Some fans believe scheduling tough teams in the non-conference portion of their slate of opponents is the best way to reach the BCS. On the other hand, many coaches and athletic directors understand that if they don’t win, they get fired. They know that in conference play, the games are a tough gauntlet that impedes their team’s progress to the ultimate goal, a BCS appearance. So it’s understandable why many coaches and athletics directors schedule one non-conference game with a D1-AA opponent as permitted under the current rules.
The powerful SEC, widely lauded by media and sports pundits alike as the strongest conference in the nation, regularly schedules a large number of D1-AA schools. Only 41.7% of the SEC’s 2008 non-conference games were against bowl teams and a whopping 19% were played vs. teams from the D1-AA ranks. Why play any real teams when you can load up on powerhouses like Samford, Wofford, and the Citadel, and be praised by the media for it. And it didn’t get any better in 2010; 10 of the 12 SEC programs scheduled a D1-AA school this past season. An examination of the Pac-10’s non-conference games for the 2008 season revealed that 58.1% of the games were played vs. bowl teams and only 6% of the games were against D1-AA schools. The bottom line is there are not a lot of cupcakes in Pac-10 schedules, yet the tough persona of the SEC is not harmed by scheduling D1-AA schools.
So does scheduling a D1-AA school hurt a program’s chances to make it to a BCS bowl? There have been 44 different programs that have appeared in a BCS game since its inception in 1998. Of those 44 programs, 33 (75%) have scheduled a D1-AA school in the season that they appeared in a BCS game. Of the 7 SEC programs that have appeared in the BCS, all but one, Tennessee, have scheduled a D1-AA school in a BCS year. In Florida’s 6 appearances, the SEC powerhouse scheduled 4 D1-AA schools. But Virginia Tech is the winner in the D1-AA derby with the most D1-AA games in BCS bowl seasons – all 5 BCS appearances have come with a game against the lower division in that season.
Non-BCS schools have used a D1-AA school on their schedule in 86% of their BCS appearances, greater than the average for all D1 schools. The strength of schedule of non-BCS conferences have been a matter of considerable scrutiny, so it’s important that these programs have a strong non-conference schedule. Yet these teams have scheduled D1-AA schools with regularity. The SEC leads all conferences with 12 BCS appearances with a D1-AA school in the season, and the Pac-10 and Big-12 have the fewest with 4 each. Among programs with 3 or more BCS appearances, 73% of those schools have scheduled a D1-AA school in a BCS year. But interestingly enough, programs with only 1 BCS appearance have only a 64% rate of scheduling a D1-AA school while those with 2 appearances, the rate soars to 92%.
But what about those 11 programs that have never scheduled a D1-AA school in a BCS year? USC leads this category with 7 appearances and no D1-AA teams on the schedule, followed by Michigan and Texas with 4 each. Six of the programs are in the one-time BCS appearance category.
Figure 1. Number of D1-AA schools scheduled by BCS participants (click to enlarge)
Scheduling a D1-AA school has become more commonplace since the start of the BCS series in 1998 (Figure 1). Most schools in the BCS in recent years have had a D1-AA school on their schedule. The last 3 national champions all had a D1-AA on their schedule.
OSU fans might not relish the notion of having a D1-AA school on the schedule, but there’s ample evidence that other schools have used these games to propel them to greatness. It’s no coincidence that OSU’s only BCS appearance opened with a hard-fought game against a D1-AA opponent en route to the school’s greatest season.
