Someone explain this to me

[iggymcfly 0]

Ok, they have a big feature up about college football scheduling on ESPN.com. A big part of it was about how I-A teams could only play 11 games this year, and that was cutting into the marquee matchups in the non-conference schedule.

 

Then, I read another quick feature in the same group, about Idaho, and how they only have 3 home games to go with their 9 road games. I think they must have screwed up since that would make 12, but I checked their schedule, and it's right. They have 12 games.

 

What the fuck's going on here?

[Bored 0]

Idaho plays at Hawaii this year and teams that play a road game against Hawaii are allowed to schedule an extra non-conference game.

 

I personally hated the 12 game schedule they went to the previous couple of years because of the 6-6 teams being able to go to bowl games.

[iggymcfly 0]

Oh, all right. I figured there was an exception, but I just couldn't think what it could be.

 

That is kind of random when you think about it though that one team gets changes made in the NCAA bylaws just because it's hard to get to their school.

[Crimson Platypus 0]

Michigan State is also playing a 12th at Hawaii this year. Scheduled to make up for the fact that they will not make a bowl game imo.

[Guest GreatOne]

Idaho, as part of their move up to 1-A (which, for the exception of 1998, has been a disaster), has been playing 'home' games at Martin Stadium the last few years, which occasionally includes 'home' games (a la two weeks ago) against Wazzu.

 

So the Wazzu home schedule this year included a 'road' game against Idaho.

[iggymcfly 0]

Actually, they didn't play any home games over here last year, but yeah they do have two this year. The Wazzu game was pretty pathetic, as not only does all the revenue go to Washington State, Idaho hardly had any fans there at all.

 

The east end zone had Idaho fans, and everyone else at the game was from Washington State. I'd say that out of 35,000 fans, maybe 3,000 were Idaho fans. It really makes me wonder how bad the attendance is going to be on their other "home game" over here. It's only 8 miles from Moscow to Pullman, but none of their fans give a shit enough to get there.

[Guest GreatOne]

Currently going to EWU we had a nice discussion about Idaho's grand 1-A experiment after the EWU/Idaho St game and generally were all in agreement that the Vandals should drop the charade and come back to the Big Sky. I mean christ, how's it gonna look when they play Fresno St or Hawaii in the WAC next year or in 06 and they have to play it in Pullman?

 

I mean yeah, Tennessee used to play the occasional game in Memphis--not games AGAINST Memphis, that was cause they could, not out of need. Wazzu was at that point when they started the Seattle experiment, now they're talking about dropping that (that was only so they could get Michigan, ND, or Ohio State to come out anyway).

 

Does at this point, Idaho look like they'll be able to compete in the WAC? Let's face it, as tough as it's been for Wazzu to recruit--until the last few years anyway, it's gonna be that much harder for Idaho regardless of how much Holt can sell it.

 

Quick name anybody that ever made it out of Idaho into the pros. Yo Murphy, Mark Schlereth, Jeff Robinson, Mike Hollis. Hmmm, looks like they had more success putting guys in the pros when they WERE 1-AA.

[iggymcfly 0]

I guess they figure that going 0-11 as a member of the WAC is better than going 5-6 as a member of the Big Sky. It's kind of funny, when they first joined I-A, they had a pretty strong team, and won the Big West one year, but the longer they're in I-A, the further and further downhill they go. At this rate, they've only got about a two-year window before dropping to I-AA won't even be able to bring them back to respectability.

[Guest GreatOne]

I'm surprised the WAC took Idaho to be honest with you, cause the Vandals' choices then would be stay in the Sun Belt (and make trips to Middle Tennessee, Troy State, and the Floridas every few years), go independent (where they'd have maybe four home games strictly because the NCAA mandates it), or come back to 1-AA (where a Big Sky return would be the most logical).

 

Then again they were probably going for the 'Big West reunion' since other than Hawaii everyone that's in the new WAC was in the Big West at one time or another.