NC State Won’t Be The Only Team Playing Two 1-AA Teams Next Year (updated w/ teams needing games)

Something to remember when our rival’s fans try to lord their superior schedule over us next year:

North Carolina will play Georgia Southern in football next season on Oct. 10, a team official confirmed, filling it’s 12-game schedule with a second Division I-AA team.

The opening in the Tar Heels’ schedule occurred when coach Butch Davis opted to cancel a home-and-home series with Colorado. – Robbi Pickeral

I hate games like this, because basically they are interesting as watching pre-season NFL contests.  Yes, the games count in the win-loss column for the year, but the outcomes are virtually pre-determined before kickoff.  There’s no nervous tailgating, no excitement leading up to going into the stadium, and all too often not much energy in the crowd once inside the game.  No matter, however,  the games produce a nice payday for both schools.

The reason I mention NFL pre-season is not only because the atmosphere is nearly identical, these games also require season ticket holders to purchase these games are part of their package.  To me, that seems like a “soak the customer” kind of deal and I truly wish that the BCS would strongly discourage these games and strongly encourage intersectional matchups between teams that rarely if ever see each other on the field unless they happen to pair up in a post-season bowl game.  Further, it would be better if BCS schools preferred other BCS schools in their OOC matchups.  That sort of game is actually interesting, and playing Western Kentucky just isn’t.

The BCS conferences could certainly do that by penalizing schools in the BCS standings for playing 1-AA teams, which would have a cascade effect from the top down to schools like NC State and UNC.  It’s already happened once, when Auburn ended up being the only undefeated SEC team to not play for the BCS Title, largely because of a horrifically weak out-of-conference schedule.  If that ethic filtered down, and a school’s overall schedule was considered for BCS and mid-tier bowl games, we might see an improvement.  The conference home offices would almost demand it.

Honestly, would you rather see a home and home with a South Carolina, a Texas A&M or Minnesota or would you rather see McNeese State and William and Mary?

No matter, college sports are all about money and the fan is only the source of that money and his or her opinions mean little so long as they keep reaching into their wallets.  Speaking of wallets, the prices for tickets for football in 2009 have been announced:

Lifetime Right Season Tickets –
$329

Priority Annual Season Tickets –
$329*

Faculty Staff
(Limit of 4) – $264*

Varsity Club
(Limit of 4) – $264*

Season ticket price breakdown:

Season Individual

Ticket Price          Game Price

South Carolina……….. $52………… $52

Murray State ………… $31………… $35

Gardner Webb ………. $30………… $35

Pittsburgh ……………. $41………… $45

North Carolina ………. $52………… $52

Maryland …………….. $41………… $45

Clemson ……………… $41………… $45

Duke …………………… $41………… $45

UPDATE 2:  here is a list of teams needing games from College Football Palace:

School Conf.
Games
Games
Needed
Confirmed OOC Games
ACC
Clemson 8 1 Middle Tennessee, Coastal Carolina, at South Carolina
Big East
Louisville 7 2 at Kentucky, at Utah, Southern Mississippi
Rutgers 7 2 at Maryland, Florida International, at Army
South Florida 7 1 Wofford, at Western Kentucky, at Florida State, Miami
Syracuse 7 2 Minnesota, at Penn State, Northwestern
Big Ten
Wisconsin 8 1 Northern Illinois, Fresno State, Wofford, at Hawai’i
Big XII
Kansas State 8 1 Massachusetts, at Louisiana-Lafayette, at UCLA
Missouri 8 1 vs Illinois, Bowling Green, at Nevada
MAC
Akron 8 1 South Dakota, at Penn State, Indiana
MWC
Air Force 8 1 at Minnesota, at Navy, Army
SEC
Kentucky 8 1 Louisville, Louisiana-Monroe, Eastern Kentucky
Mississippi 8 1 at Memphis, Southeastern Louisiana, UAB
Sun Belt
Arkansas State 8 2 at Nebraska, at Iowa
Florida Atlantic 8 1 at South Carolina, at Nebraska, at UAB
'09 Football Future Opponents

33 Responses to NC State Won’t Be The Only Team Playing Two 1-AA Teams Next Year (updated w/ teams needing games)

  1. YANCSSB 02/10/2009 at 10:08 AM #

    Why did he cancel a home-and-home with Colorado? Hell, we can’t KEEP teams from dropping us, and he wants to jettison a decent, name BCS opponent.

    What a pussy.

