Off week after Colgate and just before the start of conference play. No Delaware or New Hampshire. Pretty favorable schedule.

Aug. 31Lafayette
Sept. 7at Virginia
Sept. 14Colgate
Sept. 28at Albany*
Oct. 5Villanova* (Family Weekend)
Oct. 19James Madison* (Homecoming)
Oct. 26at Maine*
Nov. 2at Elon*
Nov. 9Rhode Island*
Nov. 16Towson*
Nov. 23at Richmond*

Home games in bold
*Indicates conference game

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Assume that Colgate is away, not home. Always tough to have the week off early in the season, rather than getting that recharge for the closing run. If UVA holds up this season, expect they'll be top 20 next year.

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(10-31-2018 11:29 AM)Tribeheart Wrote:  Assume that Colgate is away, not home. Always tough to have the week off early in the season, rather than getting that recharge for the closing run. If UVA holds up this season, expect they'll be top 20 next year.

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Colgate is at home.

Corrected. Not sure how we got Colgate at home two years running, but great to have SIX home games for a change!!

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Also, two bye weeks (Sept 21 and Oct 12)

Correct again. I gotta start paying attention. That is a favorable schedule for sure.

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Are we playing 11 games in a 12 game season? Think we did that before.

(10-31-2018 11:48 AM)tribe_pride Wrote:  Are we playing 11 games in a 12 game season? Think we did that before.

Yep...so, may hurt come playoff selection time.

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Ok I'll be the outlier I guess. That's a terrible schedule. Look I'm as happy as anyone else that we have 6 home games and that our schedule is "winnable" but Lafayette, Colgate, Towson, and Rhode Island do absolutely nothing to move the (my) fan meter. We should be playing Delaware every season. Full stop. Also if we're gonna schedule Patsy League teams to come to Zable why not Georgetown? Yes they're terrible but so is Lafayette and people actually know Georgetown because of their basketball program. Look the die hards on these boards will be there no matter what but we have got to schedule more interesting teams if we want to increase attendance.

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Only us, Towson, Elon and New Hampshire are playing 11 games. (Rhody and Villanova yet to announce.) Several have 7 home games, including Delaware with their NDSU return game. Richmond gets Yale at home next year. A matchup I wish we would get.

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Agree, we should only play upper echelon Patriot universities or Ivy's. Base it off Academic profile over football prowess. We just did a Lafayette series, not sure why we are on repeat already.

Georgetown, Fordham, maybe Lehigh or any IVY. Local schools such as Hampton and NSU are ok. After that, who cares?

It looks like we are UVA's opener, as they have 12 games scheduled, but are dormant opening weekend, unless they open with an ACC game (ACC schedule yet to be announced.)

We open at UVA again in 2021 and 2023. At Lafayette in 2020 and they return in 2021. If Lafayette doesn't excite you, wait till Campbell in 2022. I can understand Patriot League matchups, but not middle Big South, with no school association (especially a home and away.)

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All ACC teams will be starting their season with League contests, starting next year.

(10-31-2018 12:21 PM)billymac Wrote:  All ACC teams will be starting their season with League contests, starting next year.

Wonder if that will effect our future 2021/23 UVA games to be rescheduled, since the dates are Labor Day weekend?

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(10-31-2018 12:14 PM)Tribeheart Wrote:  We open at UVA again in 2021 and 2023. At Lafayette in 2020 and they return in 2021. If Lafayette doesn't excite you, wait till Campbell in 2022. I can understand Patriot League matchups, but not middle Big South, with no school association.

There's another one, if we're gonna play Campbell why not Davidson? Sure they're maybe the worst team in all of D1 but I guarantee they'll put more butts in the seats than Campbell.

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A few observations...

Like the schedule and 6 home games. Would rather JMU not be HC as that will sellout anyway. Would have preferred URI.

Colgate just doesn't draw that well, primarily because of their remote location in Upstate NY. They are off the beaten path. W&M will put double the butts in seats and more so on ticket sales.

Lafayette is a good series to renew. They have the nicest stadium in the PL and it's a nice road trip for any one in NY or Philly markets.

Campbell is upgrading their stadium and schedule so let's get our noses out of the air. I think they also booked a series with Elon and Furman, also a few FBS teams. To me, they will be similar in talent to the PL teams.

(10-31-2018 12:04 PM)zablenoise Wrote:  Ok I'll be the outlier I guess. That's a terrible schedule. Look I'm as happy as anyone else that we have 6 home games and that our schedule is "winnable" but Lafayette, Colgate, Towson, and Rhode Island do absolutely nothing to move the (my) fan meter. We should be playing Delaware every season. Full stop. Also if we're gonna schedule Patsy League teams to come to Zable why not Georgetown? Yes they're terrible but so is Lafayette and people actually know Georgetown because of their basketball program. Look the die hards on these boards will be there no matter what but we have got to schedule more interesting teams if we want to increase attendance.

