ul shouldnt give coaches money for games. they should have to raise the money. like basketball raised money for the vacation games in puerto ricoOk, let me say this for the upteenth time over the years.
Bryan Maggard makes the football schedule. That's the only schedule he makes (although he must approve all schedules.)
Dr. Maggard tells the coach how much money he needs in guarantees and as long as the figure is met, he's good.
UL does not give the head coach money to buy D-1 games.
The idea in scheduling is to have the same number of games home and away and if there are games that are at a neutral site (read: Asheville this year) that's cool, too.
As I pointed out in a previous post, with exception of the three new eastern schools, everyone that has released a schedule has three games against non D-1 schools. That's because they all have the same issue. They aren't getting the money to buy D-1's and they're having trouble scheduling home and home opponents. (Marshall is buying two D-1's: Coppin State and Chicago State...which is the caliber you get for 50-60K)
As CajunsMike pointed out, the schedule got hamstrung this year because Southern Miss was supposed to return last year's visit, but is now a league member. Southeastern LA was on the schedule but had to drop out when the Southland suddenly had two more schools than planned (Lamar came in a year early, UIW decided to stay instead of going to the WAC.)
Now, I'm not using that to say the schedule would have been great, obviously that's not the case. But they are facts about this year's schedule.
The first of what I'm sure are many meetings has been held as to how to improve basketball in the Sun Belt. The bottom line is all the schools in the league need to up their budget significantly.
That means more money has to be raised because you can't rob Peter to pay Paul.