There are no quiet nights in the sports office in February and March with tournament season here, but a bombshell was dropped by Barry Alvarez in Madison that will have far reaching effects from Fargo to Springfield, Brookings to Terre Haute. Alvarez announced on his radio show tonight that the Big Ten has agreed to stop playing games against FCS teams. Alvarez said: “ The nonconference schedule in our league is ridiculous, it’s not very appealing…so we’ve made an agreement that our future games will all be Division I schools. It will not be FCS schools.”
Marcus Williams had an interception and two touchdowns vs Minnesota in 2011.
There’s no gray area there folks, this is on the heels of the announcement out of the Big 10 Meetings on Monday that the conference is moving forward with playing 9 or possibly 10 leagues a year, you can read more about that decision here. Let’s say the Big 10 decides to go with 9, that leaves only 3 non-conference games to play with, you know the Ohio States and Michigans are going to want those primetime matchups against Alabama or LSU, and they honestly can fill the other two games with schools from the MAC, Sun Belt and C-USA. And that leaves the FCS schools out to dry, especially the Missouri Valley, the conference that has played the Big 10 the most and has the closest proximity to the BCS. This scheduling agreement doesn’t have a start date, but it is expected to be 2014, the first year of the new college football playoff, and also when the Big 10 expands adding Rutgers and Maryland to the fold.
By my count, there are 20 games involving schools from the Missouri Valley against the Big Ten starting with this fall, those games are safe in my opinion, but any matchups in 2014 and beyond are clearly in doubt and that of course means NDSU’s game at Iowa in 2016.
FUTURE MVFC-BIG TEN GAMES
NDSU – at Iowa (2016)
SDSU – at Nebraska (2013); at Minnesota (2015+2019)
Northern Iowa – at Iowa (2014)
Southern Illinois – at Illinois (2013); at Iowa (2014)
Illinois State – at Iowa (2015); at Northwestern (2016)
Indiana State – at Indiana (2013+2014); at Purdue (2013+2015); at Minnesota (2016)
Western Illinois – at Minnesota (2013); at Northwestern (2014); at Illinois (2015)
Missouri State – at Iowa (2013)
Youngstown State – at Michigan State (2013); at Illinois (2014)
USD – NONE
By this chart, that means 13 games would need to be re-scheduled among these schools, obviously the biggest loser is Indiana State losing out on 3 nice paydays; and Western Illinois with two. But to be honest all of the Missouri Valley loses out if this turns out to be the case; the two schools I was hoping NDSU would schedule in the future would be Illinois and Northwestern, two schools while being BCS; that the Bison could compete with. That also means any hopes of an NDSU-Nebraska and NDSU-Wisconsin matchup are out the window as well; not to mention Minnesota; which besides the two national championship games; the Georgia Southern semifinal; have been the three most fun Bison games I’ve had a chance to cover. It’s also been a major recruiting tool for the Bison, granted the first two games were before the FCS playoffs, but still even the 2011 matchup was a huge motivating factor for the Minnesota players. Now taking that off the table for the time being? Not cool. Granted NDSU and Minnesota weren’t going to play before 2018 in my opinion, but there are areas that the Bison go into that are heavy Big 10 territory; Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa.
The Big Ten is looking out for itself with this decision, but they’re hurting plenty of schools that circle those games not only as a way to break even on their athletic budget, but also as a chance for national exposure and pride. Gene Taylor was in St. Louis for the Missouri Valley meetings, but will get a comment from him tomorrow on this decision and how it affects scheduling going forward.