My apologies for utilizing a very unoriginal catch phrase from the game officials in the National Football League but I thought it might be prudent to take a second look at some common components of a recruiting decision. We’ll take a closer look at what makes several elements important for some recruits in their process and why that particular factor may be a positive or a negative as you view a specific program.
Since, for the most part, college teams up to this point have been playing non-conference games; I thought the timing was right to take a good look at scheduling and what it might say about a coach and program. For the most part we’ll focus on non-conference decisions because they’re the one part of the schedule that coaches actually have some control over. Depending on the number of conference members and the structure utilized by their specific conference, teams could have a varying number of non-conference games to schedule at their discretion.
Before we get to non-conference, let’s make sure we know how to consider the part they have minimal control over, conference play. There’s no question that many conferences have track records and reputations that some recruits want to be part of from a competitive standpoint. In that light it’s important to fully understand their scheduling. You don’t want to choose a program in a specific conference and end up playing some of the members just twice over the course of your career. Additionally, with the recent shifts in conference lineups, it’s imperative for a recruit to know the long term status of a program in their current conference as well as the comings and goings of its other members. If folks are leaving in a year or two or others will be joining you need to know who will be on the schedule after you arrive on campus rather than just those making an appearance this season.
Once you’ve nailed down where a program will be calling home over the course of your career you might want to take a look at the configuration of their regular season conference schedule. Lots of questions come to mind. Is it a single division conference or two separate ones? If it’s one, do they play every conference member home and away? If it’s two divisions, do they play everyone on both sides or just those in their own division? In that two division set up, do they play everyone on their side both home and away? Are there conference members that they’ll never play unless they cross paths in the post season tournament? When conference tournament time does roll around does everyone participate or is it just a select number from the top of the standings?
Bottom line; ask them to lay out the framework of their conference schedule over the course of your career. They won’t know specific dates but they can provide you a ballpark idea of who you’ll be playing and where should you decide to come their way. If they’ve got new members coming or current ones leaving they may have fewer details to offer but they should still be able to provide some possibilities. You can bet that there has been plenty of discussion among the remaining league coaches and there are some possible scenarios that they can share with you.
Which brings us to our actual focus of non-conference scheduling. Depending on what conference a program calls home they could have anywhere from 9 to 15 games to schedule based on needs, priorities and competitive philosophy. What is done with those games is often a statement that can provide plenty of insight for a recruit considering a particular program.
When looking at non-conference schedules it’s important to understand their perspective. How folks in the so called (thank you football) BCS conferences approach things and the way others tackle their scheduling can be entirely different approaches. Even within individual conferences the manner in which the top teams, the middle and those perpetually dwelling at the bottom of the standings will have different concepts of what they want to accomplish with their non-conference games.
If a coach is part of a loaded, top tier conference and is going to face a ranked team every other night in January and February they may tend to take a softer approach in their non-conference scheduling. On the other hand, if a major conference team is looking to compete on the national scene and is striving to go deep in the NCAA tournament, they’ll look for the challenge of top 20 teams early in the year. Even championship contenders play their share of cakewalks but they’ll also take on plenty of teams that they might see again during March Madness.
A team that hovers around the middle of the standings in a power conference each year may consider risking too many early season losses a sure way for their name to be left out during the selection show come tournament time. In that light they often schedule an easier road with just one or two strong non-conference challenges. Years ago 20 wins would get your ticket punched but today if a large part of those 20 come against teams that carry little or no weight you’ll be looking at the WNIT.
Conversely, when you look at the schedule of a team in one of the premier conferences and see that their entire non-conference lineup is against programs that come from what might be termed the mid or low major level it should raise some questions. There could be several reasons they’ve taken such an easy path. It could be a coaching staff on the hot seat with the need to stockpile some wins to help with job security. It might be a new staff trying to clean up a mess they’ve taken over and hoping to establish a winning mentality and culture. Of course both of those approaches backfire badly if you happen to come out on the short end of those games. An easy opening schedule may be created to protect a very young roster as a coach eases their fragile and inexperienced players into the thick of things.