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Initial Thoughts: This circles back to who our fanbase, our athletic dept, and our athletes view as peer schools. We should be playing peers I agree 100% about the Georgetown comment. Heck, I'd rather play VMI/Hampton/Norfolk State than Lafayette/Campbell. I worry about defining the Patriot League as our peers in large part because I dont want to align with them.

Secondary Thoughts: Just looked at other schedules (Yale, Harvard, Nova, UR, etc.) and they all have the same type set up. Most rotate PL schools or similar. I'd echo above comments and would love to have a set up with the Ivy's.

Some comments on others' comments:

If not Campbell then why not Davidson? Well, then why not VMI? If you are only talking about butts in the seats then VMI might bring more than either of those others (or Lafayette or Colgate). NOTE: I am NOT advocating this. I hate playing VMI! We beat them by an average score of 38-7 (or so) and lose 3 players to cheap shot injuries. My preferred method of scheduling would be to schedule home-and-homes against good, somewhat local FCS teams like Furman, Wofford, Colgate, etc and to eliminate the FBS game and use it to schedule home-and-homes against top caliber teams from further away. That way we could play top Missouri Valley, Southland, or Big Sky teams (including at home every other year) and we would play 6 home games at least every other year.

(10-31-2018 11:50 AM)Tribeheart Wrote:  

(10-31-2018 11:48 AM)tribe_pride Wrote:  Are we playing 11 games in a 12 game season? Think we did that before.

Yep...so, may hurt come playoff selection time.

Yes, we made that mistake once before and it cost us, IIRC. We don't want to ever make that mistake again of being one win behind all the other teams vying for the playoffs. There is plenty of time to schedule one more game (see comment above for pointers on whom to schedule).

(10-31-2018 12:46 PM)Sitting bull Wrote:  Like the schedule and 6 home games. Would rather JMU not be HC as that will sellout anyway. Would have preferred URI.

+1 on the comment above and also agree with your observations on Colgate, Lafayette, and Campbell.

Lastly, and Billymac will appreciate this because I have been bugging Tribe Athletic Directors about this for more than 25 years, but if we truly wind up with an 11 game schedule in which 6 are home games, then that is finally a move by the athletic department that I can get behind 100%. However, I really think that it is a 12-game schedule in which we haven't announced the 12th game yet. Maybe they are doing this to cut the new coach some slack in his first season. If so, that is not the coach that I am looking for.

They know in advance the years that the calendar will enable 12 games. I'd even like to see the CAA schedule one extra, in conference game those years. I'm sure that has it's own hiccups (including an uneven amount of home/away games), but imagine that could be mutually figured out and bought into. Why not up it and make it a 10 game conference schedule those years, knowing that you can only preschedule two OOC games.

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(10-31-2018 01:17 PM)Zorch Wrote:  Some comments on others' comments:

If not Campbell then why not Davidson? Well, then why not VMI? If you are only talking about butts in the seats then VMI might bring more than either of those others (or Lafayette or Colgate). NOTE: I am NOT advocating this. I hate playing VMI! We beat them by an average score of 38-7 (or so) and lose 3 players to cheap shot injuries. My preferred method of scheduling would be to schedule home-and-homes against good, somewhat local FCS teams like Furman, Wofford, Colgate, etc and to eliminate the FBS game and use it to schedule home-and-homes against top caliber teams from further away. That way we could play top Missouri Valley, Southland, or Big Sky teams (including at home every other year) and we would play 6 home games at least every other year.

(10-31-2018 11:50 AM)Tribeheart Wrote:  

(10-31-2018 11:48 AM)tribe_pride Wrote:  Are we playing 11 games in a 12 game season? Think we did that before.

Yep...so, may hurt come playoff selection time.

Yes, we made that mistake once before and it cost us, IIRC. We don't want to ever make that mistake again of being one win behind all the other teams vying for the playoffs. There is plenty of time to schedule one more game (see comment above for pointers on whom to schedule).

(10-31-2018 12:46 PM)Sitting bull Wrote:  Like the schedule and 6 home games. Would rather JMU not be HC as that will sellout anyway. Would have preferred URI.

+1 on the comment above and also agree with your observations on Colgate, Lafayette, and Campbell.

Lastly, and Billymac will appreciate this because I have been bugging Tribe Athletic Directors about this for more than 25 years, but if we truly wind up with an 11 game schedule in which 6 are home games, then that is finally a move by the athletic department that I can get behind 100%. However, I really think that it is a 12-game schedule in which we haven't announced the 12th game yet. Maybe they are doing this to cut the new coach some slack in his first season. If so, that is not the coach that I am looking for.

Until a couple of months ago we had Campbell on this year's schedule. I don't know if they rolled off and we added Lafayette or we already had Lafayette. But it make ZERO sense not to play an additional game if we are allowed to. ZERO