(12-22-2016 01:34 PM)MWC Tex Wrote: (12-22-2016 11:58 AM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote: There's not a lot of openings, especially for teams to travel to NMSU in 2018. They need to work on that. They'll need 5 home games (1 may be vs FCS).
Do you or anybody know what happens if they don't get a full schedule or 5 home games? Will they be on probation? Getting 11 instead of 12 games may not be an issue but right now only have 2 home games scheduled for 2018 (NM and Wyo). I'm sure there is a FCS team they could grab quickly for third home game. If they could get UMass at home for 2018, then that will be a fourth home game. That leaves at least 1 game to try to hunt for a FBS team to play at NMSU in 2018.
But that still leaves 6 or games to find on the road.
I don't know, but they might be in trouble. They have one home game scheduled for 2018 (Wyoming). They can buy another (FCS). Umass has 11 games already scheduled, 6 of which are on the road. I don't think travelling to Las Cruces for road game 7 of the year is going to be that attractive to them. Surprisingly, UMass also has a pretty decent end of the year schedule too.
Here's NMSU's issue. Looking at G5 teams that have an opening in 2018 and could conceivably schedule at NMSU AND still have 6 home games is tough. Heck there aren't a lot of teams that could even host NMSU in 2018.
Here are the G5 teams that have an 'away' game still open that could conceivably be used to travel to Las Cruces.
Army, UTEP, FIU, WMU, Colorado St, Utah State, Nevada, Coastal Carolina. That it for home game possibilities. NMSU needs to ink THREE of these 8 teams. They'll need to get on it soon. I'm not sure the greater El Paso area is on the radar for Coastal, WMU, or FIU. And many schools that have an early away game to give, usually want to trade it for a higher placed opponent. And NMSU can't play all these home games in September. Someone is going to have to go to NMSU in October. Some teams aren't going to want to do that.
If they can swing 2018, especially without doing 2 for 1 swaps, they'll be in a much better place for 2019 forward.