Of course it could be that they just simply see their conference schedule as challenging enough and aren’t interested in testing the limits of their team. Nobody would ever expect a BCS conference level team to play ten or twelve games against ranked non-conference opponents but no program on that level should be playing only programs from mid or low Division I either. At the very least, Coach Cupcake should be taking on their fair share of the lower rungs from equitable conferences to their own.
Evaluating the non-conference scheduling of programs that don’t have the built in luxury of a high end conference roster comes from an entirely different perspective. The strategies and decisions that go into who to play, where to play and what they’re trying to accomplish are often influenced by different dynamics than their large budget big sisters. Let’s face it, according to the NCAA there are 33 Division I conferences and contrary to the constitution, not all are “created equal”.
For the top programs in mid major and low D-I conferences the willingness to load up their schedule in the early season is often a means of insurance. There have been countless times where a dominant team has stumbled in their conference tournament and lacked the leverage provided by strength of schedule to get an at large bid. These days, it’s not uncommon to see a second bid go to a conference that traditionally has only received one when their top seed gets tripped up. It’s also a great selling point to recruits that each year the schedule will hold challenges and present opportunities to make a competitive statement beyond conference play.
Other coaches at this level often concede that their only access to NCAA post season play is through their own conference tournament. However, with the expansion of the WNIT and the addition of the Women’s Basketball Invitational the competition is now for much more than just an invite to the “Big Dance”. Both the WNIT and WBI have won-loss record and conference standing elements in their selection process so these days you often find coaches trying to schedule their way into some post season games in March rather than play their way in. Between the three tournaments there are 144 spots available which equates to 42 percent of the 345 Division I teams. In that light, being a “post season” participant hardly carries the elite status that it once did.
Regardless of the perceived level of a conference, there are some elements in non-conference scheduling that come into play at various times for all programs. Often you’ll find a coach trying to get a game or two close to an area for a player whose home is more than just a stone’s throw from campus. Occasionally there’s intent on playing games in a geographic region of the country that a staff is interested in recruiting from. Sometimes there are regional rivalry games that are tradition thus a given for a spot on the schedule. In-season tournaments aren’t quite the staple they used to be but the opportunity to get two games while minimizing travel costs is easy on the program’s bank account. This, in turn, leads us to the impact of budget on scheduling decisions.
It costs an incredible amount of money every time a team leaves campus. Some programs don’t think twice financially and have the resources to play when and where they want. Others have limited depth to their pockets and are forced to juggle flight versus bus, overnight versus day trip, or for some van versus charter bus. There are a lot of programs paying substantial guarantees for home games that help minimize travel costs for a visiting team. For many, those guarantees can be of a sufficient enough amount to cover that specific trip as well as to bolster travel or other budget lines in turn keeping administrators off their backs. Of course those guarantee games are usually challenging and might come at the expense of being someone’s punching bag for the evening. Sometimes guarantees are offered because a program simply doesn’t want to return a home game the following year and for visiting teams there’s nothing better than taking someone’s money as well as a win when you leave town.
How you interpret the non-conference scheduling decisions of those in your recruiting mix is up to you. If they have a high profile conference schedule then the non-conference may not matter as much to you. If their conference schedule is of a lesser stature in your mind you may have to ask yourself do they make up for it by playing some of the big kids on the playground early in the season. Also, scheduling is something you evaluate over the last four or five seasons rather than just the current one. Look for consistencies rather than one time trips or a big game here and there. The coaches should also be able to tell you about who they’ve got scheduled over the next year or two as well.
The ideal schedule is used develop and advance a team and its players. However, scheduling is not an element you base your decision on alone. It’s something you utilize to get a good read on the culture of a program and the staff’s philosophical approach. It can tell you a lot about the head coach, the program’s resources and the kind of competitive experience you might have should you decide to wear their uniform. For a true competitor, that uniform is much more comfortable if you’re lining up against competition that will bring out your best.
