May 29, 2011
In an effort to call
out my own mistakes, one of my previous mailings detailed the number of football games div 1-a schools will play against div
1-aa schools for the 2011 season. Even though I checked my data numerous times
before sending it, going back to my data a few days later I realized I had transcribed a column in an excel spreadsheet. This threw out all the numbers. I take
responsibility for that mistake (unlike all those high-ranking officials at Notre Dame who refused to accept the blame for
the needless death of the student video-operator, Declan Sullivan. That was,
and always will be, the ultimate example of cowardice by adults who should have known better.)
For the 2011 football
season, 120 schools have a div 1-a classification.
Ninety-three schools
play ninety-seven games against div 1-aa schools. All ninety-seven games are
scheduled to be played at the div 1-a school.
Air Force (vs. South
Dakota and Tennessee State), Eastern Michigan (vs. Howard and Alabama State), North Carolina State (vs. Liberty and South
Alabama) and Wyoming (vs. Weber State and Texas State) play two games against div 1-aa schools.
Shame on all ninety-three
of these div 1-a football schools.
With all the state
monetary aid the public colleges get, as well as the:
- Exorbitant cost of tuition;
- Room and board;
- Books;
- Alumni donations;
- Foundations;
- Television and radio money etc.;
- Merchandise
- Bloated athletic department payrolls (both in salary and personnel)
- 60,000 plus seat football stadiums (Michigan is talking about expanding to 119,000 seats-each
seat is only 12 inches wide though-try sitting in that with a winter coat),
the only legitimate
excuse I will accept from a school is that other div 1-a schools are afraid of them and will not schedule them, such as has
been the case of Boise State and Brigham Young in recent years. All this talk
about schedule conflicts and travel and time limits is bunk.
There are an average
of 200+ athletic department employees at each of the one hundred and twenty div 1-a football schools. Ohio State has over 400 employees
There are over 24,000
athletic department employees throughout the country in div 1-a alone. If you,
the athletic directors, cannot hire someone smart enough to figure out how to schedule other div 1-a opponents, then shame
on you.
The twenty-seven
div 1-a football schools that do not play a div 1-aa football school this year are:
(Although most schools
from the big six conferences have routinely scheduled div 1-aa opponents in previous years such as Appalachian State vs. Michigan. The following twenty-seven only get a pass this year.)
- big ten
Michigan
- big ten
Ohio State
- big twelve s
Oklahoma State
- big twelve s
Oklahoma
- big twelve s
Texas A&M
- big twelve s
Texas
- conf usa e Alabama Birmingham
- conf usa e East Carolina
- conf usa e Marshall
- conf usa w
Rice
- conf usa w
Tulsa
- div 1-a inde Notre Dame
- mac east Miami-OH
- mac west Ball State
- mountain west
Boise State
- pacific twelve
Colorado
- pacific twelve
Stanford
- pacific twelve
UCLA
- pacific twelve
USC
- sun belt
Florida Atlantic
- sun belt
Florida International
- sun belt
Middle Tennessee
- sun belt
North Texas
- sun belt
Troy Alabama
- western athletic
Nevada Reno
- western athletic
New Mexico State
- western athletic
San Jose State
By contrast, there
are 126 schools playing div 1-aa football.
Seventy-seven div
1-aa schools play ninety-seven games against div 1-a schools in 2011. All div
1-aa schools are the visiting team.
The following twenty-one
div 1-aa schools play two div 1-a opponents in 2011.
- big sky
Idaho State
- big sky
Weber State
- big south Charleston Southern
- big south Gardner Webb
- big south Stony Brook
- div 1-aa inde South Alabama
- great west California Davis
- great west California Poly
- great west North Dakota
- great west South Dakota
- mid-eastern athletic
South Carolina State
- missouri valley Indiana State
- missouri valley Missouri State
- ohio valley Austin Peay
- patriot League
Fordham
- southland
Central Arkansas
- southland
Nicholls State
- southland
Northwestern
State
- southland
Southeastern
Louisiana
- southland
Texas State
In previous years,
I get a few responses from div 1-a schools telling me of the difficulty of scheduling other div 1-a schools because of timing,
open dates, travel etc. Those are not acceptable excuses. You have budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars. Figure
it out. The only reason a div 1-a school will schedule a div 1-aa school is to
get another home game and usually another victory.
The div 1-aa school
will get a nice payday.
If you want to help
a div 1-aa school why don’t you implement revenue sharing throughout all of college football. That would be the honorable thing to do. Scheduling a presumed
lesser opponent is not an honorable thing to do.
By the way:
- The eight teams in the Ivy League each play a ten game season beginning on September 17 and ending
on November 19, 2011
- Not one school has a bye week.
- Each school plays all seven Ivy League opponents.
- Not one school schedules any non-div 1-aa opponent for its non-conference games.
- Travel is limited.
- Sixteen of the twenty-four non-conference games are against Patriot League opponents.
- Four are against Northeast Conference opponents.
- Two are against the Colonial Conference.
- One is against the Mid-Eastern Conference.
- One is against the Big South.
Maybe the reason
most Ivy League Schools have endowment funds in the hundreds of millions of dollars is that the athletic department administrators
know that a penny saved is a penny earned.
Take that with your
SAT scores!!!
Sincerely,
George Sarkisian
Chief Executive Officer
www.GeorgeSarkisian.com
www.GradeAndComment.com
Farmington Hills,
Michigan 48334
tel: 248-626-9137
sarkisiangeorge@yahoo.com 
