(10-24-2019 09:01 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(10-24-2019 08:40 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(10-24-2019 07:17 AM)zibby Wrote:  FB Schedules has Maine playing UConn on 9/19.

Ole Miss had Middle Tennessee on 10/24. I assume MTSU will now play UConn.
Liberty had a bye on 10/31. They already had 12 games scheduled. I assume they're dropping Virginia to play UConn.
San Jose State and Army were playing 11/14. Army had a bye week 11/28.

Hard to see why Liberty would drop UVA or MTSU would drop Ole Miss.

Have to have the game in another year and UConn paying a bunch.

DISCLAIMER: I was JUST superduper wrong about UConn being able to put together a 2020 FBS schedule. But you asked.

Liberty has a strong interest in keeping UConn viable as an FBS independent. Strength in numbers.

UVA is not sorry to see Liberty go, IMO. UConn is a perfectly adequate replacement, without Falwell cooties. Maybe an upgrade, because Liberty goes bowling if they get 2 wins out of Rutgers, UMass and NMSU, who are a combined 2-19. UConn can be relied upon for an easy win in 2020.

Middle Tennessee is keeping the check for the Ole Miss game. In addition, MTSU has a spot open now, UConn is likely looking for a 6th home game. So the Blue Raiders cash another check.

Why is Ole Miss helping UConn, that's a different question.

Army making moves to help UConn is a big plus for UConn, long-term. I thought "national schedule" and Army's ability to schedule P5s limited UConn's value to Army. But if Army is an annual opponent, Army and UMass alternate as home games.

It will be interesting to see if UConn can actually get annual series with BC and Syracuse as indicated in the article because that would be huge for the Huskies. I believe that the UConn fan base would be thrilled with Syracuse and BC as annual games while sprinkling in a few more P5 games on top of that - that's essentially the best case scenario for UConn independence. It looks like Syracuse's non-conference schedule starting in 2022 has enough openings to do that with shifting any games around. BC's non-conference schedule is tighter in some years, so it would probably take a little more horse trading. The ACC schools have a bit more flexibility in non-conference scheduling compared to the Big Ten since they have only 8 conference games, so that can work to UConn's benefit in getting more long-term scheduling arrangements with ACC opponents.