118 Teams 'til Kickoff: Florida International

by utesfan100 on Mar 2, 2010 9:00 AM EST in Teams 'til Kickoff 2010 Comment 12 comments

The Fla. Interantional Golden Panthers began football in the 2002 season and became the fastest program to join FBS football in 2005.

Many believe the move to be premature, especially with the limited success of the team at the FCS level for its first three years.

Head Coach: Mario Cristobal (Fifth Year)
Offensive Coordinator: Scott Satterfield (First Year)
Defensive Coordinator: Geoff Colins(First Year)

How have the Golden Panthers faired at the FBS level?

Unfortunately the beat will go on for the first few weeks of this process as teams near the bottom that might well be better off in the FCS get thier fair ~~abuse~~ due coverage.

	2007 (1-11)	2008 (5-7)	2009 (0-12)	Average (0.2500)
BCS Averave	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
Computer Average	117.3	100.3	111	109.5
BCS top 25	No	No	No	0.0
Score	-0.7948	-0.5567	-0.7073	-0.6863

Schedule:

Team	Date
Rutgers	9/11
@Texas A&M	9/18
@Maryland	9/25
@Pittsburgh	10/2
UL Monroe	TBA
Western Kentucky	TBA
Arkansas St	TBA
Middle Tenn. St.	TBA
@Troy	TBA
@UL Lafayette	TBA
@North Texas	TBA
@Florida Atlantic	TBA

Interesting that the first three teams in this series are all from the Sun Belt. More on that once I get all the Sun Belt teams done and post a conference recap.

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Comments

7 road games ...

How can a program hope to gain any sort of traction when they only play 5 home games and play all 4 of their non-conference games against BCS opponents (almost sure losses)?

I know the BCS team paychecks are nice but teams in the Sun Belt need to take advantage of scheduling I-AAs team so that they can gain confidence and get one win closer to a bowl bid.

The disparity between the haves (BCS) and the have-nots (non-AQs) is never more clear than when dissecting a Sun Belt Conference team’s schedule.

BC Interruption, a Boston College sports blog

by Brian @ BCI on Mar 2, 2010 9:59 AM EST reply actions

well they are essentially playing a FCS school in Western Kentucky …. i kid … i kid ….

by talonk on Mar 2, 2010 12:09 PM EST up reply actions

and unless the table is wrong, it looks like Rutgers is a home game for them.

by talonk on Mar 2, 2010 12:10 PM EST up reply actions

Rutgers home or away, won't matter much

Point is someone needs to talk to the Sun Belt scheduling folks. It’s hard to build any momentum or any buzz around a football program knowing you are starting the season at 0-4 … which they’ve managed to do 4 of the last 8 seasons.

BC Interruption, a Boston College sports blog

by Brian @ BCI on Mar 2, 2010 3:00 PM EST up reply actions

There is a time and a place for Programs to do 7 away... Hell if I were EMU I would do 8 away..

It depends on where the program is, If I were the gators and got 90K per game I would want eight home games but when a program is only pulling 10K (Like FIU) its a different story.

The payouts usually ends up being more than a team would get from going to a bowl game and the expenses are far lower. It’s not a matter of greed its a matter of paying coaches, staff, and not being too much of an economic drain on the institution.

Back in the PG era (Pre-Gill) Ub was only getting about 8K students per game so they started to give up a home game to go on the road to act as a piñata for Auburn, Penn State, Missouri, Wisconsin…

Once the program started to show life (attendance 15-20K) UB flipped to the other side of the equation and started paying schools (FCS) to come to Buffalo for another home game.

The money made over the years kept the program afloat and actually paid for a new video scoreboard.

by Bull_In_Exile on Mar 3, 2010 10:56 AM EST up reply actions

My point is while there may be a time for it, as you suggest, it can turn into a vicious cycle … where there’s never a time not to schedule 7 road games, take paychecks and have a horribly mediocre program year after year.

Sure the cash is good, but so long as programs like FIU schedule in this way, the divide between the BCS and the non-AQ both financially and talent-wise will continue to grow. New scoreboards are great and all, but they aren’t going to help field a more competitive product. Neither is scheduling in this way. What 18 and 19 year old kid wants to go to a program that is guaranteed to start the season 0-4?

BC Interruption, a Boston College sports blog

by Brian @ BCI on Mar 5, 2010 2:13 AM EST up reply actions

Win and they will come, lose six home games and they will stay away..

UB’s attendance started going up when they started winning games, after that they started with 6 home contests a year. You absolutely can not fund a serious DIA program on 5K-10K fans per year. Usually 15-20K is where a mid major starts to break even.

If you take six games where you’re losing money, and four conference road games where (wait for it) you’re losing money, that leaves two games to erase an obscene budget gap.

I am 100% with you that there has to be a road map to get to 6 home games, UB’s started in 2005 when Warde Manuel took over the program he has said by 2008 he wanted 6 home games and used three years of the big payoffs to improve facilities for athletes (new weight training center) and fans (new score board).

by Bull_In_Exile on Mar 5, 2010 11:38 AM EST up reply actions

But you miss a key point.

A major argument against the BCS is that smaller schools can never schedule to the level an SEC team, regardless of out of confernce scheduling. Many people, including many voters in the BCS polls, view the Sun Belt as little better than an FCS league.

A team in the SEC gets four to six games a year with teams that have been in the top 25 in the past few years. Most of those are from within the conference.

Suppose Florida International surprises us all and fields a dream team. Suppose 2010 becomes a “Miricale on Grass” year for them. The point is that shceduing the way you suggest will get them nowhere in those years.

With the schedule they have, in a dream year they could quickly make a splash. Regardless, they will get some cash to sustain their program in these difficult financial times.

This schedule is a better test than what Boise State will face. I think we all agree on who is better ready to face a test though, based on strong indicators of past performance.

BCS Evolution -- Punctuating the Equilibrium - twitter

by utesfan100 on Mar 3, 2010 10:28 AM EST up reply actions