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I've previously mentioned my talk with an "influential" member of the Ath.dept. (sorry, but I won't divulge names)....But the scheduling fiasco that has been addressed on another thread got me to thinking.....

Why can't we just "skip" a team in our schedule (conference that is)... The Big Ten, for example, really has 11 teams as we all know...and OSU didn't play Wisconsin this year, a team that probably would've been its biggest challenge in the regular season. It seems to me that they also didn't play IOWA a couple of years ago when the Hawkeyes were very strong.

Now, I know there's a difference between a conference that isn't divided into divisons like the MAC is (for purpose of having a CONF. Championship game), but WHY couldn't we "skip" playing KSU one year, for example....then the next year, assuming the 13 team thing is still there, skip playing OU or Akron etc.

It might be a bit more complicated in the West, but maybe they COULD play all teams in their Div., then play one less "crossover" game against the East. Since ALL games played count in the standings anyway, what's the difference if we play FIVE East Div. games instead of SIX? (Thank you,MAC, for adding Temple!)

Anyway, it's just "food for thought" as I watch this stuff come down....

BTW, there's something in that article from the Idaho paper that truly bothered ME.....that BG allegedly doesn's "want" to play Boise this year. We play OSU one year, Wisconsin the next....and we don't "want" a home game with a team like Boise? So maybe WE'RE one of the teams that screwed up its OOC schedule with too many games? Pitt and Minn. on same date?

Class of 61 wrote:BTW, there's something in that article from the Idaho paper that truly bothered ME.....that BG allegedly doesn's "want" to play Boise this year. We play OSU one year, Wisconsin the next....and we don't "want" a home game with a team like Boise? So maybe WE'RE one of the teams that screwed up its OOC schedule with too many games? Pitt and Minn. on same date?

That quote bothered me for a minute, too, until they later went and said that we backed out of the game last year, too. (Before finally explaining that the MAC pulled us away from the game a little bit later.) After reading that, I got a whiff of biased reporting and started eating grains of salt.

I hope we weren't one with too many OOC games, but I'm too confused to count.

Class of 61 wrote:Why can't we just "skip" a team in our schedule (conference that is)... The Big Ten, for example, really has 11 teams as we all know...and OSU didn't play Wisconsin this year, a team that probably would've been its biggest challenge in the regular season. It seems to me that they also didn't play IOWA a couple of years ago when the Hawkeyes were very strong.

Now, I know there's a difference between a conference that isn't divided into divisons like the MAC is (for purpose of having a CONF. Championship game), but WHY couldn't we "skip" playing KSU one year, for example....then the next year, assuming the 13 team thing is still there, skip playing OU or Akron etc.

It might be a bit more complicated in the West, but maybe they COULD play all teams in their Div., then play one less "crossover" game against the East. Since ALL games played count in the standings anyway, what's the difference if we play FIVE East Div. games instead of SIX? (Thank you,MAC, for adding Temple!)

Anyway, it's just "food for thought" as I watch this stuff come down....

I think what you are saying is what the issue is right now. You can't make an 8 game conference schedule work with divisions of 7 and 6. You can make a 7 game conference schedule (5 div and 2 crossovers) work. Thus the issue of a potential 7 game MAC schedule. Which makes it all the more distressing to see us definitely lose the Navy game and now potentially the Boise game. That would mean we would need to schedule three more OOC games. North TX, La Laff, Ark St, etc, all look real attractive compared to Navy and Boise.

Warthog wrote:

Class of 61 wrote:Why can't we just "skip" a team in our schedule (conference that is)... The Big Ten, for example, really has 11 teams as we all know...and OSU didn't play Wisconsin this year, a team that probably would've been its biggest challenge in the regular season. It seems to me that they also didn't play IOWA a couple of years ago when the Hawkeyes were very strong.

Now, I know there's a difference between a conference that isn't divided into divisons like the MAC is (for purpose of having a CONF. Championship game), but WHY couldn't we "skip" playing KSU one year, for example....then the next year, assuming the 13 team thing is still there, skip playing OU or Akron etc.

It might be a bit more complicated in the West, but maybe they COULD play all teams in their Div., then play one less "crossover" game against the East. Since ALL games played count in the standings anyway, what's the difference if we play FIVE East Div. games instead of SIX? (Thank you,MAC, for adding Temple!)

Anyway, it's just "food for thought" as I watch this stuff come down....

I think what you are saying is what the issue is right now. You can't make an 8 game conference schedule work with divisions of 7 and 6. You can make a 7 game conference schedule (5 div and 2 crossovers) work. Thus the issue of a potential 7 game MAC schedule. Which makes it all the more distressing to see us definitely lose the Navy game and now potentially the Boise game. That would mean we would need to schedule three more OOC games. North TX, La Laff, Ark St, etc, all look real attractive compared to Navy and Boise.

