A D 1 football program with less than 6 home games would be considered an irrelevant program today. No need to heap praises on anyone for doing the minimum. Now if we can get 7 home games a year, pin the medals on folks.
It's basically a decision they have to make at the top as to the scheduling strategy, and what's important. According to what I'd call the Bobcat Love school of thought, FCS games are meaningless, and should be avoided, and what is important is to bring top teams to the home stadium. If you schedule along these lines, you're going to get some 5 game home schedules. D.A. already gave the NIU example. People here have been praising them for their scheduling, not calling them irrelevant.
Five game home schedules can also result from a need to play two money games a year, rather than one, which may have been the cause of the WMU and EMU schedules this year, both of which had only two home games, and two P5 games on the road (Purdue and V. Tech for WMU, Florida and Michigan State for EMU):
http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_/id/2199/easter...
http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_/id/2711/wester...
Here are some possible strategies:
A. Bring in big names with 2:1 deal, do no FCS games
One 2:1 deal (1/3 home game)
Two money games 5 years out of 6 (to offset the loss of the 2:1 deal, 1/6 home games)
One 1:1 game (1/2 home game)
Four MAC home games
Result 5 home games every year, every third year one big team at home, and the other two years the fifth game would be G5/low P5 teams.
B. Current strategy
One money game (no home games)
Two 1:1 deals with either G5 or lowly P5 teams (one home game/yr)
One FCS game (one home game
Four MAC home games
Result: 6 home games a year, one of the home games would be FCS, the other would be a G5/low P5 team.
C. Similar, but with no FCS game
One money game (no home game)
Three 1:1 games (1.5 home games)
Four MAC home games
Result: alternating seasons of 5 home games and 6 home games. All home games would be G5/low P5 teams.
D. IDK if this would work, but it might occasionally get 7 home games
Two money games 2 years out of 3 (no home game)
One FCS game (1 home game)
One bought G5 team, at a price lower than you are getting for your money games
One year out of 3, a 1:1 series (1/6 home game)
Four MAC home games
Result: Seven home games every six years. One would be FCS, one a low G5, and the one every sixth year would be a G5/low P5 team.
To work, you'd have to get significantly more for your money games than you pay to buy the G5 home game. If you got $1 m for an extra money game and could buy a G5 home game for $667k, it would work, because over a three year period the money from 2 money games would pay for the three bought G5 games.
All of these would produce similar revenues, so the question is, is it more important to have big name teams at home, or more important to have 6 home games every year? I think that the current strategy makes the most sense, and seemingly so does everyone else, because it is what almost every G5 team is doing.
It's also true that the current scheduling strategy has some variability, and that's where the AD comes in. All 1:1 deals are not created equally. The higher the football profile of a school, and the better the negotiator your AD is, the better the 1:1 deals can be. When you have a low profile (are rarely winners, rarely on TV, rarely in bowls, etc.), the deals you can get may be Sunbelt teams like Idaho and New Mexico State. As your profile improves, you can get teams like Kansas and Cincinnati to agree to 1:1 deals.
Last Edited: 1/12/2015 2:44:59 PM by L.C.