd rather see us not have a non-conference home game next year and at least have a shot at the playoffs. We can't draw anyways and no one has heard of Lindenwood anyways unless they are from the St Louis area. Meanwhile TSU is an HBCU that might actually draw some fans down the road.

[uni88]

I get that there would have to be exceptions to the rule once in a while, especially if someone else backed out. However I think it would be wise to schedule your games a few years in advance. I personally think it is a sad excuse to wait around a year before the next season starts and then say "Oops, we couldn't find anyone else". I was fine with us scheduling Quincy back in 2009 and 2010 because we were trying to break the losing streak. However in 2012 we played Quincy and finished 7-4, including a road win against #1 NDSU, and were left out. Then last season we played Quincy again, finished 7-4, and were once again left out.

It took me 5 minutes to find a potential opponent. Tennessee State is playing Clark Atlanta (whoever that is) the same day we play Lindenwood. It's not that hard to say "Hey we'll play you in Nashville this year if you play us up here some other year". I'd rather see us not have a non-conference home game next year and at least have a shot at the playoffs. We can't draw anyways and no one has heard of Lindenwood anyways unless they are from the St Louis area. Meanwhile TSU is an HBCU that might actually draw some fans down the road.

Should the conference be telling you that or should your AD be responsible for that decision and the consequences?

[Bison Fan in NW MN]

Conference mandate?
No way. If a school wants to schedule a lower division opponent then go ahead.

[Sycamore62]

it just seems like some of our fans assume that we didnt try to get a D1 game. I think you have to get a 5th home game rather than open the season with 4 road games and a bye week.

[wapiti]

I dislike teams scheduling down, but I would be reluctant to put a mandate in place for two reasons. Occasionally teams get caught having to schedule a D2 after a buyout, and since I generally enjoy FBS games I find it hypocritical to eliminate scheduling down when I want the FBS to do so. It seems like teams face enough consequences with the hit on their playoff resume that a mandate isn't necessary.

Copy that.

[ST_Lawson]

Should the conference be telling you that or should your AD be responsible for that decision and the consequences?

Let schools decide what works best for them. I would prefer that we not play any schools below DI, and we haven't since 2013, but I don't think the conference should require it for everyone.

[ElCid]

They can start by not allowing members to schedule D2 schools anymore. My team (ISUb) spends 4 million a year on football and we have people in our athletic dept. that are too cheap or stupid (or both) to schedule a Pioneer League school. It just cost us making the playoffs last season and these morons decide to just screw over the whole team next year as well. Why schedule them if they don't count. I have also seen other MVFC schools schedule D2 or NAIA teams in the past. It needs to stop. End rant.

Wow. Hope all FBS doesn't say the same thing about FCS. I am not a huge fan of a lower division every year for a team, but every 2-3 for "any" FCS team will not be a killer. Just like it isn't for FBS. The other thing is that so many current teams in FCS came from there and have, shall we say, an affinity for those left behind in the lower divisions. Not a big deal.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

I'd have no issue eliminating FBS vs FCS and FCS vs D2 schools. To me it only makes sense to play teams strictly from your classification, i.e. your peers.

[ST_Lawson]

I'd have no issue eliminating FBS vs FCS and FCS vs D2 schools. To me it only makes sense to play teams strictly from your classification, i.e. your peers.

There's a lot of schools that would have trouble sustaining their football (or athletics) program without at least an occasional "upper division" game.

[JayJ79]

I'd have no issue eliminating FBS vs FCS and FCS vs D2 schools. To me it only makes sense to play teams strictly from your classification, i.e. your peers.

why stop there? why not make it FCS programs with the full allotment of 63 scholarships can only play other 63 scholarship programs, and the like. same difference, really.

[mvfcfan]

As far as I am concerned the Pioneer League and some of those leagues that limit their scholarships are a level below us. I have no problem playing them because they are D1 and count. FBS won't play schools that don't offer scholarships because those games don''t count towards bowl eligibility. The only Reason Iowa State played Drake a year ago was because they already had 6 wins.

