[Stevev]

I am noticing in the last 2 years that we have been putting more division 2 teams on our sports schedules when compared to past years. I thought that LU was getting away from that trend and for years we were but I am seeing that trend returning to LU sports teams. The sports teams that come to mind in particular are football, M & W soccer, volleyball, softball, and M & W basketball, but it seems to be accross the board. I don't know if anyone is noticing or maybe nobody cares who we play. To me it is not a good thing to do and would tend to hurt our reputation a bit. My question is are the individual teams having difficulty scheduling other division 1 teams or is this a Big South conference thing that we trying to adhere to. It may sound like I am nitpicking a bit but I am a little concerned right now with this trend I am noticing.

[thesportscritic]

Some of it is due to the fact that some teams that we want to play don't have the space to put us on their schedule.

[El Scorcho]

Some of it is due to the fact that we haven't consistently won enough for anyone to want to put us on their schedules. There's something to be said for an easy W but there's also something to be said for strength of schedule.

[shukcb04]

Some of it is due to the fact that we haven't consistently won enough for anyone to want to put us on their schedules. There's something to be said for an easy W but there's also something to be said for strength of schedule.

my thoughts exactly, pretty much.

[Stevev]

I don't totally believe in what you are saying. I don't believe that LU is that bad off athletically to justify playing down in competition so often. Some of LU's teams that have been doing this have actually been very sucdessful (as in womens basketball). I know that the Big South Conference is one of the worst sports conferences in division 1 but that in itself doesn't justify playing division 2 teams. It seems like we are taking some steps backwards when all the talk is about advancing the sports programs to the next level. Doesn't make much sense to me in what is going on.

[SuperJon]

Do you ever stop whining about the schedule? Here's how it works:

BCS conference teams play Big South conference teams at the beginning of the season as a warm-up game.

Big South conference teams play DII at the beginning of the season as a warm-up game.

DII plays DIII.

It's a cycle. If you had any clue how hard it was to set a schedule up you'd understand.

[Stevev]

I see what you are saying, but I don't remember LU playing that many division 2 programs 2 years ago and the years before that. Womens hoops have not scheduled division 2 teams for many years until VA Union was put on 3 years ago for some reason. I could say the same thing for the other sports programs also. I just see a trend developing and it doesn't logically make sense to me but maybe it does to you. I don't think that scheduling has gotten any tougher now than it has been in the past. Besides teams in the Colonial conference do not play division 2 competition at all, I think but maybe those teams play to a higher level.

[SuperJon]

Teams in the CAA don't play DII teams because they have 65 conference games because their conference is so big.

Women's sports are lucky to have 7 schools field a team. That's a ton of non-conference games.

The same can be said for football (4 conference games, 7 non-conference).

[Sly Fox]

In answer to Steve's original question, I believe our recent increase in Division II games has more to do with adding home dates at the expense of higher profile road games. We don't offer big guarantees for other teams to come to Lynchburg. So non-conference home games are tough to come by at times.

[Stevev]

Hopefully this "scheduling problem" that we are having will be rectified within a few years. Maybe the proposed facility improvements that are in the works will make scheduling "higher profile" out of conference teams at home a reality.

[Libertine]

Football has scheduled at least one D2 opponent every year since 1975. Under Rocco, in '06 we played two D2's and we will again in '07. During the Karcher years, those D2's were typically replaced w/ additional I-A games or high-profile I-AA's. This proved to be a disaster.

The fact is that playing in-state teams OOC is very big for recruiting. Ideally, these would be D-1 but if a D-2 is a better fit, than bring on the D-2. Contrary to your opinion, Steve, scheduling has gotten much harder precisely b/c of conferences like the Colonial. The number of conferences has increased and the membership of those conferences has expanded which dramatically limits the number of OOC dates that they can play as well as our ability to schedule them.

Let me demonstrate. Since you mentioned the Colonial, the Colonial has 11 teams playing 8 conference dates a year. This leaves 33 open dates to fill:

• In 2006, 3 of those dates were vs. D2's.

• 8 dates were $ games at FCS opponents.

• Delaware and Hofstra elected to play each other as an OOC game so there's 2 more dates gone.

• 4 more dates were against Ivies -- which is more or less D2.

