Future Football Schedules - Non Conference

[BullsDude08]

I am curious if our Athletic Director is actively pursuing non-conference games either with home-and-home or 2-for-1 agreements?

I follow a website called FBschedules.com and they are constantly updating matchups that are announced and rarely is USF mentioned.

I.E. The top story on the page right now is Fla Int'l signing a home-and-home with Maryland. I understand Maryland is not a "big name" but it is still an ACC school.

Teams cannot still be scared to play us so what is the deal??

http://www.fbschedules.com/

[MikeG]

are you forgetting the conference is expanding?

[Hem]

are you forgetting the conference is expanding?

Would still be nice to play some great out-of-conference games in our future.

[BDYZR]

and planning some good road trips...

[Danm1983]

Schedules will fill out I'm sure, but with the other conferences scrambling to get good games in order to help their chances at a playoff spot, you'd think we'd at least be getting some calls. I expect to see some moves made in the offseason and spring for some of our future schedules. They may also wait until after the season in case they want coach's input...or, dare I say, a new coach's input (likely not, but putting this here for those who think it will happen).

Now that the BE will have 12 teams and a solid 8 game conference schedule, we should dump the FCS team and go for a SunBelt game every year. Keep the ties with FAU, or play Troy, Western Kentucky, the Louisiana schools, MTSU. Places we can make short road trips to. Try to extend the Miami series or look to fill it in with some games against FSU. Make the 3rd game against a C-USA team (FIU, ECU, Southern Miss, etc), and look for a BCS team for the 4th (a la, the Michigan States, Indianas, look to ACC teams, or a Big 12 team to match up against).

I feel they need to roll the dice some more. We're not far separated from the Notre Dame victory, but I think we've lost the moniker that we're some sort of giant killer.

[BullFan98]

Schedules will fill out I'm sure, but with the other conferences scrambling to get good games in order to help their chances at a playoff spot, you'd think we'd at least be getting some calls. I expect to see some moves made in the offseason and spring for some of our future schedules. They may also wait until after the season in case they want coach's input...or, dare I say, a new coach's input (likely not, but putting this here for those who think it will happen).

Now that the BE will have 12 teams and a solid 8 game conference schedule, we should dump the FCS team and go for a SunBelt game every year. Keep the ties with FAU, or play Troy, Western Kentucky, the Louisiana schools, MTSU. Places we can make short road trips to. Try to extend the Miami series or look to fill it in with some games against FSU. Make the 3rd game against a C-USA team (FIU, ECU, Southern Miss, etc), and look for a BCS team for the 4th (a la, the Michigan States, Indianas, look to ACC teams, or a Big 12 team to match up against).

I feel they need to roll the dice some more. We're not far separated from the Notre Dame victory, but I think we've lost the moniker that we're some sort of giant killer.

Another first under the Holtz regime.

[BullFan98]

I agree with your thinking, but I believe the AD is concerned with scheduling and buyouts due to the BE conference debacle.

[hm101]

I have spoken with Bill in the past month and he indicated USF and a few ACC schools are talking right now. (upper-half ACC)

[Cow Pie]

Regardless of conference expansion I don't think playing better schools is gonna help our image... based on our history under Holtz, we have been weak and sorry. So if we get a home and home with Clemson then I don't see the plus side in having Clemson come down here to whip us, and then us going up the following year to get whipped again.

Holtz has reduced us back to square one in my view... until we can beat and compete in the Big East season in and season out I'll gladly welcome schools like Wofford and Nooga because at least we can beat those schools.

Right now and next season, and as long as Holtz is here I don't see us being a strong enough team to compete with upper-half ACC schools, much less bottom-half ACC schools.

[Mike Stuben]

Lets take a quick look at the categories of games and what we have done in the past.

Money paid to a I-AA to come to Tampa: one a year (in a couple years where we had scheduling trouble we had 2 of these). They are going to continue. Best case scenario - FAMU and to a lesser extent Bethune Cookman (they bring fans and in FAMU's case, when not suspended, they bring an awesome band). Worst case scenario, school from far away no one has heard of (example: see Stony Brook)

Money paid to a 1-A school to come to Tampa: only once has this happened. UTEP last year. It was a ground breaking game and one I hope we can do again in the future. This was one of the most "big time scheduling" thing we ever did. The thought that we were a "have" and not a "have not" and could afford to pay a school on our level to come to Tampa.

2 for 1 with 2 games in Tampa: We have done this twice, FAU and FIU (note, FIU bought out of the second Tampa game... at the last moment..... but the contract was signed as a 2 for 1 .... and the last FAU game of that deal is coming up next year). This is a great way to get non-BCS league opponents. They get a nice home game and we get two home games for only 1 road trip.

Home and Home with I-A non-BCS school. I hate these games, with a few exceptions. Bad deals for USF include Western Kentucky and Ball State. Nevada wasn't a bad deal because of the necessity of needing a game when TCU left the BIG EAST pretty late in the cycle. Here are some exceptions where these deals don't hurt as bad: Service Academies, respected competitive teams like BYU, fun destinations for the fans (UNLV, Tulane) or regional schools (UCF would be an example, if they weren't going to be in our league).

Home and Home with I-A BCS league schools: These are the best deals for us fans, they bring big time games to Tampa, the best one we ever signed was FSU, Miami was next best, other good deals for USF include: NC State, UNC, Pittsburgh and Kansas. Games with state and regional schools are best, but all games in this category are good.

Road game with no return with a I-A BCS school: Nothing screams out small time, have not ... then taking a check game to be someone's homecoming. We have shocked two school and beat Auburn and Notre Dame, but most of these games end badly. Fans don't get a home game against a good opponent. The team often loses (see: Penn State, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Okalhoma .. etc).... It is important to note that we have only signed one of these deals since joining the Big East, and that was Notre Dame.... other games we played in this category as a Big East member were signed previously.

Here is a fun list to consider too, it might not complete, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

Schools who have canceled on us:

Utah

FIU

Eastern Michigan

Schools we have canceled on:

Illinois State

Bowling Green (we canceled a bunch of games with them after they played one game in Tampa and we beat them ... when they were top 25 and Urban Meyer was their coach)

Utah State

Edited November 8, 2012 by Mike Stuben