Posted on 02/13/2013 8:04:43 AM PST by ConservativeStatement
Madison Speaking on his monthly radio show Tuesday night, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez shared a nugget of information that should cheer football fans who long for better nonleague games.
According to Alvarez, Big Ten officials recently agreed to stop scheduling nonconference games against FCS programs.
The nonconference schedule in our league is ridiculous, Alvarez said on WIBA-AM. Its not very appealing
So weve made an agreement that our future games will all be Division I schools. It will not be FCS schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
I remember No. Dakota St went to Minnesota and beat the Gophers a few years ago. What was even more interesting was that NDSU had more fans in the Metrodome than Minny did.
The B1G has had some FCS failures ....of course Appalachian State beating 5th ranked Michigan.....it was my nieces first FB game attended as an App student, too
That said, the money received by 1AA schools for games against 1A schools is a significant portion of their athletic revenue for that year. It is also the only opportunity for 1AA players to play on the big stage.
Actually, Appalachian State beat Michigan in Lloyd Carr’s last season. Rich Rod came the season after that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Appalachian_State_vs._Michigan_football_game
But that was the rare case of David beating Goliath. The lopsided victories by powerhouse teams over ricky-dink teams are much more typical.
Having attended a Big Ten university, I am well aware that Cal and Bama are not members of that conference and I was not paying attention to the original focus of the story as being about the Big Ten. I started just to post the Wisconsin score but decided to add a couple of other very lopsided scores. At least with Austin Peay and Western Carolina, you have medium-sized public universities (around 10,000 students) but with Presbyterian College you have a little private college with not much more than 1,000 students--how its team is supposed to take on a major team which had won the Rose Bowl a mere 71 years earlier?
Appalachian State is somewhat larger than APSU or WCU at about 17,000 students but I don't know if its athletic program is any better-funded than theirs.
David doesn’t play Goliath to beat Goliath - they play them to get exposure and money - so that they can be a little bit bigger David than they were before.
This may not last long.
FBS universities, even the smaller ones, are becoming very resistant to signing contracts for away-only games. And the bigger schools would take quite a hit by losing a home game if they schedule more home-and-away series (for instance, Michigan’s stadium holds over 100,000 people; that’s a lot of attendance money).
It will be interesting to see how it works out.
Most experts agree that the football stadium is just someplace to hangout until Assembly Hall is open to the public.
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