With the 2018 college football season in the rearview mirror, the talk for many fans has turned to scheduling and how fair, or unfair, it is for certain teams.
One of the reasons why the UCF Knights haven't made the College Football Playoff is due to their weak schedule, despite going undefeated each of the last two regular seasons. But fans of UCF, and other schools, point to the fact that several Power 5 teams schedule Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) schools, which increases their chances of making the four-team playoff.
Fans point to schools like Alabama, which played the Citadel the week before the Auburn game last November. Although the game was close in the first half, the Tide would eventually blow them out in the second half before taking down the Tigers the following Saturday.
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Alabama isn't the only team that schedules FCS schools, but the Crimson Tide are probably the most controversial because of the number of national championships the Tide have won in recent years.
What a lot of fans don't seem to get is that many FCS schools, such as The Citadel or Historical Black Colleges and Universities, depend on Division I schools for money.
A lot of FCS schools' athletic budgets come from playing a larger Division I, FBS school, and sometimes there are upsets. A few years ago, The Citadel defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks in Columbia. A few years before that, then-FCS school Jacksonville State defeated the Ole Miss Rebels.
Not all of these games are blowouts.
Plus, some FBS schools depend on these games to even make it to a bowl. How many of these 6-6 teams would have made it to a bowl game last season if they didn't have an FCS school on their schedule?
FBS schools need FCS schools as just much as the FCS needs them. Although a lot of fans and college football experts want more exciting games out there, don't look for it happen.
There is too much money being made for all parties involved for this to end anytime soon. How many millions of dollars would be lost if this arrangement ended?
Putting an end to this would affect not only the schools, but bowl games as well. And although we may get better, competitive regular season games and less bowl games, the revenue lost may not be worth the risk.
