Question about scheduling

huskerinacaveman

huskerinacaveman

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Is there a good reason why college football schedules all games so far in advance? Furthermore is it that hard to allow for some flex scheduling during the season based on some predetermined parameters?

What I mean by flex scheduling is instead of a nonconference schedules at the beginning of the year but broken up or even placed at the end of year to act as sort of a bracket buster type idea.

good idea or not, why cant it happen?

 
huskerinacaveman said:
Is there a good reason why college football schedules all games so far in advance? Furthermore is it that hard to allow for some flex scheduling during the season based on some predetermined parameters?

What I mean by flex scheduling is instead of a nonconference schedules at the beginning of the year but broken up or even placed at the end of year to act as sort of a bracket buster type idea.

good idea or not, why cant it happen?
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So in Nebraska's case, you are saying that NU should play our Miami game toward the end of the year instead of at the beginning?

I'm all for those kinds of things to get the SEC up to Northern schools in November or late Oct.

It's a great idea, and some schools do that. Georgia plays Georgia Tech at the end of the year, and the same with Florida and FSU.

I wouldn't mind that at all, across the board. Play 1-2 non conference games at the beginning and 1-2 at the end, (before thanksgiving, in NU's case)

 
One very smart thing that the SEC does is schedule cupcake non-conference games in November. It basically gives their teams a built-in bye week before the last couple games of the season. They also have early season conference match-ups which inflates the perception of the entire conference.

 
huskerinacaveman said:
Is there a good reason why college football schedules all games so far in advance? Furthermore is it that hard to allow for some flex scheduling during the season based on some predetermined parameters?

What I mean by flex scheduling is instead of a nonconference schedules at the beginning of the year but broken up or even placed at the end of year to act as sort of a bracket buster type idea.

good idea or not, why cant it happen?
Click to expand...

Plenty of schools have more flexible scheduling. The Big XII and Big Ten happen to be the two tightest conferences I can think of in that regard, but it's pretty common.

 
Essentially that's what I am saying, but the opponents are scheduled based on where your team, or in our case (Neb) sets within the college landscape for the season. Conference play as it stands now establishes a pretty obvious pecking order. So say Nebraska was 4th or 5th last year. That would mean that Nebraska would play the 4/5th best team from say the SEC/Big12/Pac-12 as three non conference games. It can all be fluid, and home team determined by what ever they want to use in terms of fairness.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
One very smart cheap, douchebaggy thing that the SEC does is schedule cupcake non-conference games in November. It basically gives their teams a built-in bye week before the last couple games of the season. They also have early season conference match-ups which inflates the perception of the entire conference.
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FIFY. I wouldn't mind more flexible scheduling but as good as it may be for the team to have a cupcake that late in the season, I have no desire to see that as a fan.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
One very smart thing that the SEC does is schedule cupcake non-conference games in November. It basically gives their teams a built-in bye week before the last couple games of the season. They also have early season conference match-ups which inflates the perception of the entire conference.
Click to expand...
This is one of the smartest things the SEC has ever done and it's so subtle that most people don't even realize it.

They schedule big conference games in the first couple of weeks. The winner of that game, gets so hyped up because they knocked off XYZ SEC juggernaut while the rest of the world is playing South East Arkansas State.

So, that team gets immediately inflated to top 5 rankings. Meanwhile, late in the year, the world realizes this "juggernaut" wasn't really that much of a juggernaut but by that time it's forgotten that this is what elevated the team originally.They then play a bunch of patsies at the end of the season to make sure that top 5 team doesn't lose late.

Also, for the team that loses that early game, the rest of the season can be used to climb back up.

I personally would love Nebraska to go to this type of scheduling simply because so often, 3 out of the first 4 weekends of the year are such yawners of games and by week 5 we still have no clue what our team is like. This year, we do have two games early (BYU and Miami) that are good tests.

 
the article that just came out about Nebraska's peer would be a good example of the teams that a team would play as a drop in game. Teams that compare in terms of performance during the season

 
The main reasons football schedules are done years in advance are mainly about money. Football programs are the biggest revenue generator for D-1 athletic programs, so the schools need to have a budgeted revenue that they can count on each year. If they didn't have that guaranteed $ each year, it could be hard to budget the entire Athletic Department.

When finding big, home-and-home matchups each year, that's mainly done by the schools working with other schools to find attractive matchups. Some schools will have a designated non-conference rival (UGA vs. GT, FSU vs. Florida, USC-ND, etc) so they are really the only big non-conference matchup each year. The kickoff games played in Dallas, Atlanta, and other big cities each year also give an opportunity for big matchups and big payouts. But, even those are scheduled at least 1 year out. The athletic departments want to be able to tell their fans "Hey, we have Oregon, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Tennessee coming to Lincoln in the next 10 years, you don't want to lose your season tickets."

The B1G and Pac10 floated ideas of rotating, non-conference matchups, but I think they realized it is a logistical nightmare and the conferences ended up canceling that agreement.

 
that is kind of what I thought. though I think the money is there no matter what though if you are consistently fielding competitive teams against each other rather than cupcakes.

 
huskerinacaveman said:
that is kind of what I thought. though I think the money is there no matter what though if you are consistently fielding competitive teams against each other rather than cupcakes.
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The money is contingent on getting the number of home games the athletic department it needs each year. The school (well at least NU) knows that it's going to sell the tickets to their 7 home games no matter who the opponent is. The school would rather have 7 or 8 guaranteed home games, rather than having an unknown game each year against an unknown opponent.

 
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