  2. wufpup76 02/10/2009 at 10:12 AM #

    Perfect post … We needed something different than the head bashing stuff since Sunday 🙂

    Nothing makes you feel better than making fun of the Holes or taking their superiority complex down a peg or two

    And I agree, I don’t mind one 1-AA (FCS) game – especially when it’s just a filler – but two games make it one game too many … I’m sure it maybe tough to put together a home-and-home with another power conference foe, but games like that usually help in the long run – a lot more than playing FCS schools will (IMO)

  3. wufpup76 02/10/2009 at 10:15 AM #

    ^I had no idea we had a potential home-and-home lined up with Colorado to even be canceled on …

  4. Daily Update 02/10/2009 at 10:18 AM #

    Alphawolf: Here are some more numbers.

    -NC State supporters ranked 9th among BCS programs in annual donations in 2006.

    -NC State supporters ranked 14th among BCS programs in capital donations the five years prior to 2006.

    -NC State fans have sold out Carter Finley for 8 consecutive seasons despite the program hitting an almost half century low point in 2006 with a 3-9 record. You have to go all the way back to 1959 (1-9, .100) to find an NC State football team with a worse overall winning percentage.

    -Actual attendance (not visual estimates like in Chapel Hill) has essentially been at 100% capacity since the 2000 football season. Here are the numbers for 2008.

    -NC State fans have ranked #7, #17, #20, #19, #16, #13, #17, #18, #16 in basketball attendance since the 2000 season. In 2008, NC State fans averaged 15,043 which was the 2nd highest total in the history of the program despite the team not making the post-season.

    How happy would NC State fans be if the basketball program had half that number of top 20 finishes?

    -NC State fans made the Wolfpack Club one of five booster organizations in the country to exceed 20,000 members this year.

    -In the 2007/2008 athletic year, NC State fans set school records in football tickets sold (37,500), revenue from football tickets sold ($10.75 million), and revenue from basketball tickets sold ($5.6 million).

    -Additionally, NC State fans donated the second highest total in our history ($25.4 million). This was a combination of an all-time high in annual donations ($10.0 million), the 2nd highest total in capital giving ($13.7 million), and what appears to be an all-time high in endowment giving ($1.8 million).

  5. wufpup76 02/10/2009 at 10:29 AM #

    ^Staggering numbers – need to make sure they show up in the “on the cheap” thread …

  6. Alpha Wolf 02/10/2009 at 10:29 AM #

    Thanks, Daily, I will actually add your post to the article “On the Cheap.” Or you could do it for me… 🙂

  7. Noah 02/10/2009 at 10:42 AM #

    ^I had no idea we had a potential home-and-home lined up with Colorado to even be canceled on …

    Carolina, not us.

    I can actually see why you’d drop Colorado. It’s a long way to fly for a pretty crappy game. You ought to be able to schedule someone of equal talent that’s much closer to home. ECU or Southern Miss or Central Florida or someone like that is much more reasonable from a logistics standpoint.

    But to replace it with a I-AA squad is pretty lame.

  8. wufpup76 02/10/2009 at 10:56 AM #

    ^Ohh … shows how smart and in touch I am

  9. BJD95 02/10/2009 at 11:00 AM #

    The current system is loaded with perverse incentives, particularly regarding scheduling. In my view, it has the possibility to seriously damage the sport.

    I would love for the Big Five conferences to come up with a playoff system (with NIT-like bowls). Part of the hook for TV would be removing all perverse incentives to schedule extra patsy games (emphasise SOS, eliminate W/L criteria for bowls) and affirmatively require members to play good non-conference games, so that the TV partners are guaranteed a quality slate of games from the first week of the season to the last.

  10. Tar Heel Fan 02/10/2009 at 11:19 AM #

    Davis apparently does not like road trips out west…says it takes too much time with travel or something like that. I think they did try to do one game with someone like Penn State but PSU wanted it up there and Davis wanted it at home. I echo Alpha’s sentiment. It sucks to have two of these on the schedule, especially since one can only count for the bowl.

  11. sergeant slaughter 02/10/2009 at 11:24 AM #

    seriously though. why the increase in ticket prices? Is NCSU and the wolfpack club oblivious to whats going on in the economy right now??? I know weve sold out every year, but seems a little cheap to get the people that have lifetime rights and are required to buy the season tickets, to make those people pay more and mroe each year for ticket’s, b/c if they miss a year they lose their seats they were paying the extra lifetime right fee for.

  12. TOBtime 02/10/2009 at 12:10 PM #

    ^You don’t expect Lee to re-do the lakehouse with his looks do you?
    ‘Ol butch-slap could be playing the odds. He was very fortunate to play UCOnn and Rutgers when he did this year. CO is showing signs of improvement and that’s just not the kind of team you want to play when you’re trying to pad that resume.

  13. LKNpackfan 02/10/2009 at 12:11 PM #

    Supply and demand, sergeant.

