2023 - Fourth nonconference game

[Matt from A700]

@UNTcrazy727 and I had done separate research a couple of weeks ago interested who we may play to round up our nonconference schedule. We only have three nonconference matches because SMU became a conference game. We don't officially have a game for 9/9 yet. Here are other schools that currently aren't booked for 9/9, and need another nonconference game. 

Note: Existing schedule home/away in parenthesis.

P5
Army
Georgia Tech (2H, 1A)

G5
Coastal Carolina (1H, 2A)
Jacksonville State (1H, 1A)
FIU (1H, 2A)

FCS
Alabama A&M
Alabama State (1H, 1A)
Bethune Cookman (1A)
Butler (1A)
Central Connecticut (2A)
Charleston Southern (1H, 1A)
Davidson (1A)
Delaware State (2A)
Drake (2A)
Elon (1H, 1A)
ETSU (1A)
Gardner Webb (3A)
Georgetown (1A)
Hampton
Harvard (1H)
Howard (2A)
Lehigh (1H, 1A)
Lindenwood (1H, 2A)
LIU (2A)
Marist
Merrimack (1A)
Mississippi Valley State (1A)
Monmouth (2A)
Penn (1A)
Presbyterian (1A)
Princeton (1H, 1A)
Robert Morris (3A)
Sacred Heart (1H, 2A)
Saint Francis (2A)
Samford (1H, 1A)
San Diego
SC State
Southern (1A)
Stetson (1H, 1A)
Stonehill (1A)
Valparaiso (1H, 1A)

Other FBS teams with nonconference voids, but not available 9/9
Baylor (2H)
Ohio (2H, 1A)
Pitt (1H, 2A)
Southern Miss (1H, 2A)
Utah State (1H, 2A)

Edited November 10, 2022 by Matt from A700
Removed Houston, Cincy, and UCF after remembering the Big XII only plays three nonconference games.

[Matt from A700]

Separate post for my brief thoughts:

• I feel like FIU would be most likely.
• As determined before, after examining the schedules of every FBS and FCS team, Georgia Tech remains the most notable school out there needing a game.
• Coastal Carolina would likely provide the greatest test, especially if the game is played in SC to balance each team's home/away schedule.
• Jacksonville State is looking to fill their slate moving up to D1 (CUSA) in 2023.
• Another FCS game would not help us, but adding a team against one of many Ivy League schools needing a game would be interesting (name recognition for fans/students, too).
• There are other programs on the FCS list with name recognition (Georgetown, Butler), but not for football.
• Would we schedule a road FCS opponent based on a destination game for the players/fans?
• There aren't any nearby schools on this list that would have enough interest to warrant putting together a neutral site game for.

[NT80]

Ga Tech would be great from a fan perspective!   Wren, let's do it...call.

Not sure the (new or old) NT head coach would want to start the season against two (2) P5 opponents, even at home.   

I say NO to another FCS opponent.   One is too many!

[GrandGreen]

14 hours ago, Matt from A700 said:

Separate post for my brief thoughts:

• I feel like FIU would be most likely.
• As determined before, after examining the schedules of every FBS and FCS team, Georgia Tech remains the most notable school out there needing a game.
• Coastal Carolina would likely provide the greatest test, especially if the game is played in SC to balance each team's home/away schedule.
• Jacksonville State is looking to fill their slate moving up to D1 (CUSA) in 2023.
• Another FCS game would not help us, but adding a team against one of many Ivy League schools needing a game would be interesting (name recognition for fans/students, too).
• There are other programs on the FCS list with name recognition (Georgetown, Butler), but not for football.
• Would we schedule a road FCS opponent based on a destination game for the players/fans?
• There aren't any nearby schools on this list that would have enough interest to warrant putting together a neutral site game for.

Lots of great research.

Was not aware Ivy League schools who offer no ships would play any D1 schools.

Be amazed if any D! school scheduled an away game against a FCS school. 

Why would UNT want to play in Florida, or FIU in Texas?  This would seem to be a low interest match for either school and both recruit primarily in their home states. 

No D! school is going to play 2 fcs schools in one year. 

Shoot for a home and away with a P5, long shot.  It does infrequently happen and many schools want inroads into Texas recruiting. 

The best chance for a good series, is to get a home and away with another G5.  ULALA, USM and La Tech are relatively close.  

 

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by GrandGreen

[outoftown]

Sadly i fear Georgia tech isn't likely. They already have Georgia and Ole Miss and Bowling Green on the OOC, but no FCS yet, so they have plenty of options and likely incentive to schedule an FCS rather than another G5 game they could easily lose.

