WIU at Illinois (9/8/2018)

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ST_Lawson
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GV Dad wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:42 am I would like to see us schedule a Power 5 and 2 easy Ws in our Non Con every year. Get the $$ and recruiting benefit from playing the P5. But playing Montana, Montana State and schools like those really have no benefit to a MVFC team. We don't need them to raise our SOS with the Conf teams we face. Much more beneficial to start every year 2-1 for playoff positioning.
Sure, ideally at least one of those 2 OOC FCS games would be a home game against a team like Drake, Valparaiso, or Butler (FCS, but non-scholarship) or SWAC or MEAC team like Mississippi Valley State, Southern University, or Morgan State. Something generally fairly easily "winnable" (assuming we're not in a SEVERE down year). Not saying there aren't good teams in the MEAC or SWAC, but there are also some...well...really not very good teams there too. Mississippi Valley State, for example, lost 71-0 to Jacksonville State this year, and lost 72-7 to NDSU and 55-3 to SIU last year. Arkansas Pine-Bluff is also in the SWAC...that's the team that lost 90-6 to South Dakota State last weekend.

They still count for the playoffs, but maybe would give the new players a chance to get their feet wet before having to prove themselves against top 25 ranked Big Sky teams, for example. The problem though, is that the Big Sky and some other teams will go in on a H&H with us, and we don't have to pay them any $. I think with the Pioneer League as well as SWAC and MEAC, it seems like the games are usually 1-and-done. So the host school is paying them to show up. And as we all know, $ is something of an issue right now.

The MVFC/Big Sky scheduling agreement is kinda fun, but it also means you're playing some good teams and having to fight for every win. The good news is that next year we'll have North Alabama (they could be the next NDSU, but it should take them a couple of years), Montana State (not easy), Tennessee Tech (should be able to win that one pretty easily), and Colorado State as our FBS. Colorado State plays Illinois State this Saturday, but they're only favored by ~6 points, so it's something of a "winnable" FBS game.

Still, going down the road, I'd really like to see us bring in more Pioneer League schools, especially from our region.
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Maybe we can start an instate Rivalry game Eastern Illinois every year.
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GV Dad wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:16 pm Maybe we can start an instate Rivalry game Eastern Illinois every year.
Maybe, although I'm not sure I want to be locked into playing the same team every year outside of conference teams. Illinois State already does it with EIU and I've heard that it's sometimes made scheduling tricky for OOC games. I'm absolutely open to playing EIU periodically though, like a H&H every few years.
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I get scheduling games against MEAC and Pioneer league school but as a fan it's hard for me to get interested in those types of games YSU played 2 pioneer league schools this year even though they lost 1 of those games.
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leatherneckcountry wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:58 pm I get scheduling games against MEAC and Pioneer league school but as a fan it's hard for me to get interested in those types of games YSU played 2 pioneer league schools this year even though they lost 1 of those games.
What kind of teams would get you interested? More "big name" FCS teams...like a Sam Houston State, Jacksonville State, or Villanova?
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Yeah I liked the schedule this year now obviously I would have liked better results but they were all competitive. 40 pt wins just don't do much I feel like many times when the schedules are done there for the next coach I'm guessing that the schedule we had this year was done by Nielsen. It does look like INSU and MSU are much improved and INSU has a pretty solid recruiting class for next year.
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leatherneckcountry wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:11 pm Yeah I liked the schedule this year now obviously I would have liked better results but they were all competitive. 40 pt wins just don't do much I feel like many times when the schedules are done there for the next coach I'm guessing that the schedule we had this year was done by Nielsen. It does look like INSU and MSU are much improved and INSU has a pretty solid recruiting class for next year.
Aw, come on...you gotta admit that Coastal Carolina beatdown last year was kinda fun ;)
I understand where you're coming from, but I think maybe it'd be nice to have a relatively easy win every now and then. This year we won't, but next year, unless something drastic changes, Tennessee Tech should be a fairly easy win without dipping down into the Pioneer League ranks. With the future schedule set up for a while with Big Sky teams, we should have some fairly high quality opponents every year. We know some of them into the early 2020s, but it's really hard to predict more than a couple years out how good (or bad) a team is going to be.
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ST_Lawson wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:31 pm
leatherneckcountry wrote: Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:11 pm Yeah I liked the schedule this year now obviously I would have liked better results but they were all competitive. 40 pt wins just don't do much I feel like many times when the schedules are done there for the next coach I'm guessing that the schedule we had this year was done by Nielsen. It does look like INSU and MSU are much improved and INSU has a pretty solid recruiting class for next year.
Aw, come on...you gotta admit that Coastal Carolina beatdown last year was kinda fun ;)
I understand where you're coming from, but I think maybe it'd be nice to have a relatively easy win every now and then. This year we won't, but next year, unless something drastic changes, Tennessee Tech should be a fairly easy win without dipping down into the Pioneer League ranks. With the future schedule set up for a while with Big Sky teams, we should have some fairly high quality opponents every year. We know some of them into the early 2020s, but it's really hard to predict more than a couple years out how good (or bad) a team is going to be.
Yeah teams can change a lot yeah the 40 point victory over coastal wasn't really expected it just kinda happened. I remember when we used to play SHSU and they weren't good in fact one year they were the only game that we one and like 3 years later they played in the championship game.
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