This is something that has been debated some on the GS board, and I thought I'd get the perspective from this board...

What does it take to get a P5 team to do a home-and-home (or at least a 2-for-1) with us (by us, I mean GS, not SBC teams in general)? Is our stadium still too small? Does the home-and-home have to be better for the P5 money-wise than the single paycheck game? Does it take having a P5 that has a decent contingent of fans in your area?

Or is is it just a matter time and patience and waiting for the opportunity to knock?

New AD

I'm wondering how many of us are qualified to answer this question. Looking forward to the responses though.

Depends on the P5 school you're talkin about. But basically, you need a large enough stadium to pay a P5 school to do a home and home with you.

Gotta have the right AD.

Our previous AD, Dean Lee, in the 10 years he was in the position only managed to get a home and home deal with Louisville-who at the time was in the Big East.
Terry hasn't even been AD for three years and as of now already has gotten us home and home deals with Missouri and Miami.

Help me out on this:

Stadium size?
Distance to nearest major airport?
Are you thinking ANY P5 or do you have one in particular you have your eye on?

In general, I'd say time is not a good thing for you guys. The higher the likelihood that you will beat them, the lower the chance they are coming to your neck of the woods.

A big bonus is to have an AD with history with either the AD at the P5 you are talking about, or the university itself to pull some strings.

When Texas State got Texas Tech to come to San Marcos, it was (I believe) a combination of our AD having a good relationship with their AD, and our coach having a good relationship with their coach. It ended up being a 2-1, but it was still worth it in most of our eyes.

Capacity probably plays some role, but your location probably matters more. P5 schools want to strengthen their presence in areas with great recruiting.

ODU hosts NC State next year. FIU hosts Louisville and Pittsburgh this year. Charlotte hosts an unknown P5 in 2016. Eastern VA, Florida, and Charlotte are big areas that most schools want to have a presence in. Saying they're playing a game in those areas can be attractive to recruits from there because it gives their family and friends an opportunity to see them play in person at some point during their career.

Usually it seems you need at least a 30,000 seat stadium but some have shown this to not be true. I think your AD is the number one factor. stAte seems to ahve a great one, TXST not so much. Another factor seems to be who is around you. TXST is hurt by the fact the P5 teams would rather go to SMU, Rice, Houston, or UTSA in larger cities that are easy destinations for their fans. Plus teams like Rice and UTSA have large stadiums. I think thats one thing that hurts Georiga St, they have GT next door so a team thinking about playing in Atlanta will look at GT first.

But really it comes down to relationships your AD has. I know ours has burned some bridges with schools like Hawaii, which I'm sure gets around. Plus some ADs only want to play G5 because they think the wins are easier.

I believe Troy is the only team to have one visit recently, Miss St..

Alabama has been to Lafayette in the past, the same goes for Texas A&M, who lost.

I've said it for a long time, schools shouldn't be allowed to make their own schedule. It should be assigned by a lottery so that big teams are forced to travel to the G5 schools. Bear Bryant towards the end of his time felt it was important to travel to these schools. I think it was him who set up the Alabama/USL series.

(07-28-2014 11:14 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I believe Troy is the only team to have one visit recently, Miss St..

Alabama has been to Lafayette in the past, the same goes for Texas A&M, who lost.

I've said it for a long time, schools shouldn't be allowed to make their own schedule. It should be assigned by a lottery so that big teams are forced to travel to the G5 schools. Bear Bryant towards the end of his time felt it was important to travel to these schools. I think it was him who set up the Alabama/USL series.

it was our AD Terry Don Phillips who set up the 3 for 1 with Alabama and I do believe that Coach Bryant was there at the time...

(07-28-2014 11:14 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I believe Troy is the only team to have one visit recently, Miss St.

Two years ago: Texas Tech in San Marcos, TX.

(07-28-2014 10:55 AM)MWC Tex Wrote:  Depends on the P5 school you're talkin about. But basically, you need a large enough stadium to pay a P5 school to do a home and home with you.

Enticing a P5 school to come to your place is tough. Money is usually not an influence for them to come to your place. Normally you don't pay the other team for home-and-home, at least not those big pay-offs. You make your money on your home side of the series. You get paid the "big bucks" when you do a one-off traveling to the other P5 team's home field. ULM didn't get that kind of pay-off in the home-and-homes with Baylor and Wake Forest. We made our money when we had 30,000+ for the Baylor game in Monroe and hopefully we'll have that many for Wake Forest (who had 26,000 for the game in Winston-Salem last year). I think it depends on what your AD can do and who he knows in getting them to come to you.

