2022 Schedule

[roguewarrior]

Schedule for MAC due to publish this morning.

[mbenecke]

Football schedule is out.

9/3 @ UCLA
9/10 vs. Eastern Kentucky
9/17 vs. Marshall
9/24 @ Mississippi State
10/1 @ Akron
10/8 vs. Buffalo
10/15 vs. Miami
10/22 @ Central Michigan
11/2 (Wed) vs. Western Michigan
11/9 (Wed) vs. Kent State
11/15 (Tue) @ Toledo
11/22 (Tue) @ Ohio

HATE having 4 games on weeknights. HATE having a short week for Toledo. HATE never having a full 2 weeks for a true bye.

At least it starts somewhat "easy" in MAC play? But man... hard to be a fan with this type of schedule.

[pdt1081]

Football schedule is out.

9/3 @ UCLA
9/10 vs. Eastern Kentucky
9/17 vs. Marshall
9/24 @ Mississippi State
10/1 @ Akron
10/8 vs. Buffalo
10/15 vs. Miami
10/22 @ Central Michigan
11/2 (Wed) vs. Western Michigan
11/9 (Wed) vs. Kent State
11/15 (Tue) @ Toledo
11/22 (Tue) @ Ohio

HATE having 4 games on weeknights. HATE having a short week for Toledo. HATE never having a full 2 weeks for a true bye.

At least it starts somewhat "easy" in MAC play? But man... hard to be a fan with this type of schedule.

No sport should end the regular season with two weeks on the road.

[Flipper]

I don't see us becoming bowl eligible...if we do it's as a 6-6 team

[roguewarrior]

Rivalry game on a Tuesday Night, likely 15 degrees…. Ughh…. I hate those MACtion games.

[fanatic13]

Football schedule is out.

9/3 @ UCLA
9/10 vs. Eastern Kentucky
9/17 vs. Marshall
9/24 @ Mississippi State
10/1 @ Akron
10/8 vs. Buffalo
10/15 vs. Miami
10/22 @ Central Michigan
11/2 (Wed) vs. Western Michigan
11/9 (Wed) vs. Kent State
11/15 (Tue) @ Toledo
11/22 (Tue) @ Ohio

HATE having 4 games on weeknights. HATE having a short week for Toledo. HATE never having a full 2 weeks for a true bye.

At least it starts somewhat "easy" in MAC play? But man... hard to be a fan with this type of schedule.

Most teams only have 1 bye week so we're normal there except ours is only 10 days instead of 14.

I know this is a broken record but I absolutely hate playing toledo on a week day. Hopefully I can give ucla and cmu a visit this year

[MarkL]

I'm not sure who's more vulnerable to an upset, UCLA in week one after an up and down season with a strong finish, or Mississippi State deep in SEC territory coming off a generally unpredictable season.

I also hope EKU does not give BG any troubles. BG should have lost to them in 2018. Got a VERY lucky no call PI on the final play to win the game last time.

[mbenecke]

Football schedule is out.

9/3 @ UCLA
9/10 vs. Eastern Kentucky
9/17 vs. Marshall
9/24 @ Mississippi State
10/1 @ Akron
10/8 vs. Buffalo
10/15 vs. Miami
10/22 @ Central Michigan
11/2 (Wed) vs. Western Michigan
11/9 (Wed) vs. Kent State
11/15 (Tue) @ Toledo
11/22 (Tue) @ Ohio

HATE having 4 games on weeknights. HATE having a short week for Toledo. HATE never having a full 2 weeks for a true bye.

At least it starts somewhat "easy" in MAC play? But man... hard to be a fan with this type of schedule.

Most teams only have 1 bye week so we're normal there except ours is only 10 days instead of 14.

I know this is a broken record but I absolutely hate playing toledo on a week day. Hopefully I can give ucla and cmu a visit this year

That's the point I was actually trying to make. I know every team typically only gets one bye, but ours is more like a 3/4s bye as opposed to a full bye. Like you said, 10 days instead of 14 - which can be significant. Especially because it's then followed by a short week to prepare for Toledo (who has a full week).

This seems like the worst schedule we have had in a long time.

[roguewarrior]

We have to assume that should we turn the corner this year, that our last two games will be critical to win…so now we will be At Toledo and At OU on Tuesday nights…… cold as hell, at night, with no one there….. a few more obstacles to overcome. At least on a late season Saturday you might catch a sunny day…. Ugh!!!!

[hammb]

Dave Briggs. The one man in the local media who gets it and is willing to point it out:

https://www.toledoblade.com/sports/coll ... 0220227168

Weeknight MACtion is among the dumbest things this conference has ever done, and that's saying something. Selling your souls to put games people won't watch on TV channels (or streams) that people don't get. It was one thing to put some key matchup games on primetime television when they were on ESPN or ESPN2. But relegating every game in the conference to primetime weeknights in November in Ohio/Michigan is just insanely stupid.

[MarkL]

I get that the conference needs the money. But CFB should be a Saturday thing. Alums outside the NW Ohio region, which is a relatively sparsely populated region, have no chance of returning for a midweek game.
We had an awesome Saturday November home game against Kent State in 2012. We lost in the final seconds, the game was effectively the MAC east championship so Kent went on to Detroit rather than BG. The stadium was near full. The next Saturday November home game? Vs Akron in the first weekend November 2019, and that barely counts as November had 5 Saturdays in 2019.

Best solution: in next contract negotiation with ESPN, the conference should demand that each program gets at least one Saturday November home game. Even if it is streaming only, that is an improvement. If ESPN says no, try someone else.

[guest44]

Just charge the students another 1 million in student fees and play when you want to play. Student fees increase by about 4% a year anyway, and it's done in a way the students have no idea how it is spent. Quit the act that ESPN is doing so much.

[Schadenfreude]

Dave Briggs. The one man in the local media who gets it and is willing to point it out:

That column is a bad take. Briggs might have been in diapers at the time, but I'm old enough to remember when ESPN wouldn't touch any MAC game aside from maybe our one bowl game. It was terrible. MAC football was far more marginalized back then then than it is today. Briggs seems to want to send us back to those dark ages.

Weeknight #MACtion is a good thing. It gives our conference national television exposure and revenue.

Briggs also exaggerates the damage weeknight games has on attendance. Crowds were usually pretty thin around the MAC in November even before weeknight #MACtion. The Glass Bowl will almost certainly not be "half empty" for the Falcons' trip up there. Bowling Green had 18,000+ for Toledo game last year.

I wish we could play football on Saturdays in November, but the alternative is not being on ESPN networks at all. Check out Conference USA (if you can even find them on CBS Sports Network and Stadium) for a sense of how that might work out for us.

[Globetrotter]

I have no problem with weeknight game. I have a problem with weeknight games.

Why have 2 at once. Make it special

[jpfalcon09]

If both teams are good, people will show up to a weeknight game. We've had several examples over the last 20 years of this (overtime game in 2005, the unfortunate blowout in 2015). The game and rivalry deserves a national spotlight. I have issues however with scheduling other conference games midweek which have very little history or tradition attached to them.