Actually Wart, and I don't claim to be a "numbers cruncher" on this, what I was thinking is that we play FIVE in the East(skip a team) and THREE from the West as we have been doing...did we not play CMU, EMU and UT this past year, or is my "senility" setting in again? Then the West teams would play FIVE in their Div. (against all teams) and THREE from East. Guess I just can't figure out why this wouldn't work.

You cant have 7 teams from one division play 3 crossover games and 6 teams from the other division play 3 crossover games. It doesn't add up.

Basically, the idea of having unbalanced divisions is just plain stupid. The MAC dropped the ball big time on this one. I actually like the addition of Temple, but you have to bring another team with them.

WTF? We're sitting here in February...spring ball will be upon us soon and our coaches don't have a schedule? We're in limbo re how many conference games we'll play?

I cannot believe what I am seeing!!!

The leadership of the BG athletic department is not impressing me whatsoever. The leadership of the MAC is not impressing me either. If these guys cannot get the jobs done find somebody who can.

I'm still not convinced that Christopher has the balls to make the important decisions. He was brought in here to raise money; good luck doing that with the state of our revenue producing sports. Get the teams better; money will follow.

I can understand why we'd pussy out of playing BSU...they'll destroy us. Perhaps if we made the ballsy call to hire a real head football coach this past offseason we'd get better and be able to raise more money. We should've gotten a new basketball coach a year ago as well. We should be pursuing a new hockey coach in the next couple months.

If you don't have the balls to make the decisions required to get our programs better, I have no place for you. If we aren't even competent enough to put together a freaking football schedule I don't even know what to say. It's no wonder this conference is the joke of 1A...the leadership of the AD & MAC Commish has been pathetic.

Lots of smart posts here - Den, thanks for getting the ball rolling.

While they are certainly related, I think we need to be clear that we are potentially talking about two distinct issues.

First, the conference: I have been a Chryst supporter for some time. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on him, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt when we went to a 13-team football conference, expecting that the league office had worked out the conference scheduling logistics. It appears now that my confidence was misplaced.

Second, BG's athletic department: We went into 2007 expecting 8 conference games and 4 OOC games. Now we find that we may actually need more OOC games ... and we're talking about dropping current OOC commitments ... AND going from 6 home games to 5? Regardless of what the MAC cooks up, this course of action simply doesn't make sense.

Someone mentioned in an earlier thread that it would really help the MAC's image (and the university's, IMO) if there were a little more open dialogue with the public on the matter. Because in the absence of substantive information, we're being bombarded with Internet speculation and chatter that makes the conference and the school(s) a collection of smacked a**es.

One thing for us all to consider is that some MAC schools might have trouble scheduling a 5th OOC game if playing 7 conference games, and they might just end up playing an 11 game season because of it. There is no NCAA rule that says you have to play 12 games. That would suck IMO, because the more college football the better to me........but it could be a possibility for some of us.

rocketfootball wrote:One thing for us all to consider is that some MAC schools might have trouble scheduling a 5th OOC game if playing 7 conference games, and they might just end up playing an 11 game season because of it. There is no NCAA rule that says you have to play 12 games. That would suck IMO, because the more college football the better to me........but it could be a possibility for some of us.

RF:

Agreed that it's a possibility. But I'd like to think that even the most hardcore anti-IAA folks would agree that a home game against a I-AA school in a 12-game schedule is better than an 11-game schedule.

Assuming you can find a I-AA to schedule on your very few open dates by the time the MAC office lets you know whether you will be playing 7 or 8 conference games.

rocketfootball wrote:One thing for us all to consider is that some MAC schools might have trouble scheduling a 5th OOC game if playing 7 conference games, and they might just end up playing an 11 game season because of it. There is no NCAA rule that says you have to play 12 games. That would suck IMO, because the more college football the better to me........but it could be a possibility for some of us.

My thought was that some MAC schools will end up playing each other as a non-conference game. Wouldn't that be fun?

Warthog wrote:My thought was that some MAC schools will end up playing each other as a non-conference game. Wouldn't that be fun?

Didn't that happen in the not-too-distant past? Or am I thinking basketball or hockey?

TG1996 wrote:

Warthog wrote:My thought was that some MAC schools will end up playing each other as a non-conference game. Wouldn't that be fun?

Didn't that happen in the not-too-distant past? Or am I thinking basketball or hockey?

Don't remember it happening in football, but a few years back UT and BG played against each other three times in men's basketball.......twice in conference and once as a non-conference game.

Well, at one time crossover games to the other division did not count to MAC standings in football.