[ballcoach15]

I have heard some LU "Insiders" say we should write Notre Dame a check for 8,000,000 or whatever it takes, to get the Fighting Irish to come to Lynchburg.

[LUalum12]

We should try to schedule a home & home with ETSU. Since Carl Torbush is the coach this should not be a problem.

[BJWilliams]

That might be worth considering for 2016. they open against Kennesaw State on the 5th and I think that may be our best bet for scheduling since most everyone will be in conference play by October 31

[bluejacket]

I have heard some LU "Insiders" say we should write Notre Dame a check for 8,000,000 or whatever it takes, to get the Fighting Irish to come to Lynchburg.

Nope.

[BJWilliams]

Whoever your "insiders" are on that one ballcoach, theyre dreaming.

As I said above, our best bet at this point is to get somebody for September 5 at home.

[JakeP50]

There is no way we can get them to Lynchburg until we move up to FBS and beat them in their own house. I have a feeling that if we do beat them in South Bend they'll either realize how great of a rivalry that could be or never want to play us again ever.

[alabama24]

There is no way we can get them to Lynchburg until we move up to FBS and beat them in their own house. I have a feeling that if we do beat them in South Bend they'll either realize how great of a rivalry that could be or never want to play us again ever.

Uh...

[bluejacket]

There is no way we can get them to Lynchburg until we move up to FBS and beat them in their own house. I have a feeling that if we do beat them in South Bend they'll either realize how great of a rivalry that could be or never want to play us again ever.

There are so many inconvenient realities in these scenarios.....How about we make the FCS playoffs first?

[JakeP50]

There is no way we can get them to Lynchburg until we move up to FBS and beat them in their own house. I have a feeling that if we do beat them in South Bend they'll either realize how great of a rivalry that could be or never want to play us again ever.

There are so many inconvenient realities in these scenarios.....How about we make the FCS playoffs first?

I didn't say when we would move up to FBS or play against Notre Dame, just that the FBS move would have to happen first. I do agree that we should make the FCS playoffs before moving up, but moving up wasn't the point of my post. Notre Dame doesn't have a single FCS game on their schedule this year and as far as I know they haven't for the past few years. The rivalry talk is my sports nerd dream for a non-violent American version of the Celtic(Catholic)-Rangers(Protestant) rivalry from Scotland.

[bluejacket]

Notre Dame doesn't have a single FCS game on their schedule this year and as far as I know they haven't for the past few years.

ND has never played an FCS team and never will. ND, UCLA and USC are the only FBS teams that never have.

The rivalry talk is my sports nerd dream for a non-violent American version of the Celtic(Catholic)-Rangers(Protestant) rivalry from Scotland.

Old Firm sectarianism didn't get built without a LOT of violence on both sides over a wide variety of issues, not just Protestantism and Catholicism.

After we move FBS, ND's affiliation with the ACC will make our chances of playing them much, much tougher. To give one example, the ND-Michigan series is stopping because of their scheduling commitments with the ACC.

To get back on topic, although we should have an "anytime, anywhere mentality" in scheduling, play both private and public schools, only play full scholarship teams, and work in our best interests, it would not hurt to concentrate on building scheduling relationships with other private schools. Schools like Houston Baptist, Samford, Villanova, Elon, Incarnate Word, Abilene Christian, Lehigh, Lafayette, Wofford, Furman, Richmond, and others would be excellent candidates for home and home matchups or longer series (play at their place first, if you have to). Many of them are outstanding institutions with strong football programs. Once we move FBS, we should continue that scheduling philosophy with the few private schools in that division as well.

