Opportunity to Change 2015 Schedule

[LastofftheArea78]

With Alabama Birmingham (UAB) shutting down its program, our Athletic Director ought to get on the phone to talk to some of the teams or Conference USA now with an open date. Bowling Green did it today, contacting Tennessee and taking UAB's September 5th date.

Why? Army has two FCS (I-AA) schools on its 2015 schedule - Fordham (9/5) and Bucknell (10/17). Only one win will count to bowl eligibility. Replacing one of them with one of UAB's opponents would likely add an 11th FBS opponent to Army's schedule, likely a team from Conference USA that is now looking for a game.

Army has open dates on 10/31 (week before Air Force game), 11/28 (Thanksgiving week) and 12/5 (week before Navy) so has some flexibility. Probably not looking to play those weekends, though JM may now have second thoughts of having three weeks off before Navy.

Lots of options and opportunities - for example, lets see a C-USA team is open on 10/17 and was scheduled to play UAB on some other date. They could schedule Army at Michie on 10/17, Army could bump Bucknell, and the other team changes their open date. Another option would be a team scheduled to play UAB sometime during the season has an open date on 9/5 - we bump Fordham and play them as an opening home opponent. Or maybe Army has been previously approached by a current opponent to drop their 2015 game so they can play someone else, this might work out as 10 to 11 FBS schools are looking for a 12th game now. Or play someone on 11/28 and ask the NCAA for a waiver for a 13th game, because some FBS team would not be playing a 12th.

 

[BrentDavis]

Not a bad idea at all.

We'd likely have to buy out of whichever FCS game we'd replace.

10/17 is likely Homecoming, so probably need to keep that a home game date -- wouldn't be a big problem if the "replacement" didn't need a home game (i.e. they were scheduled to play AT UAB).

 

[BrentDavis]

Just checked, 10/17 is Homecoming. Reunions already scheduled for '95, '00, '05, & '10.

 

[Copplin82]

We had a waiver for the yale and fordham games so they would count, im sure we would do the same next year

 

[armyfan]

Originally posted by Copplin82:
We had a waiver for the yale and fordham games so they would count, im sure we would do the same next year

Or we could just op out of the FCS games, and rightly draw criticism and maybe a lawsuit or two. We ain't Notre Dame or even North Dakota.

 

[goodknight65]

Originally posted by Copplin82:
We had a waiver for the yale and fordham games so they would count, im sure we would do the same next year

The waiver we got only allowed us to count the Yale game toward bowl eligibility if we had won that one and lost to Fordham. It did not allow us to count both games. Wins over Ivy League teams are not normally counted because they don't offer athletic scholarships and the NCAA requires that the FCS team provide a certain percentage of their allowed 68 scholarships to be counted.