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A look at future football schedules

GTJT622

Well-Known Member
Mar 23, 2014
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Well, the dust is now settling on the 2016 schedule with the announcement of the BC game being moved from Chestnut Hill to Dublin, Ireland. We now know we'll open with a big conference game followed by home games against Mercer in Week 2 and Vanderbilt in Week 3. We also know we will host Georgia Southern on Nov. 19th on Senior Day the week before heading back over to Sanford Stadium for hopefully another Tech win there.

Looking farther out into the future, looks like we will open with Tennessee in 2017 at the Falcons new stadium. That should be a great event and super way to kick off the season. We of course host Georgia and travel to Central Florida in Week 3 (Sep. 16). To secure a 6th home game at BDS, we can assume Tech will secure a home game against a D1AA or low-level D1 team from the Sun Belt or other level conference.

I'll come back to 2018 and 2020 in a moment, but looks like we are pretty much set for 2019 (Notre Dame) and then 2021 thru 2024 in terms of getting that 2nd out of conference game against a P5 team or the Irish. We travel to South Bend in 2021, host Ole Miss in 2022, travel to Oxford in 2023, and then host Notre Dame again in 2024. I think the formula we are shooting for out of conference is of course the Georgia game annually, 1 additional game against a P5 or Notre Dame, 1 home-and-away game against a higher level G5 ("Group of 5"...D1A non-Power 5) such as American Conference teams (eg, UCF), and then 1 home game against a lower-level team that doesn't require a return visit.

This of course assumes the ACC stays at 8 conference games. And, it will be interesting to see if Tech were to try to play any Atlantic Division teams but as non-conference games. A couple of these have been scheduled already by other ACC members. Then again, we will also soon find out whether the ACC will abolish divisions altogether and develop an alternate conference scheduling scheme based on the recent vote to allow conferences to establish their own criteria to determine their champions and not requiring divisions. That is a different subject for a different thread.

2018 and 2020 still don't have that second P5/ND opponent. I think all of the other P5 conferences and schools are scheduling at least one P5 out of conference game. And yes, that includes you, Baylor. ;) Also, the Big 10 is moving to 9 conference games starting in 2016 which leaves one less opening in their out of conference scheduling. This will join the Big 12 and Pac 12 as P5 conferences with 9 games while the ACC and SEC currently still sitting at 8 (could change of course in the future).

However, when you look around, most everyone in P5/ND already has their schedules set for 2018 or 2020 with no real motivation to schedule Tech in addition to what they have set. Taking a look at all P5 future schedules via FBSchedules.com to see who does not have a P5 out of conference game scheduled yet and who has openings in their non-conference schedules in both 2018 and 2020 for a potential home-and-away with Tech reveals the following...

Kansas - do we really want to do THAT again? I think and hope not
Minnesota - this is a program on the rise in the Big 10...maybe the 2nd best option in this limited list
Wisconsin - they do have BYU in 2018 which the ACC and SEC have already stated the Cougars would satisfy the requirement to schedule at least one OOC game against a P5...I don't think Wisconsin is a good fit
Alabama - this would make best sense
Ole Miss - would Tech and the Rebs be open to extending the 2-year contract from just 2022 & 2023 to include 2018 and 2020?

Could Bama and Tech pull the trigger and bring back a series that once was on for '19 and '20 and then was off but this time for '18 and '20? Or, will Tech try to go the same route in those 2 years like is becoming more popular with neutral site games to kick off seasons like Tech will reportedly do with Tennessee to open '17 at Falcons Stadium? That is, open both '18 and '20 with different opponents at neutral locations.

We'll see. By the way, I know a lot of Tech fans would love to see us renew the rivalry with Auburn. Auburn is currently wide open in 2018 but has a home game scheduled with California in 2020. Will be interesting to see if any of the SEC (and ACC) teams go beyond scheduling 1 P5/ND/BYU opponent in the OOC schedules like I think Tech wants to do along with Georgia and others who have standing in-state rivalries with P5 teams.
 
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