The Art of Non-Conference Scheduling

The word “chaos” has long been used to describe many facets of college football.

Laymen tried to figure out for years why there were two Division 1’s and what the difference was between A and AA. Turns out the difference was a competent way to determine a national champion.

Speaking of that national champion, chaos is a good way to describe how the Football Bowl Subdivision determines its yearly king of the hill. College football is still the only sport in existence in which on several occasions, two teams (or more) stake claim to a national title in a single year (see: 2003).

One of the other confusing things that many casual fans still can’t figure out is how teams schedule games outside of conference play.

In the Pac-10, each team gets three spots to schedule games with teams in other conferences. This is in direct comparison to most other conferences across America who get 4 and the wild and wacky Big East who gets…count them…five NC games per season.

And, even better, the NCAA doesn’t really regulate who plays who in those games. What has resulted is a complete cluster of 120 teams trying to forge home-and-home or payoff contracts with each other to make sure everyone is playing 12 games per season (or those lucky few who get 13 and a wonderful trip to Hawai’i).

Every team schedules different. You’ve got teams that like to stock their OOC schedule with traditional powers and tremendous challenges on a yearly basis. You’ve got teams that know their level of competition and schedule accordingly. Then you have the programs that have the luxury of paying lesser opponents to come to their stadium, get stomped on and leave with a hefty payday.

I have taken the liberty of coming up with the 8 categories of non-conference games that teams schedule. Each NC game falls into one of these groups and I’ve provided examples of each.

Category #1: The Premier Matchup
These are the ones that ABC and ESPN salivate over each and every year. At least once a season, two powerful teams, usually who are in the mix for their conference title every season, probably came into that specific year with a top 10 ranking and Lee Corso wearing their mascot head on Saturday morning, face each other in a grand spectacle of college pigskin. The masses tune in, College GameDay shows up, ticket prices to through the roof and…sometimes…it’s even a good game.
2009 Examples: Alabama vs. Virginia Tech (9/5), USC at Ohio State (9/12)

Category #2: The “Once-Was-Good-But-Now-Regrettable” Matchup
The delicate art of non-conference scheduling happens many, many years in advance. Take Arizona State for example…the Devils already have games scheduled with LSU in 2015 and Colorado in 2018 and 2019. Programs try to capitalize on what is sometimes fleeting success for them and potential opponents by scheduling matchups with each other years or decades in advance, gambling on the idea that they’ll still both be good and people will still want to watch so many years in the future. Some of them fall into Category 1. The rest fall into this one.
2009 Examples: LSU at Washington (9/5), Oklahoma at Miami (10/3)

Category #3: Bottom Feeder-meets-Bottom Feeder
The scum of the BCS need love, too. So, when they need games and don’t feel like getting 70 pasted up on them and risk giving up the most points of any team in college football that season, they find an equally pathetic opponent from one of their other BCS brother conferences and slap together a series. Sometimes these actually turn out to be fun little games. The other 99% of the time, I’m glad they’re not televised. They’re certainly the afterthought for a team who is…well…an afterthought.
2009 Examples: Minnesota at Syracuse (9/5), Indiana at Virginia (10/10)

Category #4: We Can Play With The Big Boys Too!
These are those sometimes highly anticipated games where a supposed power from the non-BCS schools take on one of the powers from one of the Big Six + Notre Dame. We scrutinize those games over and over, looking for the faults in the big daddy team and how the Cinderella story from out of nowhere might be able to knock them down a peg or two. Many programs throw these in the middle of their conference seasons to break up the monotonous flow of having to compete for their own conference title. Most of the time, they turn out to be pretty terrible games that no one wants to remember.
2009 Examples: Oklahoma vs. BYU (9/5), Central Michigan at Arizona (9/5), Fresno State at Wisconsin (9/12), Western Michigan at Michigan State (11/7)

Category #5: The Game Between Non-BCS Teams Which ESPN Insists You Care About
We’ve all been there on any of those so called “weeknights” early on in the college football season. There’s nothing else on TV, the girlfriend is out with her friends and you’ve got a date with the couch and a six-pack. At this point, you’re so jacked up that football season has returned, though, that your insaciable appetite for college gridiron action is so great that you’ll watch pretty much any game thrown up on TV. This is where the network catches you with promos for games between teams outside of the BCS that “have a chance to shock the world.”
2009 Examples: Buffalo at UTEP (9/5), Tulsa at New Mexico (9/12)

Category #6: Notre Dame
And then there’s the Irish. That gifted, one-in-a-million Catholic school in South Bend, IN who has always resisted the urge to join one of the big boy conferences (except for that brief flirtation with the Big Ten). As a result, they get their own hefty TV contract with NBC, a special tie-in with the BCS and 12 games per season in which they get to pick and choose whoever they want to play. Many of them are reserved, of course, for traditional, long-time rivalry matchups. The others aren’t and it shows. If you play Notre Dame…ever…you’re in this category.
2009 Examples: Entire 2009 Notre Dame schedule

Category #7: The FCS Party
These games are so special, you only get to schedule one per year! This is pretty self-explanatory. 90% of the teams in FBS need a quickie game where they can work out some kinks, play the 2nd stringers and kick around a lesser opponent for fun. Usually, these take place during the 1st or 2nd week of the season. Most of the time, they’re against in-state or regional opponents whom local University Boards of Regents insists their big time schools play so that their littler schools can get the exposure and experience (of getting their ass kicked). Important note: this can sometimes backfire.
2009 Examples: Any game between an FBS school and an FCS school. Pac-10 games this year include Portland State at Oregon State (9/5), Idaho State at Arizona State (9/5), Eastern Washington at Cal (9/12) and Northern Arizona at Arizona (9/12).

Category #8: The Suicide Paycheck
Pretty self-explanatory here. The game in which a smaller school has no business playing against a big time power. Programs and AD’s always say that the reason for doing this is to get their kids and schools some television exposure and give them the experience of playing in a huge, sold-out stadium. We all know that’s a bold faced lie supplanted by dollar signs and lots of zeros. The steps to this are simple: come to our stadium, get your butts kicked, leave with nice paycheck. End of story.
2009 Examples: Louisiana-Monroe at Texas (9/5), San Jose State at USC (9/5), Florida International at Rutgers (9/19)

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