(01-17-2020 10:44 AM)bullet Wrote: Nobody schedules FCS games 3 years in advance, at least not any FBS schools. Those are usually the last games scheduled.
I was not aware of that:
2020 - Illinois State at Illinois
2022 - Chattanooga at Illinois
2024 - Eastern Illinois at Illinois
2026 - Southern Illinois at Illinois.
Or:
2020 - South Dakota State at Nebraska
2022 - North Dakota at Nebraska
2024 - South Dakota State at Nebraska
Or:
2022 - Indiana State at Purdue
2024 - Indiana State at Purdue
2026 - Indiana State at Purdue
2028 - Western Illinois at Purdue
Or:
2020 - Southern Illinois at Whiskey
2022 - Illinois State at Wisconsin
2024 - South Dakota at Wisconsin
2026 - Western Illinois at Wisconsin
Now, to be sure, the ones that are further down the track might have cheap enough buy-out clauses if they are bought out early enough that they are more penciled in than locked down, but I expect that the AD's that had them would still argue they be grandfathered in, ...
... and there wouldn't be a lot of pushback, since for the AD's concerned about the impact FCS games on the value of the media rights, the bulk of that impact would NOT be on the next three or four years of games , but in the out years, so grandfathering of existing contracts would not be worth fighting over.
Of course, with the next few years grandfathered in, that is also a recipe for "there has been an agreement at the AD meeting" being "there has been an agreement to announce a decision, even if some of the AD's are going to start lobbying to roll the decision back a bit."