BC subtly included Central Michigan in a scheduling email last week. Based on the email, Richmond was out and a one game series with Central Michigan was set for 2017. According to FB Schedules BC is paying CMU $650,000 to come to Alumni.
Like some other scheduling moves, adding Central Michigan is an improvement, yet not exactly where BC needs to be. The good news is that BC won't play an FCS game next year. That's a huge change in recent strategy and a change in how other Power 5 teams are scheduling. While BC's 2017 won't include numerous non-conference heavyweights, there won't be one cupcake. That should earn some praise from the national critics who mocked our 2016 schedule.
The only downside is that although it is a huge improvement over Richmond, I don't think many BC season ticket holders care about Central Michigan. In 2009 a good BC team facing a very good Central Michigan team only drew 34,000. Can we expect anything better next year? I hope so, but wouldn't count on it.
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ATL - is it common for a true top program (lets say Ohio State, for example) to pay a lower tier Power 5 school like BC to come and play them? did BC get paid anything for the home and home with USC? seems like an easy way to make $ for the Athletic Department. in addition, as other posters have mentioned here before, it would be good for the program brand to take be one of (the only?) P5 schools to take the position "we'll play you any time any place". given our current position on the totem pole as being probably one of the 5 worst P5 football teams, i see no downside.
if BC could be getting paid to go play Texas A&M or Stanford or Ohio State, i wish people above Bates and Addazio were forcing the team to take such a posture and put some revenue back into the school. obviously Bates and Addazio are judged by Wins and Losses and will do anything, including pay mid 6 figures, to fly a team out here to play us. given the state of the program, however, including our loss to Colorado State two years ago and our near loss to Northern Illinois, it seems beyond silly to be paying out large sums of money to teams that may actually beat us.
PS - how much did we pay Colorado State to come out to BC and beat us in the 4th quarter? ugh.
Attendance in 2009 was way up. Three of the four home ACC games had 41K with NC St. at 34K. This year, the four ACC home games were 39,30,28,28. I guess that tv money is awful good.
I still remember those Dan LeFevour teams. That was a good Chippewa team we faced.
I think there's a big difference between playing CMU and not an FCS team, particularly ones like Howard and Wagner. I hope we get rid of all the FCS games on the schedule in future years. Playing these FCS games is akin to the NFL playing a P5 college team and having it count as a real game. Some P5 leauges have outlawed the practice already, I hope the ACC and the rest follow suit soon.
I think the FCS games do have benefits. My only issue is the scheduling of such games. I would almost rather see them later in the year to provide essentially a second bye week (for years like we saw in '15 with an early bye). Certain SEC schools do this and it works quite well (rest, break up conference sched).
In the grand scheme of things however, playing a MAC team is no different than playing an FCS team from the casual fans perspective (while technically assuming more risk in a better team, with no upside).
What national critics think about BC enough to criticize our schedule?
ATL - I'm with EL MIZ, this seems really strange that we would pay a team that was 1st in the MAC West this year 650K to play us. If we played them this last year I would say we would have a 50% chance to beat them at home. They made a bowl and lost to a Big 10 team, we went 0-fer in the ACC.
Also, Syracuse paid CMU $550K to play at the Carrier dome in 2015. They escaped with a victory in OT.
If Syracuse did it then we should not. One of my rules in life. That place sucks.
I would rather see us play non-Power 5 teams in places that we need to expand recruiting. We should play Texas State, Tulane, Troy State, Louisiana State Monroe, Florida International, Southern Miss. These schools might help us make in-roads with high school coaches in the area - Catholic schools especially.
Knucklehead - i question whether playing Texas St is going to move the needle at all. most of the time these schools come to BC anyway. i'd rather just pony up and play UT Austin in Austin for exposure as opposed to paying a bunch of pansies for a scrimmage.
side note - thanks to Eli Carter for coming out, but if i were Christian i'd find a way to politely turn the page on this experiment. 1 for 17 today. what is this accomplishing? with only a few games to go in the season, lets give Milon, SBT and Hicks the majority of the run at the guard spots.
MIZ
No way Milon can play PG. SBT has had a few minutes there, so maybe that can be extended.
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