Frazier’s Corner: It’s a new day in scheduling

Harry · July 28, 2014

I found this to be an interesting strategy employed by the AD at NIU. Note that he is actually calling out schools that are ignoring his attempts on twitter. I really like the way he is packaging this as a component of the fan experience and value of being a stakeholder. Will it work? Doesn't hurt to try something different.

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Beginning Tuesday, we will be announcing one new home-and-home series every day this week. SchedulePalooza is more than just a catchy name. It’s the result of a year of nose-to-the-grindstone work.

Throughout the past year, I kept assuring everyone that scheduling for football was foremost in my mind. That wasn’t lip service. Since I arrived on campus last August, Deputy Athletics Director Christian Spears and I have met, discussed, made countless calls and worked on our future football schedules on a weekly – if not daily – basis!

Conservatively speaking, we have probably reached out to 50 different schools from every FBS league in the country. And that doesn’t even count the schools I’ve called out on Twitter!

In this new era of the College Football Playoff, when one (1) team from what has been dubbed the “Group of 5″ will receive access to one of the host bowls each year, scheduling has become even more critical. We have had two primary goals in mind while putting together the series that we will announce this week:

Arranging home-and-home games against national programs in order to bring quality opponents to Huskie Stadium.
Putting NIU in the best position to succeed in the new College Football Playoff system.

We want to play the best teams from our fellow Group of 5 leagues – that includes the Mountain West, the American Athletic Conference and Conference USA. Going forward, we must have a quality non-conference schedule to be attractive to the College Football Playoff Committee.

- See more at: http://www.niutoday.info/2014/07/28/fraziers-corner-its-a-new-day-in-scheduling/#sthash.ZwzZA3cI.dpuf

Travis · July 28, 2014

Man, that sounds nice.

Harry · July 28, 2014

I would love to play some MAC schools. I hope he is serious about scheduling teams in C-USA.

10Eagle10 · July 29, 2014

looking forward to hearing these opponents. I applaud AD's who take scheduling seriously. this guy gets it

greenit · July 29, 2014

Ouch! Take that Sunbelt.

UNT90 · July 29, 2014

This guy gets it.

UNT15 · July 29, 2014

this guy gets it

This guy gets it.

these guys get it

and so does NIU AD, Sean T. Frazier.

edit:

Is UNT15 but one sixth the GMG.com denizen that UNT90 is?

probably not even 1/1645th. I could only dream to loom so large over so great a place as GMG.com. ...this is UNT90's world (and Harry's), the rest of us are just living in it...

Edited July 29, 2014 by UNT15