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I'd prefer my team not play FCS teams, but realistically, a pastry is a pastry is a pastry.

I'd guess at times there aren't enough pastry FBS teams available.  I don't credit a team that plays NMSU over NDSU any unless it's Auburn.

I think there are enough, but when you limit the pool, you pay more. And the upside isn’t that high. 

I don't think most folks judge a schedule based on how weak the two or three pastries are.  For good teams, they are nearly assured wins.  The SoS relies I think on which other good teams they played and where.  UGA played UMass and Tenn Tech but some say they had the toughest slate in the country.

I don't see much difference in beating down UT Chattanooga, or beating down UTEP, other than keeping some of that money local.

Not many teams are scheduling the top of FCS when they schedule FCS.  If we're going to knock scheduling here on this thread (which is precisely what prompted this discussion), then it's perfectly reasonable to knock scheduling FCS teams.

I think a lot of FCS scheduling is geographic more than based on team quality. 

I don't know how many years in advance most FCS teams get contracted to play paycheck games, but the other aspect is that like a lot of scheduling, you may try to schedule a good FCS team and by the time you play them, they suck, or you try to schedule a local FCS team who sucks and by the time you play them, they're good. 

Purdue already has Southern Illinois on the slate for 2025, Indiana State in 2026, all 3 OOC FBS in 2027, Western Illinois in 2028, and hasn't filled out their OOC slate beyond that (although has two FBS already for 2029). 

Obviously with Purdue playing Illinois and Indiana teams it's mostly geographic. But while I don't know when 2025 was scheduled, I don't think any of us can predict what 2026 ISU or 2028 WIU will look like based on their rosters today. 

Where I'll agree with you is that a team like Purdue isn't going to be seeking out some "traditional FCS powerhouse" to the extent such things exist... I don't see them putting someone like Appy State in their heyday or SDSU now on the schedule. For a team like Purdue, that's all downside. A win doesn't look all that impressive, but a loss looks terrible. 

But the way that you have a line it is also not really a way to look at it. Most FCS teams only play one FBS team. So there are only a total of 24 slots. So you max out at less than 18% of teams being able to play an FCS playoff team (if everyone played one)

And then you could get into questions of timing/is the metric better if you use last year’s playoff team teams/what not.

I guess I just sort of chafe at the kind of broad context element of all of it. An FCS team can be a lot of different things, as can a mid-major team (as can a mid major team from year to year). Granted, I also think the chasing of more and more challenging schedules is going to make things less fun for lots of folks, but that’s mostly my hill.

I'm not worried about the "fairness" or "availability" of who can schedule a top FCS playoff team.  If there are only 24 slots that constitute an "acceptable" FCS team, a simple solution to that problem, is-- don't schedule FCS teams at all. 

But even more than that, within the context of criticizing OOC scheduling-- which was the point of this discussion-- the division between FBS and FCS is just a natural and easy cutoff.  If the bottom of the FBS and the top of FCS are somewhat blended, then there's nowhere to go but down after you get past the first handful of teams in FCS.  So, just eliminate FCS completely, and you can go a long way toward removing the arguments against a team's OOC schedule.

"Timing" is an issue for ANY scheduling, whether it's FCS or FBS, so I don't really view that as a worthwhile argument either direction.

Not that it necessarily matters to this discussion, but my recollection is that those FCS teams really value the opportunity to play the big boys (and get the pay check). They might be quite sad if denied the opportunity.

For sure, for some of those teams the bodybag game paycheck is a major part of their budget.

Not that it necessarily matters to this discussion, but my recollection is that those FCS teams really value the opportunity to play the big boys (and get the pay check). They might be quite sad if denied the opportunity.

I get that.

But we don't need to make FBS worse in order to make FCS better. And IMHO FBS teams playing FCS competition makes FBS worse.