Homecoming next year a non con? Set for Sept 26 against Ohio

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It's unusual, but I don't really have a problem with it. It will bring in a lot more people for the Ohio game, and homecoming events might be more fun in late September than in the middle of October. A case could certainly be made for having homecoming on October 17th vs. Nebraska, but the stadium will already be packed for the Bits of Broken Chair game.
 

LakerFan said:
+1

That plus the knowledge that Nebraska is a near sell out to traveling fans with or without homecoming attached. And it might be embarrassing to rent out all the grass around the alumni center to Nebraska fans again like they did two years ago when they can't bleeping put together a decent outdoor tailgate experience for their own fans.
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If the expectation that we will sell a lot of seats to Cornhusker fans is part of the reason we picked Ohio, that says a lot about our athletic department's concerns about ticket revenue vs. quality home field advantage. There would be to ways to look at it, (1) Husker fans will buy those tickets so we don't need to worry about selling them or (2) we could use Homecoming as a way to sell a lot of tickets in advance and make sure those seats are filled with Gopher not Husker fans.
 

AO54 said:
If you can't get over .500 in the MAC or CUSA you are not respectable. period.
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Do you think these opponents were saying the same thing about us when we had a losing B1G record for so many years?
 


Smart move by the U of M, for several reasons already outlined. I've never thought Homecoming was that big a deal, but this has provided some hilarious overreactions from the uninformed.
 


They don't do this every year. I'm ok with it. Nothing wrong with a change.
 

AO54 said:
In no way is Ohio or Kent State "respectable". Ohio was #135 in Sagarin next to Texas-San Antonio and Eastern Illinois and Kent State was #169 below Presbyterian and South Carolina State.

Again, it's ok to schedule one of those teams, just not 2, especially not in back to back weeks. You don't build support when a majority of people will just look at the schedule and say call me in a month when you play somebody.
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Do you realize these games are sometimes scheduled years in advance? Trying to predict where a program will be several years from now is nearly impossible, especially when it comes to the MAC. In 2012, Kent St. went 11-3 and Ohio went 9-4. In a conference like the MAC, you see teams move up and down all the time. For example, in 2013 Western Michigan went 1-7 in the conference. This year they went 6-2. That isn't that uncommon in the MAC.
 

Turns out this isn't really rare. Across the Power 5 conferences, these teams played their homecoming games against non-conference opponents in 2014:

Auburn (LA Tech)
Miss St. (UT Martin)
Arkansas (UAB)
Tennessee (Chattanooga)
Vanderbilt (Charleston Southern)
Michigan State (Wyoming)
Wake Forest (Army)
VA Tech (WMU)
Duke (Tulane)
Iowa State (Toledo)
 

Jike Spingleton said:
Smart move by the U of M, for several reasons already outlined. I've never thought Homecoming was that big a deal, but this has provided some hilarious overreactions from the uninformed.
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True. This decision is a no brainer.
 



die hard gopher said:
Almost all power 5 schools schedule one FCS team, 2 non power 5 teams and one power 5 team. We don't even play an FCS team this year, travel to a 10-3 CSU team and play a top 2 TCU team. I see zero reason to complain about the schedule.
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Aren't we no longer allowed to schedule FCS teams?
 


It probably is because they can get a 2:30 start on BTN for that game.
Any other game could be moved around. I would guess it has to do with TV
 

Not that long ago, I remember people commenting about other schools scheduling the Gophers as their homecoming opponent, because the Gophers were seen as a "sure win" for Homecoming.

And, let's face it - if Neb was the homecoming opponent, you could potentially have an embarrassing situation if the Neb fans scalp up or over-pay for tix, and the Gophs wind up with a sizeable % of the fans cheering against the home team on Homecoming. I don't think they have to worry about that with Ohio. The big question is whether the Gophs can manage to sell out a non-conference game - something they have been unable to do in recent years.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
Not that long ago, I remember people commenting about other schools scheduling the Gophers as their homecoming opponent, because the Gophers were seen as a "sure win" for Homecoming.

And, let's face it - if Neb was the homecoming opponent, you could potentially have an embarrassing situation if the Neb fans scalp up or over-pay for tix, and the Gophs wind up with a sizeable % of the fans cheering against the home team on Homecoming. I don't think they have to worry about that with Ohio. The big question is whether the Gophs can manage to sell out a non-conference game - something they have been unable to do in recent years.
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I bet TCU sells out next year. Book it...:)
 

They always have a concert the day before the homecoming game and perhaps the artist that they wanted could only be made available on the 25th of Sepember.
 

Different. But a smart decision looking at how the schedule lines up. I like that 2 of the 3 non-con games will be full or near full now.
 

Brilliant. This should be the way it is every other year.
Late Sept HC against an OOC opponent like this.
 

It is because of the other 2 choices, the one game is too late, and the remaining game, Nebraska, well, they know that they can sell out that game without it being Homecoming. Having Ohio as the Homecoming opponent, in a sense, forces people to sort of care more about the game, because of all of the Homecoming stuff going on and surrounding the game and leading up to the game. They are hoping to get alot of students to go to the game.