[TennBison]

Try putting on your big boy pants and don't go looking for the MVFC to clean up your schools screw ups in scheduling. People in real life don't want the government telling them what they can and can not do, so why bring any of that garbage to college football, as if there isn't enough already. Want to play a FBS school for a paycheck, go ahead. Want to play a D2 school for a crappy win, be my guest. Just don't expect to be compensated with a playoff spot if either one of those type of games outcomes prevent your team from making it.

[Redbird007]

I suspect our game in 2020 vs a D2 school has to do with our non-conference games being 1 FBS, 1 @EIU and needing a home game to get us to 5 home games on the season and keeping our home opener from being vs NDSU on 10/10. Im betting that all the pioneer teams were booked and nobody else was available for a Home/Home and we probably cant afford to buy a game vs any scholarship FCS team. I also dont know why our fans assume that if we pick up a FCS game that its going to be a win.

A couple of thoughts...as others have mentioned, why should the MVFC mandate what any conference members do? Unlike many FBS conferences where a lot of money is at play and conference mates share tv and bowl revenue so what one school does can impact another conference school, there is no revenue sharing in the MVFC and very little revenue overall at the FCS level. In many respects an out of conference school at the FCS level is no different than an in conference school other than the annual scheduling benefit as well as rivalries that develop over time. It seems some fans carry a lot of pride in their FCS conference affiliation but at the FCS level it is really each and every school for themselves, IMO.

Beyond that Syc62 you assume a pioneer team would want to play Indy State (or any other MVFC team) and that may not be the case as what is in it for them? Indy State controls their own destiny, which I believe is what the university and fans should prefer, so get after your AD/Coach if you dislike their scheduling approach.

[Bisonoline]

They can start by not allowing members to schedule D2 schools anymore. My team (ISUb) spends 4 million a year on football and we have people in our athletic dept. that are too cheap or stupid (or both) to schedule a Pioneer League school. It just cost us making the playoffs last season and these morons decide to just screw over the whole team next year as well. Why schedule them if they don't count. I have also seen other MVFC schools schedule D2 or NAIA teams in the past. It needs to stop. End rant.

Call Barry Alvarez and ask him how that worked out not scheduling FCS teams.

[mvfcfan]

Back in the first decade of this century the MVC had scheduling mandates for its basketball members to try to get more teams into the tournament. I know the football playoff doesn't bring money in, but if you are going to promote yourself as the best conference then you should not be playing games that don't count. When you schedule them you are pretty much writing the playoffs off that season.

This isn't basketball. I don't like scheduling D2 schools in basketball either, but I understand it a little more. We only need 3 OOC opponents in football most years. An FBS school and two FCS opponents should not be that hard to find. Problem is that we wait until the last minute to make a schedule.

And as I have mentioned FBS scheduling FCS is totally different. FCS counts as a win for them to become bowl eligible. D2 does not count for us (I don't care what the committee says, they have proven that they don't count D2 wins).

[that guy]

YSU played all d1 schools this year how did that work for them?

[clenz]

YSU played all d1 schools this year how did that work for them?
What's funny is their best years were all back when they were playing non D1s....



and paying players/giving them all kinds of free **** against NCAA rules.

[mvfcfan]

YSU played all d1 schools this year how did that work for them?

Well they started out 4-0 which meant that all they had to do was go 4-4 in MVFC play. Obviously they weren't that good, but they at least made a schedule that gave themselves a chance. If they had scheduled 3 D1 and 1 non-D1 they would have had to go 5-3 in MVFC play to make it. You basically need 7 D1 wins in an 11 game season and 8 D1 wins in a 12 game year. 11 game seasons are the most common and most schools lose their FBS money game. If you schedule a D2 school you are typically at the best going to have 1 D1 win going into conference play, meaning you'll have to go 6-2 in MVFC play to make the playoffs. If Indiana State has any chance at making the post season next year we will have to start out 3-0. Anything less and the season is basically over.

[JayJ79]

for a program that has as many 0-fer and 1 win seasons as the Sycs, maybe the sub-D1 games are there for morale. (but then sometimes those games are L's too)

[mvfcfan]

To be fair we probably wouldn't have made the playoffs anyways, but if there was ever a year we get 7 wins it would be next year, simply because we would once again have screwed ourselves from making the postseason.