The Peril of Scheduling Down

It has become habit for many major college football programs to schedule FCS (Don't must of us still call it IAA?) schools. While the pros are obvious; the likelihood of winning the game; the cons far outweigh any advantage.

This year the most glaring examples of scheduling down were Florida versus Charleston Southern and Oklahoma hosting Idaho State. Both of these games were predictable blowouts of course. Here is where the problem lies for Division I, particularly BCS conference programs. If a BCS or any good Division I team allows a IAA school to stay close in the game, then the Division I program is suspect. Take for example this years Florida State/Jacksonville State match up. Florida State barely escaped with a victory here. It does not matter that Jacksonville State has an extremely talented QB; what the pollsters and fans see is a narrow victory over an opponent that should have been beaten easily.

If a Division I team should have a horrible outing and actually lose to a IAA squad, then the results for the upper division program are disastrous. A good example is the loss a couple of years back that Michigan took at home to a very good Appalachian State team. It matters little that Appalachian State that year may have been able to be ranked in the top 20 of Division I, and were the eventual IAA champions, what matters is that a major program BCS school was defeated by a lower division team. Michigan is just now starting to work their way up from that disaster. This has happened fairly often but that game is probably the best example.

When a Division I school plays and easily defeats a IAA team, the win is still suspect in the minds of many fans. Does it matter that Florida could probably have put up triple digits on Charleston Southern? Not really. It is just seen as a useless "padding the win column" game. Not much more than a scrimmage, if even that.

Another disadvantage is seen recently in the case of the Mississippi Rebels. The win over SE Louisiana Lions was just a scrimmage. It showed the Ole Miss coaches nothing about the program. If they had played a little bit stronger opponent, adjustments may have been made and the Ole Miss/South Carolina game may have had another outcome. It just does not help much if a major program's non conference opponents are maybe talented enough be competitive with the practice squad.

A small possible advantage to playing a IAA opponent usually comes in the middle of the season. For example, Miami hosts Florida A&M in a couple of weeks and will probably need this win to restore some confidence in themselves. The blowout to Virginia Tech last week and the probable loss in the upcoming game against Oklahoma might have the Hurricanes reeling. The problem here is that FAMU has a pretty darn good IAA program. The Rattlers should not be able to hang long with the Hurricanes though. Miami will certainly need to make sure they don't.

The flip side is that IAA schools have all the advantage in playing Division I, especially BCS opponents. Other than the obvious likely loss, the financial awards are much needed and if they should play a good game or stun the major school, it is a boon to their program.

It makes far more sense to play teams that have at least a fair chance of winning. The Sun Belt Conference makes its living playing BCS opponents in their respective non conference schedules. They win sometimes too. It matters not that the Sun Belt has much more in common with a good IAA conference that a D1 BCS conference. It is all in the perception. Who can forget the ULM victory over Alabama a while back? This year alone Middle TN State beat Maryland and Louisiana Lafayette handled the Kansas State Wildcats. Other schools from some other non BCS conferences, and even a few consistently less talented teams from the BCS ranks also tend to schedule up. A loss by a major program to one of these teams is bad, but not near as devastating than losing to a school from the lower division.