• 4 dates went to games vs. either limited-schollie Stony Brook or Albany.

• 4 games were vs. the limited-schollie Patriot League.

This leaves only 8 games that the Colonial played vs. full-schollie FCS teams.

• 4 games were vs. Big South teams -- namely VMI & Liberty(!).

• The remaining 4 dates were vs. App. St., North Dakota St., Elon and Morgan St.

[SuperJon]

No one sees scheduling a DII opponent once a year as a problem except you.

[Stevev]

Everyone here who posted to this thread has some very good points and a great knowledge of the scheduling process, but sticking with football, I do see putting 2 division 2 teams on our schedule as a problem. No problem at all with scheduling 1 as most legitimate 1AA programs do that but scheduling 2 is just going to kill our postseason chances and credibility. I am tired and it is late so I am signing off.

[SuperJon]

Here's why that happened this year (as I've explained on here before):

The big schools don't want to play us. They still see us as a 1-10 team and that we wouldn't help them at all.

We're not ready to play some of the bigger schools. Sure, we could've played App this year because they were begging for games, but Coach Rocco is building a program and didn't want to schedule us against the two-time national champions in a place where they haven't lost in over three years.

The lower I-AA teams look at us and see the transfers we have and say, "Yea, we don't want to get killed."

We're at a point between being horrible and being good. It'll get better. After this year, I'll be surprised to see more than one DII game, if one at all.

[Libertine]

More number crunching:

There are 118 FCS teams (not counting PC or NC Central).

• We can't play ourselves. Subtract 1 = 117

• We can't play other Big South members OOC. Subtract 4 more = 113

• The SWAC doesn't play OOC unless it's a 'Classic' game. Subtract 10 = 103

• The Ivies will never play us for any reason. Subtract 8 = 95

• The Pioneer is completely non-schollie. Essentially, they are D3 schools. Subtract 8 = 87

• Ditto for the MAAC. Subtract 5 = 82

• The Patriot League is a limited-schollie league. Subtract 7 = 75

• Ditto for the NEC. Subtract 8 = 67

• Travel to a Big Sky opponent is prohibitively expensive or nearly so and are waaaay outside our recruiting area. As such, it would make no sense for us to play them unless it were a playoff appearance. Subtract 9 = 58

• Ditto for the Great West. Subtract 3 = 55

• Ditto for the Southland. Subtract 7 = 48

• We don't want to play Savannah St. again unless we absolutely have to. Subtract 1 = 47

This leaves the Colonial, the SoCon, the Gateway, the OVC and the MEAC as the only conferences of teams we could play that would be "on our level" and would make any sense for us to play. All of these conferences have at least 9 members, playing 8 conference games apiece and now we're back to the problem I outlined above with the Colonial conference.

Basically, my point is that of the 100+ teams in FCS, over half of them we could not or should not play based on Steve's criteria. We need at least 5 home games every year for the sake of recruiting (and sanity). Until we prove to the 'legit' conferences that we're a legit opponent, they aren't going to want to come here and we still have to fill those dates. I believe that we'll begin to see them lining up within the next few years but we've tried to rush that process before (see: Karcher) w/ disastrous results. Whining about the schedule we've got in any sport doesn't help. The best -- and only -- thing to do is pound the living crap out of the teams we do face.

[JDUB]

so basically, its really hard to get any decent teams to play us at our place because they don't think were any good, and any semi decent because there scared

[shukcb04]

patriot league has some better teams than the freaking big south. holy cross and bucknell would beat up on the big south.

[Fumblerooskies]

patriot league has some better teams than the freaking big south. holy cross and bucknell would beat up on the big south.

Easy, there, "spark." We are well aware as to how the Big South is perceived as a bottom feeders league...and playing all these D-II and NAIA schools that many of the BSC schools load up on does nothing to help.

[Libertine]

patriot league has some better teams than the freaking big south. holy cross and bucknell would beat up on the big south.

The Patriot League does have some good teams year in and year out. Lehigh and Colgate would do very well in our conference and Lafayette and Bucknell would probably do OK. Georgetown, Holy Cross and Fordham, on the other hand, would still be bottom-feeders in the Big South much like they currently are in the Patriot.

However, that wasn't the point I was attempting to make. I was going by Steve's criteria of playing only full-schollie FCS programs, which the Patriot League is not.

