(09-10-2016 12:33 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(09-09-2016 10:12 PM)Sam Minuteman Wrote:  

(09-09-2016 08:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  Looking at UMass's future schedules, ouch:

2017: 5 FBS home games, schedule is full already
2018: 4 FBS home games, 6 away games, 1 FCS, 1 open date
2019: 2 FBS home games, 4 away games, 1 FCS, 5 open dates
2020: 1 FBS home game , 3 away games
2021-23: 3 FBS home games, 5 away games

By rule they must have 5 FBS home games a year. That's 42% of games that must be at home. But after 2017, they have 10 home games out of the 30 games they have scheduled (33%). That's really pushing the limit.

If i hadn't seen what happened in the last 2 years i would be worried, and in fact i was really worried about UMass having a chance of even 1 year of independence before.

As of July 27 2014 UMass had 4 games on the schedule 1 P5 Home game, 2 P5 away games and 1 FCS home game for the 2016 season. http://web.archive.org/web/2014072714273...hedule.php

Now in 2016 Umass has 2 P5 homer games 3 G5 home games and an FCS.

Many will argue that this years schedule is a gauntlet, but I like it a lot better than the MAC schedule. And next year isn't nearly as tough

http://www.fbschedules.com/ncaa-16/2016-...hedule.php

http://www.fbschedules.com/ncaa-17/2017-...hedule.php

UMass has shown it has the ability to get 1 for 1's with lower level P5's and most G5's, some on short notice. Scheduling as an Indy for UMass isn't the issue anymore. Exposure and money are a different story (although the exposure is much better than expected, a step up from the MAC for sure).

UMass isn't filling the scheudle out too far in advance to keep the buy out's and rescheduling fee's lower if/when it get's invited to a conference. I get that it looks bad form first glance but there seems to be a method to the madness.

Wasn't UMass in the MAC as of July 2014? So it's not a surprise that you had few OOC games scheduled at the time. It's impressive that you got this year scheduled, but it came at a steep cost in future games.

And for some reason you already have 2 buy-games scheduled with lower-level P5s after 2020 (Indiana & Colorado), which makes no sense for an indy that is struggling to find enough home games. Why would you waste a valuable away game on such a low profile opponent with no home game in return?

About your 2016 vs 2017 schedule: That's the opposite way that Cincinnati would look at it. If we had UMass's 2017 home slate (ODU, Ohio, Hawai'i, GSU, App St, Maine) we'd say good Lord who would want to buy season tickets to that? But UMass is saying that's a good schedule because there's more winable games. Interesting to see the perspective from a different fanbase