Boise St. finally made it...

[Airmaxpenny1]

I'm playing boise in the BCS championship game next. I'm wisconsin by the way.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Another big factor of why the "Big Boys" won't play Boise/TCU/Utah is they don't want to lose even more money by doing a home and home. They don't have the stadium capacity to hold 80k-100k fans like the larger programs do. That is probably costing a program more money than paying Arkansas State 1mill to get walloped by 30-40.

In my dynasties Boise State often loses 2 games a year. Nevada seems to own them for whatever reason.

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by JacksSmirkingRevenge

Another big factor of why the "Big Boys" won't play Boise/TCU/Utah is they don't want to lose even more money by doing a home and home. They don't have the stadium capacity to hold 80k-100k fans like the larger programs do. That is probably costing a program more money than paying Arkansas State 1mill to get walloped by 30-40. In my dynasties Boise State often loses 2 games a year. Nevada seems to own them for whatever reason.

Probably because when you have 21 returning starters year 1, you have 0-1 returning starters year 2.

[mashaddict]

I doubt the big schools are afraid to schedule Boise, it has more to do with the money and games needing to be scheduled years in advance (look at the recent Miami/Notre Dame deal). Boise is on the ESPN networks SIX times this year. SIX. I'm quite sure my Razorbacks would love to play Boise, even if you lose you get a sellout crowd and a nationally televised game with tons of publicity. That alone is a big enough recruiting tool, even if you lose to Boise (who is sub-.500 against BCS teams). I'm sure the big schools are interested, but Boise needs to be scheduling down the road instead of expecting the top teams to have miraculous schedule openings in the short term.

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by mashaddict

I doubt the big schools are afraid to schedule Boise, it has more to do with the money and games needing to be scheduled years in advance (look at the recent Miami/Notre Dame deal). Boise is on the ESPN networks SIX times this year. SIX. I'm quite sure my Razorbacks would love to play Boise, even if you lose you get a sellout crowd and a nationally televised game with tons of publicity. That alone is a big enough recruiting tool, even if you lose to Boise (who is sub-.500 against BCS teams). I'm sure the big schools are interested, but Boise needs to be scheduling down the road instead of expecting the top teams to have miraculous schedule openings in the short term.

Some of this.

Arkansas won't be adding Boise State any time soon. Arkansas has long-term deals with Texas A&M to play in Cowboy Stadium in Dallas, and UL Monroe to play in War Memorial in Little Rock. In addition, a few years down the road (I think 2015-16 or something), Arkansas has a deal to play at least 2 games with TCU. The TCU deal overlaps the A&M deal, so during at least two seasons in the next decade, Arkansas will play both A&M and TCU as non-conference games.

If Boise State wanted to get on Arkansas' schedule, it'd likely have to be some time behind the TCU games.


...but your general point is absolutely spot on. Even with them moving up to the MWC, Boise State is far better off scheduling future series with teams than trying to get games for here and now when they KNOW they're good. There are relatively few examples of BCS conference teams scheduling prime time match-ups within a year or two of when they're to be played. In fact, in almost any instance that a team is scheduling a game this late, it's when a contract for another game has fallen through and this is when an FCS team usually gets picked up.

Generally speaking, most teams are all booked up, which is perhaps Boise States biggest problem. I bet Boise State could potentially lock up some long-term deals with some Pac-10 or Big 12 regional teams...they just can't expect to start playing them immediately. Boise could probably approach a Colorado, or Kansas, or Kansas State, and say... "Hey, starting in 2016, you want to start playing us every season for the next 10 years in Mile High Stadium?"

Games played in NFL stadiums are mutually beneficial in a big way to both teams. It's a big recruiting draw, for one. And generally speaking, you can sell your tickets for a bit more than average, so even if you're only selling half of the tickets (since the other team gets the other half), you still make a good bit of money.

[mashaddict]

Trust me, I know that Arkansas is booked up for the foreseeable future, but it was a relevant example of an average or slightly above BCS school that would probably be willing to play Boise if not for the logistics of making such a thing happen. I don't like the Boise fans saying that BCS schools "duck" them, when the big schools don't have a reason to duck a sellout, nationally televised game against a top 10 team that they are statistically favored to win. I'm sure tons of schools would jump at the chance, if it weren't for the long-term scheduling issues.

[Noble Evildoer]

Quote: Originally Posted by mashaddict

Trust me, I know that Arkansas is booked up for the foreseeable future, but it was a relevant example of an average or slightly above BCS school that would probably be willing to play Boise if not for the logistics of making such a thing happen. I don't like the Boise fans saying that BCS schools "duck" them, when the big schools don't have a reason to duck a sellout, nationally televised game against a top 10 team that they are statistically favored to win. I'm sure tons of schools would jump at the chance, if it weren't for the long-term scheduling issues.