[jcmanson]

This is a good discussion. I don't think we want to play any d2 games, but it just works out that way sometimes. As others have already said, we would rather play the JMU's, Richmond's, VCU's, W&M's, of the world, than Shippensburg, St Paul's, etc, but it just doesn't work out that way all the time. And rather than playing more D I-A schools, we decide to play D 2's.

[Stevev]

Coastal Carolina football doesn't have the scheduling problems that we do and they have only had a team for 4 years. I don't believe that they put 1 division 2 team on their schedule last year. Chuck South on the other hand fills up half their schedule with div 2's. LU can do better as evidenced by Coastal's scheduling which goes against the theory that the Big South "ties us down" in who we can put on our schedule. Maybe it is how the in state colleges perceive LU as being a bunch of "do gooders" and maybe are afraid to get humiliated. It might hurt their reputation a bit.

[SuperJon]

Or it could be that Coastal went 10-1 in their second season and the good teams thought they could get something by playing them. They were also making a bid for the SoCon, which is why they played all of the SoCon teams. The only SoCon team they haven't played is El Cid and Western. Our schedule this year is similar to their's in 04 when they went 10-1 for the first time. If we do that this year, we'll be able to start playing better teams. However, in 05, when they went 9-2, they played Delaware St, Mansfield, and JMU at home. The JMU game many at JMU thought shouldn't happen but JMU needed a game. Their "good" games (SC State, App State, Elon) were away. We're not at a point where we can draw big teams in here. They still look at us as a team with horrible AstroTurf that draws 3000 to a game. We have to change the perception before they'll play us.

[Libertine]

For their first 2 years, CCU's schedule was Charleston Southern-esque. In '03 and '04, they played exactly zero games against non-Big South full-scholarship competition. Their OOC schedule consisted of Newberry (D2), Charleston WV (D2), North Greenville (D2), Jacksonville (Pioneer), Morehead St. (Pioneer), Davidson (Pioneer) and Savannah St.

Coastal getting JMU at home in '04 was a complete fluke. JMU had just won the national title and nobody wanted to play them. They were desperate to get an 11th game, home or away. As Jon already mentioned, Coastal had just come off of a 10-1 season and, for JMU, it looked like a good deal. They thought they were playing a tune-up game against a team whose '04 record was inflated by patsies. Oops.

By the way, aside from the last-minute addition of JMU, Coastal's '05 schedule was viewed as utter crap when it came out. Elon was a very bad SoCon team, Del St was a very bad MEAC team at the time with SC State not expected to be that much better. Then, right in the middle of conference play, was D2 Mansfield which was a program so bad that Coastal beat them by 60 and which has since dropped the program.

It was on the strength of those two combined years that Coastal had the opportunity to schedule all those SoCon schools in '06 -- with mixed results, I might add -- and, even then, they still played Savannah St. and at D1 transitional Winston-Salem St.

[shukcb04]

patriot league has some better teams than the freaking big south. holy cross and bucknell would beat up on the big south.

The Patriot League does have some good teams year in and year out. Lehigh and Colgate would do very well in our conference and Lafayette and Bucknell would probably do OK. Georgetown, Holy Cross and Fordham, on the other hand, would still be bottom-feeders in the Big South much like they currently are in the Patriot.

However, that wasn't the point I was attempting to make. I was going by Steve's criteria of playing only full-schollie FCS programs, which the Patriot League is not.

D1 basketball is where it's at in Libery's case, not football for sure. The Liberty basketball team made more noise by getting blown out by st. joseph's in the ncaa tournament a few years ago than the football team ever has. Also, the Liberty basketball team has a drastically greater chance of ever being as much as semi-competitive nationally than the football team ever will be able to if they moved to D1A - how often does a football team from a small conference ever do anything nationally? now whens the last time a school from a small conference did something special on the national scene? And the trio of holy cross, bucknell, and winthrop would make a joke of the rest of the big south - winthrop is already doing it just about. don't get me wrong, i don't hate liberty (i actually rooted for the bball team in that ncaa tournamnet game, by the way), but i'm looking at this realistically here.

[ATrain]

Question for Steve...when has volleyball played a D-II recently? I don't ever remember them having one on the schedule the two years I covered the sport for The Champion.