The fervor that surrounds the opening weeks of college football season is usually generated by excitement for the on-field product, but it is the behind-the-scenes work with college football scheduling that allows that product to exist. A major part of that administrative work revolves around deciding who to play each year. Perhaps no more impactful decision is made than coordinating who a school will face in the limited time of a college football season.
Dozens of factors must be considered when picking where to allocate precious Saturdays, and sometimes athletic departments are forced to make long range guesses about opponents. For example in the news recently have been the talks between Penn State and Pitt trying to keep an in-state rivalry alive, not for next year or even this decade, but for the middle of the 2020s. Trying to guess the quality of an opponent in the coming week is challenging enough, much less how the squad will be in twelve years. Guessing wrong is a major hazard as well, as strength of schedule is more important than ever in determining how the college football postseason shapes up.
Not only must athletic departments make long-range prognostications about teams composed of players still in diapers, but they must balance their decision-making with all sorts of other considerations. How important is maintaining a rivalry game if the opponent has fallen on hard times and might be viewed as a cupcake come selection time? How attractive is a foe that has a national TV contract, guaranteeing valuable exposure for your school? What team’s fanbases travel the best, ensuring a strong gate for your homecoming game? Add another hundred unknowns into the equation, subtract six weeks of availability as they’re automatically set aside for conference games, and you’re approaching the mental arithmetic necessary for these types of decisions.
To illustrate, the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State are actively trying to work through this process, and are having trouble with the further complication of ensuring home games in return for going on the road the prior year. At least their discussions will be relevant for the upcoming recruiting class. As previously mentioned, Pitt is trying to hammer out its schedule for the 2025 season and wants to get a series with Penn State. One would think Pitt had gone far enough into the future, but alas, the Nittany Lions’ dance card is full until the mid 2020s. Backup West Virginia will be PSU’s substitute, assuming things in 2025 still operate like today except with jet cars and hoverboards.
If Pitt and Penn State make arrangements for the late 2020s, it will beg the question of where does this scheduling madness end. Does PSU then schedule Michigan for 2031-2034? How far out will the scheduling circuit stretch before the coaches and administrations that inherit twenty year old commitments rebel against the limited say they have in the teams they face? Perhaps it is time to simplify and let those who know the day’s college landscape the best help make the decisions on who to play in the immediate future instead of looking into a crystal ball and hoping to have guessed right about next decade.
Feature image via J. Beale
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