Appalachian State will never beat Michigan again

The FCS school I cover usually plays an SEC school each year. The check its gets amounts to about 5% of its annual budget. That would be very hard to replace.

It's not the FBS' job to keep FCS programs afloat, but for a long time now FCS schools have counted on that $400,000 or so each year.

And there isn't a whole lot of difference between playing Troy or Middle Tennessee State and playing a CAA or SoCon school. They go after the same recruits so the talent level is quite similar, but the perception is different because playing a low-level FBS school is perceived as better than playing an FCS school.

 

It would be interesting to see how many schools would try to come up a level just to keep the paychecks coming in...

I still don't think all of the BCS conferences will follow the Big Ten's lead on this...

 

I'm not convinced that the entirety of the Big Ten will follow the Big Ten's lead on this, once they start to analyze the ramifications.

 

Ramification No. 1 will be that far fewer Big Ten teams will be "bowl eligible" in the future.

Of course, last season several teams struggled to reach six wins even with an FCS team on the docket.

I foresee even more MAC-Big Ten matchups in the future, if that's possible.

 

As an Alabama alum, I would be sad if my school couldn't do its part to help fund the Western Carolina athletic department. Those players work just as hard!

 

Nice.

 

Maybe I'm not so smart but I don't see what exactly this a solution for.

Were fan bases outraged by their teams playing down? Mostly no.
Is the Big 10 hoping they'll shame the SEC and other power conferences in following their lead? The SEC laughs.
Are they so fearful of the huge upset, they want to eliminate the possibility? Appy State and one of the North Dakota schools beat Minnesota, that's all I can remember.

The very real downsides are having more teams not bowl-eligible from the Big 10.

This is a very weird move.

 

The Big 12 went to a nine-game conference schedule and nine of their 10 teams wound up bowl eligible in 2012 and the one that didn't (Kansas) could have hand-picked all 12 of its games and they still wouldn't have played in a bowl game.

Even if the Big 10 dropped the FCS requirement there are plenty of FBS tomato cans that can fill that role on a schedule.

I'm looking at YOU New Mexico State, Eastern Michigan and South Alabama.

 

FCS games shouldn't even count as wins. They should be classified as "exhibition games."

 

I wouldn't go that far. North Dakota State could beat most of the teams in the Sun Belt and Mountain West. Same could probably be said of most of the top programs in FCS.

 

For the purposes of the BCS, I don't think they count as wins. Though they do count as losses.

 

You can count one FCS win toward bowl eligibility. Play two and the second one doesn't count.