Army obviously would make sense and any return game brings a good crowd, if only it were not for the fact that SL doesn't like them on the schedule and NT already plays an away game with a service academy in 2023. Maybe... if you could schedule those back to back, maybe he wouldn't mind as much? NT wins the commander in chief trophy? 😉 . but i am afraid he'd hate playing two service academies in a row even more than playing one service academy.

That really leaves the 3 G5 options. none of them does much for recruiting, but to fill a short term scheduling home and get a home game at a later date, I guess it will have to do. Playing FIU or Jacksonville is like staying in C-USA for an extra year, just without the bad tv. CCU would obviously be better it appears (provided Chadwell stays), but I fear the AD/coach are not looking for tougher opponents rather than easy wins.

Edited November 10, 2022 by outoftown

[VideoEagle]

Just say no to a second FCS team. I still subscribe to the Bill Snider scheduling school - if you are in a strong conference, then a generally weaker OCC schedule can build your total number of wins and give your team confidence going into the conference schedule. Snider almost always had one FCS/1AA team on the schedule but not two. The AAC is clearly a strong G5 conference.

Staying with that, I hope we can find a lower G5 team for an additional home game. I'm thinking a one off or the return game well into the future. A 7th home game against an FBS team would show incredible progress in scheduling. 

Failing a home game, then still a lower G5 team. I think we all recognize the AAC is going to be substantially stronger than CUSA. There is no reason to take an already tougher schedule and make it harder still. Our fans want wins or they won't show up at all. They don't care who the other team is if we lose as we've learned through the years. 

[Cr1028]

Give me Baylor in a nationally televised week zero matchup.

[UNTcrazy727]

7 hours ago, NT80 said:

Ga Tech would be great from a fan perspective!   Wren, let's do it...call.

Not sure the (new or old) NT head coach would want to start the season against two (2) P5 opponents, even at home.   

I say NO to another FCS opponent.   One is too many!

But 2 extremely beatable P5 opponents 

[GMG_Dallas]

25 minutes ago, UNTcrazy727 said:

But 2 extremely beatable P5 opponents 

This. I realize we may not be there yet but 2 wins against beatable P5s vs 1 P5 could be the difference in being the highest ranked G5 for the expanded playoffs. Not saying we're there yet but with the portal, next year's team could look nothing like this year's. Scheduling a second beatable P5 is advantageous IMO.

[MeanGreen22]

The current schedule looks tough enough as it is. I’d guess the AD will want to get an easy/winnable game. 

[Matt from A700]

7 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

Was not aware Ivy League schools who offer no ships would play any D1 schools.

I was not aware of this rule. That's why you're here!

Quote

Why would UNT want to play in Florida, or FIU in Texas?  This would seem to be a low interest match for either school and both recruit primarily in their home states. 

My hypothesis that would make FIU the likely last-minute solution is that I would assume both AD's are familiar with each other after being in the same conference for a decade. Wren might just consider it a one-off (and should-be win) to fill out the schedule, knowing that everyone is pretty pleased with the rest of the opponents we play next year.

Quote

The best chance for a good series, is to get a home and away with another G5.  ULALA, USM, Tulsa and La Tech are relatively close.  

I'm glad to continue playing LA Tech. I hope they do the same thing for basketball.

 

[Pellom]

I would be surprised if we are tied to that September 9th date. Could very easily see an AAC game put in that spot. 

[UNTcrazy727]

9 hours ago, Matt from A700 said:

Separate post for my brief thoughts:

• I feel like FIU would be most likely.
• As determined before, after examining the schedules of every FBS and FCS team, Georgia Tech remains the most notable school out there needing a game.
• Coastal Carolina would likely provide the greatest test, especially if the game is played in SC to balance each team's home/away schedule.
• Jacksonville State is looking to fill their slate moving up to D1 (CUSA) in 2023.
• Another FCS game would not help us, but adding a team against one of many Ivy League schools needing a game would be interesting (name recognition for fans/students, too).
• There are other programs on the FCS list with name recognition (Georgetown, Butler), but not for football.
• Would we schedule a road FCS opponent based on a destination game for the players/fans?
• There aren't any nearby schools on this list that would have enough interest to warrant putting together a neutral site game for.

Nice research! As much as I want Georgia Tech, I think New Mexico State is the most likely option. They only have 2 home games scheduled next year with 9/9 still open. And they have plenty of openings in the coming years for a return trip to Denton. 

