Future Football Schedules

GV Dad
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Maybe the late season games, after B Ball is over. I would imagine they will still be on ESPN3/+.
GV Dad
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From a contractual standpoint, not sure any Networks other than ESPN could air MVFC games? Or maybe they can, but with permission from ESPN?
WIU2DC
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GV Dad wrote:Maybe the late season games, after B Ball is over. I would imagine they will still be on ESPN3/+.
Isn’t the whole point of ESPN3 is that you just need server space and not channels. So, in theory couldn’t we switch back and forth from Leatherneck Football and Leatherneck basketball in the spring? There should be an unlimited amount of space on ESPN3, where there are only 1 ESPN, and 1 ESPN2. If that makes sense


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GV Dad
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WIU2DC wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 12:24 pm
GV Dad wrote:Maybe the late season games, after B Ball is over. I would imagine they will still be on ESPN3/+.
Isn’t the whole point of ESPN3 is that you just need server space and not channels. So, in theory couldn’t we switch back and forth from Leatherneck Football and Leatherneck basketball in the spring? There should be an unlimited amount of space on ESPN3, where there are only 1 ESPN, and 1 ESPN2. If that makes sense


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Absolutely is. I was referring to the question of other networks though. So ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU; or even ABC. All those are Basketball heavy in FEB and March, but may need programing after that slows down.
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GV Dad wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:14 pm Absolutely is. I was referring to the question of other networks though. So ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU; or even ABC. All those are Basketball heavy in FEB and March, but may need programing after that slows down.
Yeah, that's what I was going for as well. I think it's a pretty good bet that our football games (and probably most of the MVFC) will be on ESPN+, which is where they moved a lot of what would have been ESPN3 content too. I think ESPN3 is still around, doing the same thing it's been doing, but with either ESPN3 or ESPN+, it's not really any big achievement to get on those...that was pretty much expected.
This was more for the channels that you'd get through a regular cable subscription.

As for what other sports are doing, yeah college basketball wraps up in early April (Final Four is supposed to be 4/3 and 4/5), while the MVFC regular schedule goes two more weeks after that. But, you have to remember...
  • NBA regular season is currently (tentatively) scheduled to wrap up Mid-May, with another 2 months for the playoffs.
  • NHL follows roughly the same schedule with the regular season scheduled to wrap up May 8th and the championship being decided probably around Mid-July.
  • MLB is planning on kicking off their 2021 season on April 1.
So, while college basketball won't be going on, you'll have three pro sports leagues having regular season games/matches going on at the same time as when we'd be wrapping things up for our spring football season. Compare that to a regular fall football season where you pretty much only have to compete with the MLB and NFL. I don't see it likely that you'll have many FCS games on the "big" channels outside of the last few playoff games. Although now that I think about it, you might actually see some coverage on the NFL network depending on licensing rights for the games. Not much will be going on then for football outside of the draft coming up at the end of April, and they may want to have some live content to air possibly.
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I think you’ll see games on ESPN2/U. ESPN2/U needs programming on those spring Saturdays.
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Just noticed that FBSchedules has updated our fall 2021 schedule to the point where it looks like it's finalized. I've updated in the first post of this thread and here's the direct link to it over at FBSchedules.com.

Breaking it down a bit though, we start with a road FBS game at Ball State, which should be a tough game. Ball State was 7-1 last fall, winning the MAC championship game, beating San Jose State in the Arizona Bowl last December, and finishing at #23 in the AP poll.

After that, we have a game at Montana and then our home opener on September 18 against Eastern Washington.

Our conference schedule opens with a game at Youngstown State. That's followed up by Homecoming on 10/2, when we'll host Southern Illinois. We'll head to Indiana State, back home against South Dakota State on 10/16, on the road again to North Dakota, before finishing up our home schedule with games against Illinois State on 10/30 and South Dakota on 11/6.

Our "bye week" falls nearly at the end of the season this year, as we take off the second weekend of November, and then we head up to Northern Iowa for an indoor matchup the weekend before Thanksgiving.

I don't know how the change in the fall 2020 to spring 2021 schedule change will affect the rotation of teams we don't play, but at least for fall 2021, it looks like we do not play North Dakota State or Missouri State.
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Updated the schedule post with a bunch of future schedule stuff based on info at FBSchedules.com: http://www.leathernecknation.net/forum/ ... 5330#p5330
Including what looks like our conference schedule through 2025, and completing the 2022 schedule.

So, I'll break down the 2022 schedule a bit since it looks like that's pretty much finalized.

We start with a couple of road games, the away part of a H&H with UT-Martin (the home part is in 2024), then our "payday" game at Minnesota.
That's followed up with two home games; the home part of a H&H with Southern Utah (away part is in 2023), then we kick off our MVFC games by hosting Northern Iowa.
Next, we go a 3-week stretch in October without any home games, playing at South Dakota State, having a week off, then at Southern Illinois.
We then come home for a "later in the season than usual" Homecoming game against Youngstown State.
Then it's back on the road at Missouri State before our final two home games, against North Dakota State and Indiana State.
Our schedule finishes up with a road game at Illinois State the weekend before Thanksgiving.
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I always get so frustrated by are schedule we always start on the road and almost always have one noncon game and that's it. I know we have an attendance problem but it doesn't help when it takes so long to have a home game. Plus if we have a bad record before we even have a second game people won't come out to support a losing program.
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leatherneckcountry wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 12:13 pm I always get so frustrated by are schedule we always start on the road and almost always have one noncon game and that's it. I know we have an attendance problem but it doesn't help when it takes so long to have a home game. Plus if we have a bad record before we even have a second game people won't come out to support a losing program.
The problem is (as is often the case)...money.

In the past, we could afford to pay a Pioneer League team (or a DII team, although that doesn't look great on a record) to come for a 1-off game that would almost assuredly be an early season home win for us. That is not the case anymore. Our non-conference schedule now has to be made up of FBS "payday" games (which will all be away for us), or H&H agreements with another FCS team. In the H&H agreements, generally there isn't any money changing hands unless one team has to back out of it or otherwise change the agreement (like when we ended up going to Coastal Carolina in 2015 and 2017).

To at least balance things out, lately (and likely down the road for a while), each season will see a "Home" of one H&H agreement, an "Away" of another H&H agreement, and an FBS game.

Unless the state is somehow able to get back to the funding level of the late '90s/early '00s, that's probably just going to be the situation for our foreseeable future.
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