BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

Sometimes teams are desperate, though. Two big reasons why we've ended up with so many FBS-FCS games are conference realignment and the neutral-site games at places like Jerry World and Atlanta that pop up on relatively short notice.
The realignment has forced a lot of teams to shuffle schedules, and drop and reschedule games that were set several years in advance. The end result is a hole in the schedule that's hard to fill with another FBS team, whose schedule might also have been shuffled. So, you fill it with an FCS team as a placeholder for a year or two until the schedule gets back on track.
Same deal with the neutral-site games. They seem to be made one year in advance. So, the major conference teams replace a low-level FBS opponent with a higher-caliber opponent. It starts a ripple effect. Team A can't reschedule later in the season, so it gets kicked back to next year. Then there's a hole in the schedule you can't fill unless you call Directional State.

 

Which is how Florida State wound up playing Savannah State last year.

 

Well, someone has to take Stony Brook's spot as the Oddball Northeast School.

 

Has Stony Brook received a Big East invite yet?

 

Not ... glances at watch ... yet. But they and Albany join the CAA for football this fall.

 

That's all true. But now school A that needs a lower level opponent and can not find one will just play another school in the same boat. Which will lead to more competitive games. So from the point of view of the games I get to see on cable this is a good thing.

 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Scheduling I-AA teams has EVERYTHING to do with the bottom line.

The big boys generally would rather play I-A teams from the Sun Belt/MAC/etc. The problem from the big-schools' perspective is that the MACs and Sun Belts are demanding bigger guarantees. The NYT did a takeout on it a few years ago -- MAC schools (Buffalo in particular) would break contracts for $500,000 guarantees with some schools because they knew the Georgias and Auburns would shell out $1 million-plus.

Those other schools found that, by and large, the I-AAs would play those guarantee games for $250,000 or so. (My numbers may be off but the scale is accurate.)

That, coupled with the 12-game schedule, is what led to the massive increase in I-A vs. I-AA games and what, in turn, led to the rule change that allowed one I-AA win per year to count toward bowl eligiblity.

 

John Feinstein has sources telling him that Catholic 7 is targeting the known suspects: Dayton, Xavier, Butler, Saint Louis. But to get to 12, they're eying Richmond or (if they want to keep it totally Catholic) Siena for the east division. If Butler turns them down (or, again, if they want to keep it Catholic), they'd eye Detroit Mercy to fill out the west division.

Feinstein also says C7 has reached out informally to George Mason AD Tom O'Connor to be commissioner. O'Connor gives Feinstein a textbook non-denial denial.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/catholic-7-schools-including-georgetown-charting-a-new-yet-familiar-path/2013/02/16/f1eaa870-7876-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_story.html

 

Oh, God. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, to say the least.

 

Shit, if you're going to take Siena just go full religious and add Holy Cross for the Boston market.

 

Richmond: We're not Catholic, but if you squint hard enough, we can pass!

 

Holy Cross' program, though with the history behind it, hasn't done much since George Blaney left.

Their biggest mistake was not joining the original Big East in the first place.