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2024 FCS Opening Game Schedule of Interest

Honest question, how much money do you think we make on one of those games vs how much we bring in at WaGriz?

Personally, I think the exposure we get with a deep playoff run and high seed is better than the risk of just getting beat up by a much bigger team.
We got a ton of exposure for beating the huskies. However, if you lose a play up game you likely are only making a few hundred thousand dollars after expenses. I bet half the guaranteed money goes towards travel expenses.

We are so fortunate to have an amazing stadium and fan base willing to pay good money to fill it. And with 7 home games this year and 8 next year, the budget should look pretty good. That’s even with the payouts or money withheld for the settlement.
 
We got a ton of exposure for beating the huskies. However, if you lose a play up game you likely are only making a few hundred thousand dollars after expenses. I bet half the guaranteed money goes towards travel expenses.

We are so fortunate to have an amazing stadium and fan base willing to pay good money to fill it. And with 7 home games this year and 8 next year, the budget should look pretty good. That’s even with the payouts or money withheld for the settlement.
I totally agree. And you're right. Exposure from beating Washington very likely helped our recruiting and led to the current resurgence we are seeing. It was also awesome. I didn't sit down in my house during the second half.

Maybe we have reached the point where I am too pessimistic. I feel like we caught them at the perfect time. I just have trouble seeing us pulling that off against a top 25 type team again very often at all. At least not right now. And those biggest teams are the only ones that are going to pay the kind of money it would take. Oregon State can pay practically any FCS team less to come in. So any game we took would feel, to me, like a way bigger risk than reward.

I am the first admit I don't know shit about scheduling, though, and I don't watch as much FBS football as a lot of posters on this board. So I may very well be wrong.
 
Money games will be a thing of the past for the FCS with new 9 and 10 game conference schedules and some of the new rules in place in these conferences. These schools will rely heavily on the group of 5 to fill that void. That would be a pro on the list for moving up. However, I think the university is content with how we are generating revenue at this time. Could that change drastically in 5 years? Hell 2 years? I think a lot of schools will be hurting for sure without money games though. Most of the Big Sky would be affected for sure.
 
We need NDSU and SDSU to both lose week 1
I hope all FCS schools defeat FBS ones. Makes the Griz winning, if and when the Griz play the same teams in the Playoffs that defeated a FBS school in the same year, all that much more sweeter. Unless, of course, you want the Griz to forfeit their victory against the Washington Huskies a couple years ago.
 
I've never asked anyone in a position to know, and you are more knowledgeable than me by far. Do they always schedule it early in the day so that the fans aren't TOO inebriated by kickoff and get out of hand?
The general thought was that with so many people traveling from all over the state, there was a desire to get them back on the road home as early as possible given the late season date and the possibility of poor road conditions. Having been to many noon, 1P, 2PM and night games over the last 40+ years I haven't really seen much difference in the alcohol consumption patterns of our fan base...I do notice a lot more Fireball being consumed when its cold however!
 
You know there's nothing like live game play.You can't simulate that.If some of our quaterbacks would have had it we would sure be a lot better when it matters
Last year we were getting Ah Yat in for live reps when the game situation allowed it. But we also don't want to deny the whole rest of the team reps against a competitive opponent in the non conference.

As for why we don't schedule NAIA teams -

1) We aren't going to schedule an NAIA team because nobody would want to come watch it, and would be actively angry. Look how mad everyone was about schedule Ferris State. There was an uproar all over Griz Nation. Scheduling an NAIA team would get backlash like you cannot imagine.

2) It's not close enough in terms of physical level. I don't say that to disparage NAIA teams. But some of those kids would get hurt really badly.

3) We would have to pay the NAIA school a lot of money, which would defeat the purpose of money making home games. They wouldn't take it without a huge payday
 
So you do not think that anyone would come watch say Carrol or Montana Tech play the Griz ? I am not talking Ferris State.My take is we are not getting the reps for people like Ah YAT or others in live play enought to make them game ready.How else could you do it?
 
So you do not think that anyone would come watch say Carrol or Montana Tech play the Griz ? I am not talking Ferris State.My take is we are not getting the reps for people like Ah YAT or others in live play enought to make them game ready.How else could you do it?
People were very angry about the Ferris game, and said we shouldn't be playing a d2 team. So I think they would be even more upset to play a team below d2, by playing a Montana NAIA team.

No team in the country that I know of is scheduling games two levels below them.

That win would also not count toward us making the playoffs.

Usually, qb's develop on the bench, not by scheduling games against weak competition to get them a whole practice game. That would feel, to me, like hurting a lot of other things to get a young qb some reps. I just don't see it as a very utilitarian move with a very limited schedule.
 
People were very angry about the Ferris game, and said we shouldn't be playing a d2 team. So I think they would be even more upset to play a team below d2, by playing a Montana NAIA team.

No team in the country that I know of is scheduling games two levels below them.

That win would also not count toward us making the playoffs.

Usually, qb's develop on the bench, not by scheduling games against weak competition to get them a whole practice game. That would feel, to me, like hurting a lot of other things to get a young qb some reps. I just don't see it as a very utilitarian move with a very limited schedule.
A similar situation, I manage my church league softball team. We had our first practice yesterday. Our normal pitcher wasn’t there for batting practice so I had to sub in and I’m NOT a pitcher. I may have thrown 1 out of every 15 for strikes but the batters are swinging away cus it’s practice. I’m thinking to myself “this might hurt them more then benefit them practicing against such awful pitching compared to what they’ll see in a game”. I think it’s a benefit to play equal competition for developing players then putting them up against far lesser opponents then they’ll see when it matters.
 
A similar situation, I manage my church league softball team. We had our first practice yesterday. Our normal pitcher wasn’t there for batting practice so I had to sub in and I’m NOT a pitcher. I may have thrown 1 out of every 15 for strikes but the batters are swinging away cus it’s practice. I’m thinking to myself “this might hurt them more then benefit them practicing against such awful pitching compared to what they’ll see in a game”. I think it’s a benefit to play equal competition for developing players then putting them up against far lesser opponents then they’ll see when it matters.
That is an absolutely great analogy. I agree with that entirely.

And, as a person who is not Darth Vader, I also don't want to see Riley Wilson and Hayden Harris lighting up the Havre QB. 😅
 
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