UNI @ Drake 9/22 -- Article up

[UNI MadCat]

Link to WCF-C article

Reading that, it makes me feel a little bit better about the game and travelling down there. My guess is that for as many UNI fans that attended in '06, you can expect MANY more this year, considering the game is on a Saturday ('06 was a Thursday game).

Now, for those of you who like to correct others about the usage of the proper name for our subdivision, will you also be calling up Coach Farley and reprimanding him for referencing I-AA??

[Marc Wigim]

This is terrific. I know I give Drake a hard time a lot, and I'd even heard rumors that Drake didn't want to play UNI anymore, but I'm very glad that they helped a brother out in need.

[Blue42]

I know we desperately needed an 11th game, but other than that this is fantastic for Drake and not so much for UNI. Do we not even get a return game in the Dome for going on the road against a (reality here) lower division foe?

Am I missing something?

I think what you're missing are alternatives. We didn't have anything better than this.

We're paying the price of being a good 1-AA team...we're good enough to scare off competition but don't have enough money to lure in the right teams to play in the dome.

I guess the Drake game isn't perfect. But it's the closest thing to a home game we can get against a team we can/should beat that counts as an FCS level win. Not a bad alternative at this point. Beats a 10 game season for sure.

[GonzoCat]

I'm sorry, I know there are lots of people on here who either work in the AD or have close friends who do and think they are all the most wonderful people on earth and we should never question or heaven forbid criticize anything they do, but the more this sinks in the more horrible I find it.

This is not anything like a home game. With a home game we take in $150K or whatever of revenue. This game is costing us on top of the travel cost. When you think about it this is the equivalent of Iowa State buying out Minnesota State so they could come play us in the dome on a one game basis. This solution is eating up about half of what we make by playing our "money game" against ISU.

This was a terrible job of scheduling this year. We have one game against a lower division opponent then don't play at home again for 6 weeks? I'm not sure how we came to have 4 conference home games and only 2 road, but I am sure we are going to make up for it down the line sometime. We will at some point have only 2 home conference games and possibly only a 4 game home schedule some year in the future.

I like playing Drake, it's the only game I don't have to travel for, but paying to get one road game against them is crazy. The fact that we had few alternatives at this late date is an indication that somebody wasn't doing their job earlier on and that's how we got to this point of desperation.

I also don't buy that us being a good team scares off competition. We've been a good team for 20 years and I don't think we've ever had to resort to something like this to fill out the schedule.

[MiloCat]

This was a terrible job of scheduling this year. We have one game against a lower division opponent then don't play at home again for 6 weeks? I'm not sure how we came to have 4 conference home games and only 2 road, but I am sure we are going to make up for it down the line sometime. We will at some point have only 2 home conference games and possibly only a 4 game home schedule some year in the future.

Sept. 29 - at Illinois State, 1:30 p.m.
Oct. 6 - Open
Oct. 13 - Southern Illinois, 4:05 p.m.
Oct. 20 - at Western Illinois, 6:05 p.m.
Oct. 27 - Youngstown State, 4:05 p.m.
Nov. 3 - at Missouri State, 1 p.m.
Nov. 10 - Indiana State, 5:05 p.m.

That's three road and three home conference games. Not 4 and 2.

[Matt Trump]

Also, Iowa and ISU are on the road that weekend. If the weather is decent the crowd could be even larger than last year!

[UNIAlum95]

Gonzo you should have listened to OPR today. Gary was talking about the scheduling problems. There isn't another 1AA (oops sorry FCS) team to play us. Try a team from the OVC? Yeah right. They ain't playing us. Yeah we might have gotten a series started with Appy State but it would have taken a miracle to get them here. Besides the win over DU counts the same as a win over Appy. The committee has made it clear that wins matter not quality. Let's get ourselves a seed in the playoffs and be playing three additional home games after the season.

As to next year, we pick up two conference games. We won't have scheduling problems like we do this year. The WKU departure hurt all of the GFC teams.

[Panthers to the Bone]

Gonzo-

What is not being discussed, which was said on OPR last night with Hartzell was that Hartzell was working with Drake on bringing them in in 2008 to the Dome. If not 2008, then he feels a series will be started in 2009. Having this game against Drake does a couple things. It will probably be a TV game. It keeps alumni relations in the Des Moines area up. It should be a win. The other alternatives are less certain of a win (and in all actuality, it puts UNI in a much bigger opportunity for failure). Going to App State, Mississippi State, etc...are obviously much more difficult to win than at Drake. App State would return a game next year, but do we need/want a home game with ASU the following year with Sanders, Allen, Williams, W. Lewis, Parsons, Alvarez, 3/5's of the starting O-line, etc...gone due to graduation, with NDSU added to the schedule, that's going to be a crazy, tough schedule already.

2008: 8 Gateway games + 1 FBS game + D2 game= 1 remaining game...do we want to put UNI in the position to play a game against the premiere FCS team in the country?

Regardless of whether or not we agree with the scheduling, what this does do is keep the interest of UNI football in the mind of the state of Iowa continuously throughout September. With 2 games in central Iowa, and a game in a border state (SDSU), in addition to a home game against a D2 school, this puts UNI in a position to have a high national ranking heading into October. If UNI can keep that high ranking coming out of Illinois State and the bye week, big crowds can be expected down the stretch. That also puts UNI in position to be seeded in the playoffs. Some on here remember 2 years ago that the National Championship game run cost UNI about $80K. Now, take that Drake game, instead of a loss at App State or Miss State, and give UNI a seed (or in better position to be a seed). That could give UNI home field throughout the playoffs. That means only minimum bids for playoff games, and a chance to MAKE money in the playoffs instead of losing it due to travel expenses. Plus the experience and exposure that UNI would have showing off a rocking UNI-Dome would be priceless for admissions and potential recruits.

[ubuntuCAT]

serious question here not a slam on anything. I keep hearing people comment on how the commitee just looks at the record and not the quality of opponenets. Why then do we play a D2 game. Why not buy another low FCS game so at least it counts on our record? What does the D2 game give us other than a half-filled home game?

[GonzoCat]

So did I dream this or am I simply going crazy. Was there not an article posted on here in the past couple days that said we had 4 home conference games and only 2 road?

My money is on going crazy.

[Panthers to the Bone]

If there was,
1.) I didn't see it
...and
2.) it's not true

[GonzoCat]

So you're betting on crazy too huh Bone?

Actually I'm not as it turns out, not in this particular case anyway. It was this post under the future schedules thread:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/app.../70410013/1003

Northern Iowa today announced its football schedule for the 2007 season.

The Panthers open at home before the next four games are on the road, including trips to Iowa State and Drake.

The Panthers will play only six Gateway Football Conference games — four at the UNI-Dome — for the first time since the 2000 season.

[Panthers to the Bone]

I never said you were crazy Gonzo!

I just said I hadn't read an article stating that, and that if it was stated that way, it wasn't the case (4 home GFC games).

[jegbomb52]

We need to keep Southern Utah for our one non-conference game, keep our money game and replace our D-II with a I-AA non-scholly. Even though a team like North Dakota would beat Drake by 40 the committee would rather see us play Drake and would give us more credit for doing so.

[UNIAlum95]

Well in truth you can kind of count one D2 game. You definitely don't want more than one. To qualify you need 7 D1 wins. As long as you have that you can qualify. The D2 game doesn't hurt you. I don't know if another game against a 1AAA team helps any more than a game against a D2 team unless you are struggling to get to the 7 D1 wins. At that point you aren't likely to make the playoffs anyway. History says unless you win the automatic bid, you aren't going to the playoffs with 7 wins.