Welcome back, sports fans, to our 3rd pre-season college football post. Before we jump into today’s topic, here are a couple of updates. First, Brendan Sorsby has dropped his lawsuit and is no longer seeking to join the Texas Tech football team. His intention was to join a supplemental draft for the NFL, but that is now in limbo as the NFL said it is not going to happen because of incomplete documentation. Secondly, the NCAA has changed its rules around teams promoting from FCS to FBS. Prior to this season, teams were only eligible for bowl games in their first two seasons if all other eligible teams had already been assigned to bowls. Also, new teams were not eligible to play for their conference championship. Both of those rules are now extinct meaning that North Dakota St of the Mountain West and Sacramento St of the MAC are fully eligible for postseason, assuming they earn a spot.
…..
This post, however, is about the regulations around scheduling for each FBS conference. One would think there would be some consistency, but this is college football, so, no.
…..
The Mountain West is the simplest. They play an 8-game conference schedule with no requirement for the other 4 games.
…..
The Sun Belt is similar except that they are the only FBS conference that still has divisions.
…..
Conference USA has the standard 8-game conference schedule, but they play midweek games (Tuesday, Wednesday) in October.
…..
The MAC is identical to C-USA except their midweek games (MACNation) are in November.
…..
The Pac-12, now expanded to 8 teams, play 7 regular conference games in round-robin format, but they will play an 8th during rivalry week, which will not count in the standings for the championship game. These games are considered “flex” games, and the opponents are not inked in yet. The conference will decide which teams will make the most interesting for fans/TV late in the season. Personally, we think this is fun and should bring attention to a refurbished, yet fledgling conference. However, the flex game will most likely disappear if they expand at all.
…..
The Big Ten has the simplest Core 4 schedule with a 9-game conference slate with no requirements for the other 3 opponents. The only oddity for them is a single-bye week rule, except for Southern Cal who has two.
…..
The Big 12 requires a 9-game conference schedule with at least one of the remaining games against a Core 4 team or the Pac 12 (which is not considered by most to be a Power conference – only 2 of the 8 teams have ever been in a Core 4 conference prior to this season).
…..
The SEC requires a 9-game conference schedule with at least one of the remaining games against a Core 4 team (Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, or Notre Dame). Each team has 3 SEC “permanent” rivalries.
…..
Finally, the oddest, is the ACC. They are “transitioning” to a 9-game conference schedule by 2027, but this year there are 12 teams with 9 conf games and 5 with 8 conf games. There are two issues they are trying to resolve. 1) Notre Dame, which is an ACC team in non-football sports, plays 5 ACC games a year which gives those ACC opponents 10 Core 4 games, assuming a 9-game schedule, and 2) long-standing rivalries with SEC teams. Clemson (South Carolina), Florida St (Florida), Georgia Tech (Georgia), and Louisville (Kentucky) would already have 10 Core 4 teams scheduled assuming a 9-game conference schedule. Add those two together and without trying, some teams could have 11 Core 4 opponents during a season. We don’t know how they are planning to fix this in 2027, but they say they have a plan. While we are purists to a degree, we are also pragmatists. It would suit us if those cross-conference rivalries were removed to allow flexibility for teams like those 8 listed above to schedule other Core 4 opponents.
…..
That’s it for today. Thank you for tuning in – it keeps us active. Thank you for comments and suggestions for improvement – it makes us better. Thank you for sharing with others – it helps us grow. Tune in next time (July 8) for a kickoff to the annual preseason SOS conference rankings. Until then, be safe and try to stay cool in this incredible heat wave, JoJo and G.