[BJWilliams]

Those are all excellent candidates, a good mix of challenging opponents who can boost our SoS (Lehigh, Furman, Samford, Wofford, Richmond, Villanova, Lafayette) and fairly easy wins (Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, Elon, Abilene Christian). If we can get one of the latter four to fill that last slot on our schedule, that gives us a good mix for 2015, and can work on getting a couple others for 2016. Here is what we have so far for that year:

Home
Gardner-Webb
Monmouth
Charleston Southern

Away
Kennesaw State
Presbyterian
Coastal Carolina
Virginia Tech
Mid-level FBS

What that means is we have three spots with which we can be flexible for scheduling FCS opponents since its an 11 game year. We can probably hedge one of those three to kickstart a home and home with us on the road if itll get us a quality FCS game. My guess is that JB won't want to have fewer than five home games on the schedule

[Sly Fox]

Sadly a large number of those schools on bluejacket's list would never schedule a series with us. Often times we have more luck signing contracts with public schools than someof the privates. We are a particularly polarizing school to some other religious schools. I am still shocked we ever signed a football contract with Richmond. HBU & Samford make too much sense to not happen. Although both would view us as competition for their student body enrollment recruiting.

[bluejacket]

Sadly a large number of those schools on bluejacket's list would never schedule a series with us. Often times we have more luck signing contracts with public schools than someof the privates. We are a particularly polarizing school to some other religious schools. I am still shocked we ever signed a football contract with Richmond. HBU & Samford make too much sense to not happen. Although both would view us as competition for their student body enrollment recruiting.

I wouldn't say a large number of them would never play us. A few of them have been historically against us for a variety of reasons (mainly the traditional SoCon schools like Furman or Wofford), but we have played almost everyone that I listed, including Furman and Wofford. The only ones that I listed that we have never played are Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, and Abilene Christian and all of them just moved up to FCS. Some of those series were years ago, but, if we could do it then, we should make every effort to schedule them now.

[BJWilliams]

I wouldnt be averse to Houston Baptist..although they have only 3 non-conference games in 2015. As I said, at the very least we can take one of our remaining open slots and hedge for an away game to potentially kickstart something, even if its only two or three games. From what I can tell ETSU doesnt have a complete schedule for 2015 (their first season back) so maybe we could reach out to them, give their new team a nice test.

[Sly Fox]

HBU's head coach briefly was a Flames QB and was a coordinator under Coach Gill at Kansas, I feel confident that at least one game will be scheduled soon if it hasn't already happened unannounced. The Huskies are playing just their first full season of football this fall after an exhibition lineup last fall.

Furman & Wofford are not happening ever again. The hatred & jealousy is too much. And we would have no interest in ACU except as a guarantee game to fill out our schedule. I suspect the latter's incredible historical success will be challenged now that they have to play by Division I rules.

[BJWilliams]

Hatred and jealousy?

[Sly Fox]

Among the administrators of those schools? Apparently so.

[jbock13]

Did BJ schedule five away games in a row?

[bluejacket]

Hatred and jealousy?

Yes, Wofford and Furman have led campaigns against us in the past and continue to be opposed to us. However, I hope that we are doing our part to mend relations, especially in the athletics department.

Richmond refused to play us as well (they were never as virulent, but still antagonistic), but, through coordinated efforts in the AD, we were able to schedule football and men's basketball games with them in the past few seasons.

[BJWilliams]

Did BJ schedule five away games in a row?

Intentionally no...a lot of how things work out will depend on the Montana and WVU games.

If Montana ends up on the 12th then yes we will have 5 straight road games...if it ends up on the 19th, we will have 4 straight road games (JMU, Gardner-Webb, Georgia State and Monmouth)

[BJWilliams]

Last game is almost done according to scribe...and it is a lower level FCS as bluejacket I believe noted, so it pretty much eliminates everybody on his list with the exception of Abilene Christian, Incarnate Word and anybody except the NEC, Pioneer and MEAC (and I believe SWAC although they have the pesky mandate for scheduling)

[jbock13]

That's fine with me.

[BJWilliams]

Likewise...especially with it looking like the schedule will be unbalanced toward away games next year

[rjhenz]

Looks like we JMU comes to Lynchburg on Sept 26th. They just released 2015 schedule.

http://www.jmusports.com/news/2014/11/6 ... h=football

[BJWilliams]

That works out because not only do we get a quality home opponent, but now our longest roadie is 3 weeks instead of some of the possibilities I had considered