So basically this just leaves us with one total "no one cares" kind of game in the game vs Kent St. TCU will sell out, Col St is a road game, Ohio is homecoming and so should be a better than otherwise turnout, and the rest are conference matchups.

Simple economics. Now there is a playoff, soon it will be an 8 game playoff. We have a Conf Title game, we have Maryland, Rutgers, Nebraska and Penn St in the conference now and may go 3 years in a row sometimes without seeing certain teams in the East Division. We are back to playing outdoor football in a stadium designed to encourage tickets to conf games being hard to come by because of the limited # of seats available. If the Gophers really start kicking arse, they are hoping demand will be so high to see games that people who can't get tickets to see Nebraska or Michigan or Ohio St or Wisconsin or Iowa or PSU or MSU, will start going to games vs NW, Illinois, Indiana, Rutgers, Maryland and Purdue and might even start going to ooc games vs the likes of Ohio and Kent St as well, aided by having homecoming opponents being ooc opponents, for one.

But most of that is just my theory/opinion.
 

afurry91 said:
Aren't we no longer allowed to schedule FCS teams?
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Suggestion, not a rule. Top half Missouri Valley teams are often better than some of the MAC teams we find.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

AO54 said:
Suggestion, not a rule. Top half Missouri Valley teams are often better than some of the MAC teams we find.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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As was pointed out by someone else earlier in the thread these games are setup years in advance. From my standpoint a non-conf schedule that includes 1 power 5, 2 MAC, and 1 Mountain West team is perfect regardless of who the teams are. You can't predict with any certainty if you will end up catching those teams on an up cycle or down cycle but at least you are taking teams from respectable conferences that should be beatable but may at least be in a position to give you a bit of a game.
 

I think that there could be a real art to sceduling ooc games.

What real value is there to beating a MAC team? But losing to one hurts, always. So no benefit either way.

Trying to scedule P5 teams that are normally at the bottom of their conference standings is a no-win situation as well. It may seem that beating a crappy P5 team is better than beating a MAC team, and it may be, but its also JUST AS EMBARRASSING to lose to them, and there is a better chance of one of them having a good year than most MAC teams.


But sceduling teams like TCU and USC is by far the best thing we can do.

If we sceduled TWO top notch opponents every season allow with 2 easy wins, at worst we go 2-2 in the ooc part of the season, and then simply going 4-4 in conf could get us into a bowl game. If we aren't good enough to win either of those games or to win at least 4 games in conf, is missing out on some minor bowl game really the end of the world? If we can pull off a win vs one of those 2 teams, then we could get away with a 3-5 season in conf.

But the positives, the benefits of playing TWO legit teams are boundless. If we beat one of them, that is very good. If we beat them both, it is very VERY good. And the thing is, even losing to them isn't so bad. Like I said, if we go 2-2 out of conference and can just go 4-4 or better in conf, we are still bowling.

But honestly, NO ONE respects a team that goes 4-0 ooc vs a bunch of creampuffs. And its not all that interesting for diehard fans either, to play a scedule full of creampuffs.

The last time the Gophers were a Nationally legit elite cfb power, was back when we did play at least one totally legit ooc opponent but often times we played 2 of them, even though we also only played 3 ooc games for many seasons as well.

I say, lets man up and play two P5 teams of high quality every single season. Will sell more tickets to ooc games, will make more ooc games interesting to watch, and if we start beating good ooc teams, we'll get alot more respect from people all over the nation.
 


#1nHkyCfbBsbDncSolarDebat said:
What real value is there to beating a MAC team?
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There certainly is value in playing these type of programs. It allows you the chance to play against a team with good athletes (yes, the MAC does have some very good players) while hopefully building a lead and letting many young and inexperienced guys a chance to play.
 

AO54 said:
In no way is Ohio or Kent State "respectable". Ohio was #135 in Sagarin next to Texas-San Antonio and Eastern Illinois and Kent State was #169 below Presbyterian and South Carolina State.

Again, it's ok to schedule one of those teams, just not 2, especially not in back to back weeks. You don't build support when a majority of people will just look at the schedule and say call me in a month when you play somebody.
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Late to the party on this but in the Mason years, we would have been dreaming about playing a top 5 team plus Colorado State in the non-conference schedule. Some people will not be happy until our non-conf schedule is Florida, USC, Notre Dame, and Oregon.
 

year of the gopher said:
Late to the party on this but in the Mason years, we would have been dreaming about playing a top 5 team plus Colorado State in the non-conference schedule. Some people will not be happy until our non-conf schedule is Florida, USC, Notre Dame, and Oregon.
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More like a nightmare!
 

year of the gopher said:
Late to the party on this but in the Mason years, we would have been dreaming about playing a top 5 team plus Colorado State in the non-conference schedule. Some people will not be happy until our non-conf schedule is Florida, USC, Notre Dame, and Oregon.
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That sounds like utopia to me. If we are a one loss team at the end of the year, no way we get shut out of the playoff due to strength of schedule on that one.
 


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