TCU-Tennessee Tech: Why Games Versus FCS Schools Should Be Banned

This Saturday TCU opens its home schedule with a FCS cupcake, Tennessee Tech.

Of course, this is not the first time TCU has played a FCS school under coach Gary Patterson.

In his ten full seasons as head coach, TCU has scheduled five FCS schools, including all but one season since 2006.

Patterson has stated on numerous occasions that he likes playing a FCS cannon fodder team every year.

And since most of the major programs do it, why not TCU?

Of course, Patterson has also been on the down side of playing a FCS school, losing his first ever home game as TCU head coach to FCS Northwestern State, 27-24.

This season, two schools from FCS conferences already have scored victories over Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conference schools.

Of course, we all remember Michigan's huge defeat at the hands of a FCS foe (Appalachian State gear is still worn in Columbus).

Not long ago, teams avoided scheduling too many of these so-called "body-bag games."

In 1978, under pressure of the newly formed College Football Association (CFA), which consisted of major independents and members of the Big 8, SEC, ACC, SWC, and WAC, the NCAA divided Division I into Division I-A and I-AA. 

These schools pushed the NCAA to improve the entire system and dropping the lesser schools was an important part of the entire plan, which also included academic provisions as well.

Following this division, few I-A schools played I-AA schools and those that did were subject to ridicule and lower rankings.

With the expansion of the schedule to 12 games, most schools now schedule a FCS body-bag game.

We have seen a huge decline in inter-sectional games since the 1980s.  The Penn State--Alabama game is an exception rather norm.

For example, Texas rarely plays any real inter-sectional games since the loss to Ohio State in 2006.

Fans largely pay the consequences of this choice.  Sure, fans mostly get to watch their schools beat down some hapless school that averages less than 10,000 in its home games.  But they still have to pay huge prices to watch this beat down.

Add in a game or two against a lower level FBS school from the Sun Belt or MAC, and most fans are paying for meaningless games and guarantee wins.

While most fans like seeing their teams win and win big, they also like to see their teams win games against competitive teams.

Florida fans are much happier with the Gators beating South Florida than the Citadel.  USC fans love having the long time series with Notre Dame.

If teams stopped playing games versus FCS schools, they would instead be forced to play more competitive games, rather than body-bag games.

A Simple Solution

There is a simple solution to this problem: The BCS could make a simple rule that any team that plays a FCS school would be ineligible for any BCS game.

For a whole lot of schools, they begin the season without any chance of a BCS bowl game. 

For schools like Indiana, Baylor, New Mexico, and Duke, they start the season with no real chance of making a BCS game anyway, so this would not be a major issue and they could still play a FCS game.

But for any team looking to make the BCS, the scheduling of a FCS game would become an admission to a school's fans that the school has no chance of being a top school and the school had given up before the season even started.

Very quickly, every major school would quickly drop FCS games and we would quickly see an increase to major games between major programs.

Games like Virginia Tech versus Boise State, Oklahoma versus Florida State, and Miami versus Ohio State would become more common, giving college football fans even more good games.

Until such time as this type of rule is implemented, teams might as well schedule these lousy games.

Beating a North Dakota State or Villanova actually is better under most of the BCS computers than beating a Tulane or San Jose State.

And there is little risk of a defeat, as opposed to scheduling a team like UNLV (a bad non-AQ school), which defeated a ranked Arizona State team in Tempe, as well as Iowa State in 2008.

So, expect to see these bad games continue and do not expect to see any resolution to the problem.

But we can hold out hope for a change and a BCS mandate would be the only way for such a change to take place.

I just hope the NCAA does not suddenly allow for two FCS wins to count towards bowl eligibility.