(07-29-2013 04:00 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  

(07-29-2013 03:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-29-2013 02:44 PM)monarchoptimist Wrote:  P5 teams will stop scheduling FCS games when a disincentive exists.

The playoff has started the ball rolling (i.e. the B1G). If the playoff selection committee starts punishing teams for playing weak schedules then a change will occur.

When they could only counted 1 in 4 years for bowl eligibility, they played half the number they played last year. They reversed that rule to help the FCS schools and the lower end BCS schools who needed a win for bowl eligibility. So to repeat a phrase from another thread: What's different now?

I know in UGA's case, the fans are simply not showing up for the Idaho States and Coastal Carolinas. Are conference networks and TV networks with their increasing amount of coverage changing it? The Big 10 had a "MACrifice Saturday" with something like 10 MAC games and nothing intriguing for TV. Are the top teams driving it so that a Wisconsin playing Murray St. doesn't hurt Ohio State's strength of schedule? Is losing to an Appalachian State or North Dakota State or Ball State hurting the image?

I suspect its all of these and we will see fewer FCS games. 9 new FBS programs also lends itself to more FBS teams willing to do buy games. We may see more 2 for 1s. USC and UCLA have never played an FCS school. I could see the Pac 12 joining the Big 10 in ending the practice. There aren't that many FCS programs in the West-only the Big Sky.

I think the Pac will be one of the last to stop playing FCS teams. Many of the teams don't draw huge crowds, so they have less money to pay out of the gate to a payday game. Also, there are less teams period out West and the geography is more spread out, so the payouts have to be higher to get teams to come out West. Half the Pac can't even get 2 for ones from the MWC teams, and some of them like OSU and Colorado do their own payday games on the road. So how the hell are they supposed to get 2 OOC home games a year? FCS went to 12 games which will allow them to take even less for payday games from FBS teams.

Fox and ESPN don't care, those games are on P12 network anyway.

The new committee isn't going to invite a Pac12 team because they played Wyoming instead of Sac St in an OOC game. That theory is bogus.

Sounds like good reasons they only need 6 home games and not 7. So they don't need the buy games as much.

(07-25-2013 09:37 PM)OrangeCrush22 Wrote:  Here's the thread where it's explained why they'll count towards eligibility.
http://syracusefan.com/threads/wagner-sc...owl.45823/

I know you've got a direct quote from the Wagner AD, but you still might want to get a fact checker on this, particularly if the Cuse AD has a reputation for gullibility. I seem to recall reading that the Patriot League teams didn't qualify to play FBS teams because they offered merit aid instead of scholarships. Fordham didn't get a FBS team on its schedule until it broke with Patriot League rules and offered scholarships. You do see one of these games get scheduled every once in a very long while, but it is extremely rare for a team from a merit aid league or scholarship-restricted league to get a FBS game. As someone else pointed out, why have a league rule that limits the number of scholarships you can grant if you could circumvent it so easily?

(07-29-2013 04:00 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  I think the Pac will be one of the last to stop playing FCS teams. Many of the teams don't draw huge crowds, so they have less money to pay out of the gate to a payday game. Also, there are less teams period out West and the geography is more spread out, so the payouts have to be higher to get teams to come out West. Half the Pac can't even get 2 for ones from the MWC teams, and some of them like OSU and Colorado do their own payday games on the road. So how the hell are they supposed to get 2 OOC home games a year?

I was going to make this point as well. At the FCS level, the only western conference is the Big Sky, and they're known to schedule more Division II opponents than any other serious FCS conference, for the same reason as above. It's either that, or they schedule 2 paycheck games against FBS teams, whereas most FCS teams only schedule 1 or none. There's just nobody else to play out west, except for the football teams already in their conference.

Quote:FCS went to 12 games which will allow them to take even less for payday games from FBS teams.

Is that an official, just announced rule change? If you're getting that idea from just looking at the schedules, that's an infrequent thing that FCS only allows when the Saturdays fall between certain dates on the calendar. 2013 and 2014 happen to fall that way, but unless there's been a rule change it will go back to 11 games in 2015 and most of the decade after that. Playing 12 games every year would require re-working how the playoffs are scheduled, because there wouldn't be enough weeks to fit in 12 games now that the FCS playoffs have an additional opening round to accommodate more teams.