Good catch with Jacksonville State. That's certainly a possibility. 

With ACU already on the schedule, another FCS opponent is off the table. You can only count 1 win vs FCS towards bowl eligibility. 

[Matt from A700]

Just now, UNTcrazy727 said:

Nice research! As much as I want Georgia Tech, I think New Mexico State is the most likely option. They only have 2 home games scheduled next year with 9/9 still open. And they have plenty of openings in the coming years for a return trip to Denton. 

I didn't look hard enough to see that they didn't have a 9/9 date. But I did assume most of their schedule would be scrapped if they're going to CUSA next year?

[UNTcrazy727]

23 minutes ago, Matt from A700 said:

I didn't look hard enough to see that they didn't have a 9/9 date. But I did assume most of their schedule would be scrapped if they're going to CUSA next year?

Good point. They still haven't scrapped their scheduled games yet. Who knows what it will look like once the CUSA scheduled is announced. I'm guessing they'll keep 4 games already scheduled. 

[Pellom]

Also, in the official UNT press release, it states the 4th OOC game will be announce soon. My guess is it’s already scheduled. 

[golfingomez]

Give me Coastal, love their program's attitude and would be a great matchup for us

 

[outoftown]

1 hour ago, Pellom said:

I would be surprised if we are tied to that September 9th date. Could very easily see an AAC game put in that spot. 

That would indeed open up things quite a bit.

I would assume this would put a game at Baylor very much into play, but it would definitely also make some other things possible.

[UNTcrazy727]

1 hour ago, Pellom said:

Also, in the official UNT press release, it states the 4th OOC game will be announce soon. My guess is it’s already scheduled. 

Agreed, which is why I think its likely for the 9/9 opening. We were probably working on this before the new AAC format was finalized. 

[97and03]

Body bag game at Baylor to pay for the buy out? 😎

[Matt from A700]

If Baylor was our last OOC game next season, I could go to all 12 regular season games.

[Matt from A700]

Went back to the fbschedules website and realized our current games are scheduled for 9/2, 9/16, and 9/30, leaving two gaps in September... I don't remember it originally being like this. Meaning we will either have a bye or a conference game before we finish our nonconference slate. OR, that opens up a few more nonconference opponents...

From my list in the original post:

Other FBS teams with nonconference voids, but not available 9/9
Baylor (2H) available 9/23
Ohio (2H, 1A) available 9/23
Pitt (1H, 2A) four nonconference games now
Southern Miss (1H, 2A) available 9/23
Utah State (1H, 2A) four nonconference games now

[Glory to the Green]

19 minutes ago, Matt from A700 said:

Went back to the fbschedules website and realized our current games are scheduled for 9/2, 9/16, and 9/30, leaving two gaps in September... I don't remember it originally being like this. Meaning we will either have a bye or a conference game before we finish our nonconference slate. OR, that opens up a few more nonconference opponents...

From my list in the original post:

Other FBS teams with nonconference voids, but not available 9/9
Baylor (2H) available 9/23
Ohio (2H, 1A) available 9/23
Pitt (1H, 2A) four nonconference games now
Southern Miss (1H, 2A) available 9/23
Utah State (1H, 2A) four nonconference games now

This is great!  Excited to see who JM pulls in!  Thanks for putting it together    .

[UNTcrazy727]

46 minutes ago, Matt from A700 said:

Went back to the fbschedules website and realized our current games are scheduled for 9/2, 9/16, and 9/30, leaving two gaps in September... I don't remember it originally being like this. Meaning we will either have a bye or a conference game before we finish our nonconference slate. OR, that opens up a few more nonconference opponents...

From my list in the original post:

Other FBS teams with nonconference voids, but not available 9/9
Baylor (2H) available 9/23
Ohio (2H, 1A) available 9/23
Pitt (1H, 2A) four nonconference games now
Southern Miss (1H, 2A) available 9/23
Utah State (1H, 2A) four nonconference games now

Good catch on the 9/23 opening. I don't remember that being the case either when we looked last month. 

I can't see Baylor being an option since they're already on the upcoming schedule. I figure the most likely scenario for 9/23 is traveling to Southern Miss, followed by hosting Ohio for a 3rd OOC home game. 

[greenjoe]

Has North Texas ever played Harvard in football ?  Or in anything for that matter ?  What they lack in football prowess they make up for in prestige.  I'd like having them come to Apogee.