Aug. 27, 2005

By Gene Duffey
SportsTicker Contributing Writer
HOUSTON (Ticker) - Several Big 12 Conference schools watered down their schedules for the 2005 season, to the benefit of their won-lost records and the detriment of college football.

Florida International and Florida Atlantic, both in their first season as full-time members of Division I, will open with two games each against Big 12 opponents.

Six Big 12 schools play one game against a Division I-AA opponent. Texas Tech plays two.

Nebraska opens the season with Maine, Oklahoma State begins with Montana State and Iowa State starts with Illinois State.

"A quality I-AA is pretty close to a Division I," said Texas A&M coach Dennis Franchione, whose team will take on I-AA Texas State, at the conference media days last month. "They just don't have as many players." They don't have any name recognition, either. The school was known as Southwest Texas State until two years ago. Some people in Texas never heard of "Texas State." Texas Tech's non-conference schedule is an absolute joke. The Red Raiders play Florida International in its first Division I game, then face a pair of I-AAs, Sam Houston State and Indiana State - all at home.

"I thought getting (the non-conference games) at home was important," Tech coach Mike Leach said. "We got whoever we can at home. You want to get as many guys in as you can." "If you get a chance to play more players, it's a luxury you don't get very often," Franchione echoed.

In other words, one of the 11 games in the regular schedule turns into a glorified scrimmage.

Fortunately, some coaches, notably Gary Barnett at Colorado and Bob Stoops at Oklahoma, don't subscribe to the theory.

Colorado, in addition to its yearly battle with Colorado State, faces Miami on the road.

"Our tradition is to play those types of teams," said Barnett, who has Florida State and Georgia on Colorado's future schedules. "Almost every one (of our players) talks about the schedule. We feel it contributes to our team rather than hurts it." Oklahoma's schedule is a little lighter than normal this season, with TCU and Tulsa at home and UCLA on the road, but picks up dramatically in the future. The Sooners have scheduled Oregon and Washington for next season, Miami for 2007 and '09, Florida State for '10 and '11 and future games with Louisiana State and Notre Dame. Stoops said eliminating computers from the BCS formula nullified the strength of schedule component.

The problem is, there is no penalty in the BCS formula for playing a I-AA school.

LSU proved that in 2003 when it reached the BCS national championship game, ahead of USC, despite a schedule that included I-AA Western Illinois, plus Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana Tech.

The big loser when schools weaken their schedules is television.

The plethora of cable stations has turned Saturdays into a festival of college football. The problem for TV is finding decent games to show in September when nearly everyone is playing non-conference opponents.

Who wants to watch Kansas State vs. Florida International? Missouri vs. Arkansas State? Baylor vs. Samford (not Stanford)? "We need these type of games to get better," said Kansas coach Mark Mangino, whose Jayhawks play Florida Atlantic, I-AA Appalachian State and Louisiana Tech. "The Big 12 is tough enough. When you're trying to build a program from the ground up, you need to schedule some teams that if you play smart football, you have a chance to win." There are a few tasty nuggets, such as Texas at Ohio State, which should be much more fun for everyone to watch.

"The issue of scheduling I-AA teams is not a major concern for me," Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg said. "We would prefer to see quality intersectional matchups with at least one of those existing on everyone's schedule.

"I think all of us in the conference office have observed the challenges that we have in terms of finding quality nonconference games for television in September. We have been trying to encourage them to schedule on an annual basis at least one opponent that would be considered perhaps to be a top-50 or top-60 team." The Big 12 awards an extra share, which Weiberg estimated at $200,000, to schools that have a non-conference game televised.

Unfortunately, inventory is so poor that Oklahoma State's game at Florida Atlantic will be televised by ESPN2.

Colleges will be allowed to play a 12th game beginning in 2006.

Most coaches oppose adding a conference game. Too many of them will probably use the additional game to buy a win against a turkey.