A body bag game is a game scheduled by a lower tier program at the home of a traditional football power program. There is no return game, in other words the national power will not travel to the lower tier program’s home stadium. Often there is a substantial payout to the lower tier program for making the trip without a return game. These games are generally scheduled by programs in the ranks of Division 1-AA (FCS) and by Division 1-A (FBS) programs that have difficulties in generating sufficient revenues to support their programs.
OSU at Penn State, 2008.
Oregon State has resorted to scheduling body bag games to provide needed revenues for chronically short budgets for many decades. While scheduling body bag games does provide a short-term influx of money to a cash-strapped program, there are long-term consequences for this type of scheduling especially for Division 1-A programs such as OSU.
Because the game is played at the home field of a national power, the typical outcome of such a game is a loss for the lower tier program. For OSU, the results are typical. Since 1969, OSU has scheduled 25 body bag games, but OSU’s record in those contests was a terrible 1-24. The lone win came in a September 26th 1970 upset at Oklahoma. Coach Riley is 0-3 in body bag games.
Over that period of time, OSU averaged 3 wins per season in years with body bag games while the average number of wins in non-body bag seasons is nearly 6. So scheduling the body bag game not only costs the program 1 loss that season, it also contributes to nearly 2 additional losses. Since 1969, OSU has only had three winning seasons with body bag games: 1970 (6-5), 2004 (7-5), and 2008 (9-4).
During the infamous 28-year losing streak, OSU played 21 body bag games. In the 14 seasons of football since the streak ended in 1999, OSU has only played in 3 body bag games. During the past 14 seasons, OSU has played in 10 bowl games – 8 in non-body bag seasons and 2 in seasons with a body bag game.
Scheduling body bag games is not a path to growth of the program. Successful coaches have few or none of these games on their schedules and have higher winning percentages as a result: Erickson (0.646 – 0 body bag games in 4 seasons), Riley (0.547 – 3 in 12 seasons), Prothro (0.627 – 3 in 10 seasons). Coaches with losing records have had their plight made more difficult with body bag games on the schedule: Andros (0.444 – 11 in 11 seasons), Kragthorpe (0.269 – 5 in 5 seasons), Fertig (0.189 – 4 in 4 seasons), and Avezzano (0.127 – 5 in 5 seasons).
The prospect of playing a game in a historic or significant venue might provide a brief boost in fan interest, but with the likelihood of an additional loss on the season, the overall interest in the program actually decreases as a result. From the fan’s perspective a loss is a loss, and additional losses diminish future ticket purchases and recruiting prospects for the program.
OSU has a body bag game scheduled with Michigan in 2015. The scheduling of the Michigan game was certainly misguided in light of OSU’s past statistics in these games. The consternation over this miscue is compounded not only by the fact that there is no return game by the Wolverines to Corvallis but by the news that Utah was able to negotiate a home and home series with Michigan in the same time frame. OSU needs to honor its present commitment to Michigan, but a program that believes it is on the rise should never schedule another body bag game. If you want to play the Beavers, you need to agree to travel to Corvallis.