AQ schools duck them because Boise is really good. However, they're from a lesser conference, so losing to them could look worse than losing to a team of similar talent from an Auto-qualifier conference. Plus, it's easier to schedule a bad WAC, MAC, C-USA, or Sun Belt school since you're more likely to beat them.

The insecurity of the AQ schools has always interested me. Alabama has lost to two non-AQ schools in the Saban era. They lost to lowly Louisiana-Monroe (bad by Sun Belt standards) his first year. His second year they lose to Utah (a really good Mountain West team) in the Sugar Bowl. The next year they're national champions. AQ schools seem to think that losing once to a non-AQ will bring their program crashing down. Hell, even Hawaii had trouble scheduling visits to other teams the year they made a BCS bowl and resorted to playing two 1-AA schools.

[Pogo27]

Quote: Originally Posted by Noble Evildoer

AQ schools duck them because Boise is really good. However, they're from a lesser conference, so losing to them could look worse than losing to a team of similar talent from an Auto-qualifier conference. Plus, it's easier to schedule a bad WAC, MAC, C-USA, or Sun Belt school since you're more likely to beat them.

I'm also really having a hard time truly buying this argument.

Boise State is starting this season ranked #5. Clearly they have a good amount of national respect. Moreso than, oh, about 115 other teams.

Now clearly, if you're talking about teams of similar talent level, then yeah, there's a difference between playing Ohio State and playing Oklahoma (err...and that, by NO means is to say that they're similar talent level...just close in the top 25 rankings).

But what about when you're talking about teams like Oregon State, Pittsburgh, or West Virginia who are at the bottom end of the top 25? Boise State gets MORE national media attention than these teams do, generally speaking. Oregon State is actually playing Boise State. Anyway, the point is, there are teams who could use some extra national attention and playing Boise State could help them with that.

And again... Boise State is trying to charge $1 mil. Do you think that's helping them get a game?

UCLA at Kansas State. Think K-State is paying UCLA?
Georgia Tech at Kansas?
Colorado at California?
Florida State at Oklahoma?
Penn State at Alabama?
Oregon at Tennessee?
Southern Cal at Minnesota?
Alabama at Duke?
Nebraska at Washington?
Arizona State at Wisconsin?
Louisville at Oregon State?
Clemson at Auburn?
Iowa at Arizona?
Miami at Pittsburgh?
North Carolina at Rutgers?
UCLA at Texas?
Oklahoma at Cincinnati?
West Virginia at LSU?

These are all examples of BCS vs BCS teams where they've likely worked out some home-and-home series. Although, these aren't all between programs of equal stature, so there may even be some cases where one team is getting more home games out of the deal.

Texas plays a game AT Rice this year. Think Rice is paying Texas $1mil?
Washington at BYU, think BYU is paying?
Kansas at Southern Miss?
California at Nevada?
Indiana at Western Kentucky?
Connecticut at Temple?
Northwestern at Rice?


Moreover, is Boise State paying Oregon State $1 mil to play in Boise?


In the top half, you have plenty of examples of non-conference BCS-vs-BCS games, and in some cases the host team is clearly a much lesser program (Neb at Was, Bama at Duke, SoCal at Min, IA at AZ, Miami at Pitt, UNC at Rutgers, Okl at Cin). How many of these scenarios do you think the visiting team is getting CASH (as opposed to it being a home-and-home, or a 2-for-1 or whatever sort of deal)?

Then look at the examples of the 7 games I found in just the first 4 weeks of the 2010 season, in which a non-BCS conference team is playing host to a BCS conference team, including such a high-profile team like Texas (although they're just driving down the road to Rice). Do you think in any of these scenarios that the non-BCS team has the money to pay a Texas to come play them?


Do programs pay other programs to play them? Yes. But these deals are different, much different. They're generally made between a big program and a little program, and they're made so that the big program has that home game every single season and the little program gets some cash (maybe not as much as they would get with a home game, maybe more). There are also sometimes other incentives for the visiting team.

For instance, Arkansas has a long term deal to play UL Monroe every year in Little Rock's War Memorial stadium. For all practical purposes, this is a home game for the Razorbacks. They wear their red tops, let Monroe choose the coin toss (I think), and sell virtually all the tickets to Hog fans. But technically, it's a neutral site game. And with all neutral site games, one team HAS to claim it as a home game. Arkansas lets UL Monroe claim it as a home game. Why? Attendance. Monroe gets to count the sold out game as a home attendance, which helps them maintain the average attendance required to remain a D1 FBS school. Without these attendance figures, Monroe would be forced down to FCS. But when Arkansas is paying for Monroe to come play them, they're paying for a win.

No athletic director in their right mind is going to go out to Boise State and say "Hey, I want to give you guys $1mil to come beat us!" I think if Boise State dropped the million and instead focused on trying to get maybe a 3 or 4 game series where Boise got one home game and gave 2 or 3 road games, they'd probably have a lot more luck getting some games against BCS opponents on their schedule.