(07-29-2013 09:04 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-29-2013 04:00 PM)CPslograd Wrote:  

(07-29-2013 03:42 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-29-2013 02:44 PM)monarchoptimist Wrote:  P5 teams will stop scheduling FCS games when a disincentive exists.

The playoff has started the ball rolling (i.e. the B1G). If the playoff selection committee starts punishing teams for playing weak schedules then a change will occur.

When they could only counted 1 in 4 years for bowl eligibility, they played half the number they played last year. They reversed that rule to help the FCS schools and the lower end BCS schools who needed a win for bowl eligibility. So to repeat a phrase from another thread: What's different now?

I know in UGA's case, the fans are simply not showing up for the Idaho States and Coastal Carolinas. Are conference networks and TV networks with their increasing amount of coverage changing it? The Big 10 had a "MACrifice Saturday" with something like 10 MAC games and nothing intriguing for TV. Are the top teams driving it so that a Wisconsin playing Murray St. doesn't hurt Ohio State's strength of schedule? Is losing to an Appalachian State or North Dakota State or Ball State hurting the image?

I suspect its all of these and we will see fewer FCS games. 9 new FBS programs also lends itself to more FBS teams willing to do buy games. We may see more 2 for 1s. USC and UCLA have never played an FCS school. I could see the Pac 12 joining the Big 10 in ending the practice. There aren't that many FCS programs in the West-only the Big Sky.

I think the Pac will be one of the last to stop playing FCS teams. Many of the teams don't draw huge crowds, so they have less money to pay out of the gate to a payday game. Also, there are less teams period out West and the geography is more spread out, so the payouts have to be higher to get teams to come out West. Half the Pac can't even get 2 for ones from the MWC teams, and some of them like OSU and Colorado do their own payday games on the road. So how the hell are they supposed to get 2 OOC home games a year? FCS went to 12 games which will allow them to take even less for payday games from FBS teams.

Fox and ESPN don't care, those games are on P12 network anyway.

The new committee isn't going to invite a Pac12 team because they played Wyoming instead of Sac St in an OOC game. That theory is bogus.

Sounds like good reasons they only need 6 home games and not 7. So they don't need the buy games as much.

They still need two home games every other year, more if they do their own payday games, just to get 6 home games every year. Season tickets are sold X$ per game. It's not that hard to understand the economics of this. The AQ schools are leveraging the value of their conference games by scheduling FCS teams and including them in their season ticket sales.

Did you see how easily Idaho and NMSU filled out a indy schedule? It took like 4 months to schedule 12 games for this coming season.

It's easy to fix. Make all FBS conference play 9 league games. That would drastically reduce the amount of payday games. The P5 would be buying less, and the G5 be less motivated to do payday games (because those schools want at least 6 home games too). That would drastically reduce payouts. All banning P5 from playing FCS would do is put a lot of money in the pockets of schools like NMSU, Idaho, and La Monroe.

Does it really matter if ASU plays NAU instead of NMSU, or Wazzu plays Idaho instead of EWU? Because that would be the net result of Pac12 teams not playing FCS teams.

The conference networks need inventory too. Thats another reason that payday games aren't going away. If the P5 really want to improve the SOS's, then mandate 9 league games for everyone, and don't count FCS games towards bowl eligibility. But of course they don't really want that.

(07-29-2013 02:44 PM)monarchoptimist Wrote:  If the playoff selection committee starts punishing teams for playing weak schedules then a change will occur.

The playoff selection committee can't do anything to stop most of the top-conference teams from buying an FCS opponent, because teams that have no shot at being chosen for the playoff don't care what the playoff-selection criteria are.

@LastMinuteMan, you are correct, I assumed that there was a rule change because Poly has 12 games this year. I was not aware of some calendar mandates that resulted in FCS teams getting to play 12 games some years. Is that the case? I think 12 games plus the playoffs is too many games anyway so I'm actually glad if that is the case.