FB OOC Scheduling is Brutal

[ewglenn]

I decided this needed it’s own thread. I can easily see why we have money to start building athletics facilities. The football team has been playing so many money games. Personally I think it would be better to load up on an easy OOC schedule and put together some winning seasons. That leads to better fan engagement and having more than 5 home games where people actually show up would make a huge difference money wise. Last year was my first real year watching MTSU. I watched in 2020 but I don’t think that really counts because of Covid for scheduling purposes. So I decided to look at 2009 to 2019. This is what I found:

2019 (4-8) we played 3 P5 teams. That’s realistically 0-3 for those games, maybe we’ve got a good team, and we go 1-2 (we went 0-3). Still you’d have to go 9-0 the rest of the year to get to 10 wins if we’re not including the bowl.

2018 (8-6) was a year that would have felt much differently under an easier OOC. We had 3 P5 games and went 0-3. If we had UMASS and NMSU plus a P5 we end up realistically 10-4. That feels much more successful.

2017 (7-6) we had 3 P5 and went 1-2 against those teams. Imagine if we went 9-4 vs 7-6.

2016 (8-5) we had 2 games against P5 and went 1-1.

2015 (7-6) we had 3 games against P5 and went 0-3.

2014 (6-6) we had 2 games against P5 (BYU) and went 0-2.

2013 (7-5-1) we had 2 games against P5 (BYU) and went 0-2.

2012 (8-4) we had 2 games against P5 and went 1-1.

2011 (2-10) we had 3 games against P5 and went 0-3.

2010 (6-7) we had 2 games against P5 and went 0-2.

2009 (10-3) we had 3 games against P5 and went 1-2.

Imagine if we had one winnable P5 money game per year with an easier G5 teams replacing the others, would you feel differently about the program if these would have been the records for that 10 year period? This is also making sure I kept one P5 loss per year. We obviously would have won a few of those.

6-6
10-4
9-4
9-4
9-4
7-5
8-4-1
9-4
4-8
8-5
12-1

 

[RaiderDoug]

I tend to agree with you - I think if you had those records, you'd see this program in a very different spot right now.

But really, it's a math problem - can you make up the lost revenue from the body bag games with fan engagement type revenue. I don't know if anyone on here has the answer to that. And it's all moot anyway, we are where we are and we're stuck with who we're stuck with.

 

[ewglenn]

I tend to agree with you - I think if you had those records, you'd see this program in a very different spot right now.

But really, it's a math problem - can you make up the lost revenue from the body bag games with fan engagement type revenue. I don't know if anyone on here has the answer to that. And it's all moot anyway, we are where we are and we're stuck with who we're stuck with.

Let’s say we’re losing an average P5 money game to replace with a G5 home game. Travel expenses will lower the amount earned but let’s say we make 800k after everything is paid for (assuming a modest 1.1 million money game). We would need 20k tickets sold at an average of $40 per ticket. That sounds high but suites factor into that. I’d say it would be doable if we were winning. Sounds like a mountain to climb with where we are now.

 

[AustinLewis]

I tend to agree with you - I think if you had those records, you'd see this program in a very different spot right now.

But really, it's a math problem - can you make up the lost revenue from the body bag games with fan engagement type revenue. I don't know if anyone on here has the answer to that. And it's all moot anyway, we are where we are and we're stuck with who we're stuck with.

Long term, I think you COULD make up the revenue at the box office. I think fans would return in larger numbers if MT FB put together a couple of 9 win seasons in a row (playing FCS, two G5, one P5 $$$ game), but its a gamble. The casual fan, basic Boro resident doesn't know that MT is 1-3 in OOC because they played Duke, Iowa, Michigan & TSU in OOC. They just see the 1-3.

BUT, this thinking also assumes MT doesn't go 4-4 (or worse) in conference like they did in 2021.

 

[ewglenn]

73-66-1 over that period of time. Removing our P5 games we were 69-42-1. If we would have gotten an additional 18 games against G5 competition that would have moved our record to roughly 80-49-1 over that period (assuming a 61% winning percentage).

That’s an average of 8-5 per year. I think a run like that would help with attendance. We’ve got two really bad seasons in there that also hurt the average.

 

[ewglenn]

I’d be interested to see how much money MT made off those P5 games. I would think at least 15-20 million. I’m assuming a lot of that was going towards financing the facility upgrades. It seems like the future schedules indicate we are avoiding playing a ton of P5 games per year.

 

[Brew_Raider]

I’d be interested to see how much money MT made off those P5 games. I would think at least 15-20 million. I’m assuming a lot of that was going towards financing the facility upgrades. It seems like the future schedules indicate we are avoiding playing a ton of P5 games per year.

Depends on the game.

Michigan gave us 1.6 million. We got 3.105 million combined for the 2018 3 SEC games.

But it depends on if we got a home game out of the series. We only got $150,000 from Vandy in 2018, but we got home games for it.

That’s the trade off. Do you need the money for a road only game or do you sacrifice some cash to get a P5 in Floyd.

 

[blueraiderJT]

Out of all of those years, no championship. That's the rub for me now. If we get that extra win with an easier opponent and no championship, then people will just say that we played too easy of a schedule and no one would care if we beat nowhere state. I don't think we'd be any farther along than we are. The money is needed way more.

15 was the year we really screwed up. We had Illinois dead to rights and missed an easy FG. The next week, we let Vandy come back. That would have been 2 P5 wins.