The Future of Non-Conference Scheduling

As the seven non-football schools breaking away from the Big East, one change will be how Marquette handles non-conference scheduling. Over the past five years, Marquette played on average more than 6 teams ranked in the RPI top-25 in Big East play alone, which will be a rarity in the new conference. To make up for this, non-conference scheduling will need to fill the gaps.


I broke down the number of opponents in five RPI classes and assigned a point value to each, with the categories of top-25 (3), 26-50 (2), 51-100 (1), 101-200 (0), and 201+ (-1) over the past 5 full seasons in both conference play and non-conference play. I also broke down numbers for a 10-team "New Big East" with Xavier, Butler, and a Dayton/Creighton/St. Louis average.

The point value is clearly not exact, but it provides a rough guideline for scheduling. What it shows is that there is on average a 5-point shortfall from our current Big East conference schedule to the New Big East, which means we need to raise our average non-conference difficulty by around 5 point.

There are two other factors. You want to play at least 16 home games, which means 7 home non-conference games every year. You also want to get more nationally televised games. We averaged 4.5 nationally televised games from 2007-08 through 2011-12 and probably need to raise that to 7 or more to offset the new league's likely lessened exposure. So how do we get there?

We'll start with the non-conference tournament, which gives 4 games total, one at home. The average RPI of those 4 opponents was 234.5, 149.8, 100, and 23.5. We will also keep the Wisconsin series, and should push hard for a regular series with Notre Dame that alternates home/away with Wisconsin. The exempt tourney and these perennial series would give us 6 games, 2 at home, a +8 schedule rating, and 5 games on national television.

Now it gets tough. Of the remaining 7 games, I'm going to assume 4 home buy games against sub-200 opponents. This brings us to 10 games, 6 at home, a +4 schedule rating, and 5 games on national television.

From the last 3 games, we need 1 home game, +4 to the schedule, and 2 national games, which means all three teams should be top-100 RPI. I would hope the league will be proactive and create an annual series with another league, similar to the current Big East/SEC Challenge. Couple that with an alternating high-major home-and-home as we've done with NC State and LSU in recent years and we can assume 1 home game, +3 to the schedule, and 2 national games. For the last game I think there are two options as it cannot be a RPI drag. Either add another series against a high-major opponent or schedule a high-profile neutral site game, such as the Carrier Classic or the Jimmy V.

Breaking it all down, here's what I feel the blueprint should be:

• Exempt Tournament: 4 games
• Perennial home-and-homes: 2 games, Wisconsin and Notre Dame
• High-major home-and-home: 1 game NC State, Vanderbilt, LSU, alternating home site with...
• League Challenge: 1 game, similar to Big East/SEC Challenge
• Neutral Site: 1 game, similar to Carrier Classic, or high-major home-and-home
• Buy Games: 4 games, mid and low-major opponents

This all but eliminates the Milwaukee and Green Bay series, unless they want to play at the Bradley Center as buy games. There just isn't room to have road games at their buildings. Politically, you can't play one and not the other, and with Wisconsin playing at their buildings, it's unlikely they'd be willing to give up home dates. If they want to come here every year as 2 of our buy games, so be it. Otherwise, simply remove both from the schedule. It's too important to keep our early-season profile high in this new league. If you aren't getting us on national television, you have to come here as a buy game.
 

	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	Average
BE 1-25	6	7	6	9	4	6.4
BE 26-50	3	0	2	3	4	2.4
BE 51-100	1	5	5	0	4	3
BE 101-200	8	4	3	5	6	5.2
BE 201+	0	2	2	1	0	1
BE Points	25	24	25	32	24	26
NC 1-25	2	1	2	2	2	1.8
NC 26-50	0	2	1	1	0	0.8
NC 51-100	2	1	1	3	3	2
NC 101-200	1	3	2	1	4	2.2
NC 201+	6	6	6	6	4	5.6
NC Points	2	2	3	5	5	3.4
Total 1-25	8	8	8	11	6	8.2
Total 26-50	3	2	3	4	4	3.2
Total 51-100	3	6	6	3	7	5
Total 101-200	9	7	5	6	10	7.4
Total 201+	6	8	8	7	4	6.6
Total Points	27	26	28	37	29	29.4
NBE 1-25	2	2	4	8	6	4.4
NBE 26-50	4	4	6	0	0	2.8
NBE 51-100	4	2	0	6	6	3.6
NBE 101-200	8	8	6	2	6	6
NBE 201+	0	2	2	2	0	1.2
NBE Points	18	14	22	28	24	21.2
FNC 1-25						2
FNC 26-50						2
FNC 51-100						3
FNC 101-200						1
FNC 201+						5
FNC Points						8