  14. sergeant slaughter 02/10/2009 at 12:23 PM #

    I understand the supply and demand side, Just saying that the Lifetime rights ppl should have theirs fixed at a rate seeing as how they already pony up a shit load more for the seat.

  15. LRM 02/10/2009 at 12:56 PM #

    LTRs weren’t created for our benefit. Quite the contrary. The audacity of locking 30,000 idiots like me into LTRs was nothing short of sheer genius.

  16. sergeant slaughter 02/10/2009 at 1:02 PM #

    Yeah, just think we’d get something out of it other than the ability for the seat to be guarenteed to us. Yes I agree genius on their part but the economy the way it is now its a lil much to be putting on people. but I guess with the fball team on the rise in 2years tickets will be another $50 more at least. i dont even want to know what they will be like when we start competing for BCS bowls. but that could be in 2-3yrs though. the better the team gets the more ppl will want tickets. hope they expand that stadium soon like originally planned. last time i checked they still owed $$$ on the murphey center.

  17. WolftownVA81 02/10/2009 at 1:05 PM #

    I’m affraid the LTR folks got suckered. You have nothing to say about the quality of the product you purchased to see nor the price you will pay the future. My friends, our administrators have taken advantage of your loyalty and love of our University. As I’ve stated before, they won’t get any more of my money – I quit the WPC this year and didn’t even buy the BB four pack. Any future football games I go to will be away or with tix bought though visitor websites. This goes for the Alumni Association as well. I’m not taking their calls anymore.

  18. Astral Rain 02/10/2009 at 1:19 PM #

    Personally, I wish they had taken a road game up to Rutgers, which also had an open date.

  19. Noah 02/10/2009 at 1:23 PM #

    Davis apparently does not like road trips out west…says it takes too much time with travel or something like that.

    He’s right. It has to be a marquee game for it to be worth it. You ought to be able to do better than McNesse State though.

  20. inhoc... 02/10/2009 at 1:25 PM #

    so the way i see the ACC schedule stacking up, we still lack one ACC opponent….is there one more that hasnt been scheduled?
    UNC, MD, CU, dook, BC, FSU, WFU +4 OOC=11….

  21. Noah 02/10/2009 at 1:26 PM #

    I’m affraid the LTR folks got suckered. You have nothing to say about the quality of the product you purchased to see nor the price you will pay the future. My friends, our administrators have taken advantage of your loyalty and love of our University. As I’ve stated before, they won’t get any more of my money – I quit the WPC this year and didn’t even buy the BB four pack. Any future football games I go to will be away or with tix bought though visitor websites. This goes for the Alumni Association as well. I’m not taking their calls anymore.

    That is a very interesting reaction. I don’t disagree with you. My folks got LTR at the RBC Center but my wife and I wouldn’t do it. We all bought season tickets in football, but when the same situation came up regarding seating, we all balked. Seeing what Panthers fans went through made me extremely queasy.

    Interesting that I’m not the only one who had that reaction.

  22. BJD95 02/10/2009 at 1:40 PM #

    With various internet outlets booming, it’s pretty easy to get single game tickets now. It will only be hard for an extremely high-profile game where the opponent also wants to buy tickets (like Ohio State), or in a championship caliber season.

    I really enjoy football, and locked my family’s 5 seats in at $1500 apiece (good price given that we have good aisle seats on about the 30-35 yard line). Still, I’m not sure I wouldn’t pass if I had it all to do over again.

    I’m sure as hell glad I didn’t get basketball LTRs. Almost every game against legitimate competition is televised. Basketball also has less “gameday” feel, and I don’t think there’s as big a dropoff for watching on TV instead of live (as opposed to football).

  23. Classof89 02/10/2009 at 1:56 PM #

    Decision to get LTR’s for football only and not for hoops was the best decision I ever made. The football decision was right for me, because I didn’t have any seniority or priority in the WPC and didn’t have grandparents or parents seats to hand down to me. Course, if our football team ever ends up with a Sidney Lowe type hire, I could be basically screwed and extremely frustrated (I credit the permanent seat rights holders in the RBC Center for not booing more than they do…it has to be horribly frustrating for them…)

  24. Noah 02/10/2009 at 2:03 PM #

    Well, in case you were wondering, the next football coach at NC State is already on the staff and is being groomed for the position. So, if we were going to make a “Lowe” type hire, it would two coaches from now. You’re probably safe for a minimum of bout 8-12 years in that regard.

  25. LKNpackfan 02/10/2009 at 2:09 PM #

    Sarge, I assumed you meant the individual games, not the whole package. The individual face value price for big games are higher due to more demand, but the face for ‘regular’ games is the same as last year, $41 for in-conference, $30-31 for D-II opponents.
    Also note, that we have 8 home games this year (we had 7 last year), which will obviously increase the price of the whole season ticket package.

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