I hate that we have to go to Alabama in 2015. I felt that if the Tide wants revenge for losing to us in 2007 then they need to come to our place at least once. If they don't want to do that, then fine, we won't play them ever and we'll always have that win over them.

I think the best comparisons for GS to look at would be WKU and FIU as their stadiums are similarly sized and your recruiting grounds are better than WKU's but not quite as good as FIU's.

Do visiting teams fly into Savannah and then bus? I've been to Statesboro once, something like twelve years ago.

Part of it is being able to hold strong. If you are going to want a home game out of a P5. hold strong and don't let them work you into a higher guarantee. Arkansas State has a policy of requesting a home and home with every P5 school they call. Whether that be Alabama, Notre Dame (Who just recently turned us down) or Kentucky. That takes a head strong AD who doesn't mind getting told no a lot. Eventually, someone will agree.

Beyond that, you want to know that , you'll be able to make enough profit off the game so that the game itself benefits your program. You're going to have to spend 250K roughly to get the team to travel, that means you will need to be able to make enough off of ticket sales and sponsorships to make a strong profit. It probably means selling higher priced tickets, and creating a title sponsor.

A Third part is simply need. When Troy scheduled their deal with Duke, and Arkansas State got their home and home with Missouri, both happened late in the year when Missouri and Duke were desperate to fill out their schedule for 2013. Both schools used that to their advantage and held out for a home and home, which forced an agreement. You'll be surprised what P5 teams will agree to when they are desperate enough

Previous USA AD did a 2-1 swap with Mississippi State.

(07-28-2014 11:23 AM)TheRevSWT Wrote:  

(07-28-2014 11:14 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  I believe Troy is the only team to have one visit recently, Miss St.

Two years ago: Texas Tech in San Marcos, TX.

Miss. State plays at South Saturday, September 13.

(07-28-2014 11:29 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  A Third part is simply need. When Troy scheduled their deal with Duke, and Arkansas State got their home and home with Missouri, both happened late in the year when Missouri and Duke were desperate to fill out their schedule for 2013. Both schools used that to their advantage and held out for a home and home, which forced an agreement. You'll be surprised what P5 teams will agree to when they are desperate enough

That's a big part of it. We've been able to schedule pretty far out in advance like the 4 year Vandy deal 2015-2018 being announced a couple of years ago and the Duke two year deal 2019-2020 ww just announced, but I'm pretty sure our Miss State home and home, Minnesota home and home and Georgia Tech 2-1 were all announced the spring before the first game was to be played.

We've got a couple of other 2fers set up with NC State visiting next year and OK State in '17. I'm all for 2 for 1s as long as it's P5 teams. The MSU game has the town buzzing and the AD has said that the new account season ticket sales have more than doubled over previous years.

(07-28-2014 11:39 AM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(07-28-2014 11:29 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  A Third part is simply need. When Troy scheduled their deal with Duke, and Arkansas State got their home and home with Missouri, both happened late in the year when Missouri and Duke were desperate to fill out their schedule for 2013. Both schools used that to their advantage and held out for a home and home, which forced an agreement. You'll be surprised what P5 teams will agree to when they are desperate enough

That's a big part of it. We've been able to schedule pretty far out in advance like the 4 year Vandy deal 2015-2018 being announced a couple of years ago and the Duke two year deal 2019-2020 ww just announced, but I'm pretty sure our Miss State home and home, Minnesota home and home and Georgia Tech 2-1 were all announced the spring before the first game was to be played.

I think the big thing is getting one team to agree to a game. Once you can get say an SEC school to agree, its far easier to get another P5 school to sign on. In our case, after the Missouri agreement, Miami was found more agreeable to a home and home, and Iowa State soon followed. Since that game was scheduled, we've gotten multiple calls from other P5 schools about home and home deals.

(07-28-2014 11:58 AM)HCJag Wrote:  We've got a couple of other 2fers set up with NC State visiting next year and OK State in '17. I'm all for 2 for 1s as long as it's P5 teams. The MSU game has the town buzzing and the AD has said that the new account season ticket sales have more than doubled over previous years.

I noticed we're not agreeing to any 2 for 1's anymore. I think if we're going to have to play on the road twice to get a team in here, we'd rather just get them to pay a 7 figure guarantee, than being able to host a 3rd game at a reduced rate because they came here once.