C-USA vs FCS, GF & PC

Conference -USA consists of 2 divisions, East & West, the East Division has seven teams (Marshall, Middle Tennessee, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Western Kentucky, University of Alabama @ Birmingham, & Old Dominion) while the West has six (North Texas, Rice, University of Texas San Antonio or UTSA, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, & University of Texas @ El Paso or UTEP,). UNC Charlotte will join the league in 2015 bringing the total number of teams to 14, seven in each of its divisions!

C-USA will take on 22 Power Conference (PC) opponents in 2014, 18 of these games will be played on the road while 4 will be decided in C-USA arenas. The league will play the ACC 3 times, the B-12 in 5 contests, the B-10 in 4 tilts, the PAC 12 in one, the SEC 8 dates & ND once! The PC teams traveling to C-USA stadiums are: Arkansas to UTSA, Pitt & Louisville travel to Florida International (FIU), & Texas Tech comes to UTEP’s Sun Bowl Stadium. None of the 22 contests are being played at neutral sites!

C-USA plays an 8 game conference schedule, leaving 4 games for each of the 13 teams to schedule non-conference opponents, for a total of 52 NC games ( 4 X 13, the # of teams in C-USA). The league has elected to play 22 Power Conference teams, 9 FCS squads, leaving 21 dates vs their colleagues in the Group of Five (GF). C-USA challenges the AAC on 4 occasions; the MAC 5 times ; the MWC in 4 meetings; the SBC 4 games; & Independents in 4 contests (BYU, Navy & Army twice). The home / away balance breaks down as follows: the conference plays 12 games @ home & 9 on the road vs the Group of Five (the 5 conferences are: AAC, C-USA, MAC, MWC, & SBC) … also included in this count are 3 Independents (Army, BYU, & Navy).

All 9 battles with the FCS are in C-USA Arenas, I really do not recall when an FBS program has traveled to a FCS stadium. The reason is economics, the FCS program gets a payday to travel the the house of a FBS team. They (FCS) typically “take one on the chin” for the betterment of their entire athletic department’s funding! Some of these pay outs can be @ a half million dollars (that’s right, $500,000.00) when they schedule a team from a PC! This year (2014) C-USA has invited the following Football Championship Subdivision conferences to their respective houses; CAA (Colonial Athletic Association) once; MEAC (Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) three times; SWAC (Southwestern Athletic Conference) twice; NEC (Northeastern Conference) once; SLC (Southland Conference) twice!

C-USA has to travel to PC stadiums for 82% of their games with a division (Group of Five vs Power Conferences .. neither of these classification is a NCAA designation) within a division (FBS as recognized by NCAA category). In other words, C-USA plays 18% of their PC games on their home fields or less than 1 in 5! When lining up against other GF’s, they play slightly more than half @ home (12 0f 21), 57.14% to be exact.  Compared to the AAC (21 PC games, 14 GF contests, & 9 FCS dates) C-USA plays one more Power Conference team (22 to 21), 7 more games against the Group of Five (21 to 14), and an identical 9 tilts at home vs FCS clubs. Keep in mind, the AAC has 11 teams (44 NC games) to C-USA 13 (52 NC dates), the American plays 8 fewer Non-Conference games than C-USA plays. AAC should out perform C-USA in its NC scheduling, as they play more times at home, 26 of their 44 NC games are in their stadiums (59.09%), while C-USA hits the road 27 times out of 52 games or 48.08 % of their NC games are at home!