Growing Popularity of Scheduling Division I-AA Teams on FBS Schedules

April 3, 2009

As a general rule of thumb, FBS football programs generally tend to try and make it a priority to have a solid playing schedule for the upcoming season in place by the start of spring camps.

Yet, try as it might, occasionally a program — take Rutgers and Kentucky at the end of this March, for instance — fails to meet that goal, and is left scrambling trying to negotiate contracts to round out non-conference games most often played at the opening of the season.

More times than not, says the Orlando Sentinel, such gaps in scheduling are now being filled by the likes of I-AA — or Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) — programs, establishing a trend that, at an earlier point in time, would have been looked down upon due to the perception that agreeing to play such games signaled a willingness to pad win-loss records at the cost of playing weaker opponents.

That has all changed, writes Alan Schmadtke, due to the recent acknowledgement by many Division I FBS programs — Schamdtke points out that ACC teams such as Duke, North Carolina, and N.C. State serve as a primary example — that the sport of college football is quickly becoming ruled by the financial interests gained by a team that wins a large number of ball games. “More and more,” the author suggests, “traditional buy-game opponents — contests played against teams from Conference USA, the MAC, Mountain West and others — are saying no [to playing FBS conference schools].” “They’d rather have home games,” Schamdtke continues, while at the same time, turning down “2-for-1 contracts” with bigger name programs that feature two games away in exchange for one game on home turf.

That, notes the writer, partially accounts for the now 70+ teams (expected to go higher) currently scheduled to play against I-AA teams in the 2009 season.

But there is a more significant factor that plays in as well, one which, once again, centers on notions of financial return. Schmadtke comments that the price tag for traditional I-A “buy-game schools” has steeply risen, with non-BCS conference programs demanding upward of $1 million to play more highly-regarded programs such as Texas, USC, and Florida. Meanwhile, Division I-AA schools, already feeling the pinch of a tightening economy, are more readily willing to take whatever contract they can, rarely reaching for an asking price which surpasses six-figures.

This, along with the incentive to schedule “at least one and sometimes two I-AA on the schedule” as means of becoming bowl eligible, gives little incentive for a major FBS program not to enter into an agreement with an FCS school such as Georgia Southern or Murray State. Using the 2008 Clemson squad as an example, Schmadtke highlights the merits of this so-called ’soft scheduling’ for a team finishing 7-6, and given, as was Clemson, who played Nebraska in the 2009 Gator Bowl, the opportunity to use one of its two I-AA wins toward qualifying for bowl eligibility. The difference between sitting at home and watching the bowl season and participating in a post-season appearance (Clemson played Nebraska in the 2009 Gator Bowl) for the Tigers? A cool $2.5 million dollar reward. Hardly something that a program which faced the challenges that Clemson did last season can ignore, all said and done.

Nor is it something which other Division IA schools outside Clemson are disregarding either. Schmadtke writes that as of late March, Notre Dame, FAU, FIU, Fresno State, Colorado, Bowling Green, Middle Tennessee, Texas A&M, LSU, and Tennessee were the only teams in the whole of the FBS playing only IA competition in 2009.

That the author concludes his articles then supposing, “Tune in come December to see how many of the I-A only teams makes it to the postseason” may not be surprising.

It makes, however, for an intriguing argument and one which very well could foretell the newest trend in scheduling for college athletic directors over the span of the next three to five years.