I know FAU and Florida Atlantic are the same thing, I'm saying we also played them a few years ago.
I think we schedule them because they are a guaranteed win, but they are still FBS, so when you schedule them, you say, "Well, at least we didn't schedule FCS."
Good point on the southern exposure. I'd like to think that we schedule those teams for that reason as well.
Wouldn't scheduling a Sun Belt team be more like taking a gun to a knife fight?
i say this without knowing anything about the financials behind scheduling teams like this (and this is clearly a hypothetical)...but my guess is these games cost us millions each season. Not only are we having to pay a team like this to come to Lincoln, but we are losing TV revenue when the game isn't on ABC/ESPN, stadium revenue, etc. Lets say, between everything this game...from a financial revenue standpoint yields $1 million less revenue than a game against a top 50ish team, and $1.5-2 million less than a top 25ish team. I don't think those numbers would be much of a stretch. Now lets say we go the route of the top 50ish team, and schedule Kansas or Cincinnati. We take the extra $1 million...divide it in half, add it to our current OC/DC salaries and pay $850,000 to each rock-star coordinator, two of the best in college football. I'm talking like Mattison/Malzahn type of guys...but to gain that we have to play a slightly tougher schedule against an opponent we might lose to 10% of the time versus 1% of the time. Would that be worth it?
Not entirely, I'm sure each team has their own conference they like to grab non-cons from. Ohio State usually schedules a lot of MAC schools. tSEC usually schedules a lot of Sun Belt teams as well. Nothing really odd about it.
