Ten game schedules?

[Texlonghorn75]

It appears from viewing schedules for the new football season several of the top teams only have eight or nine games. Richland Springs currently appears to have eight games scheduled while Balmorhea and Strawn have nine games scheduled. The question is how important is it to have a ten game schedule and from a coaches perspective is it better to avoid adding that ninth or tenth game if it involves playing a seasoned competitive team? I know injuries and momentum going in the playoffs can be a big factor. With all this food for thought, all three of these teams appear to have a bye week October 20. I would like to see two of these available teams get together for an October Classic. Why not? Life is short.

 

[Johnny South]

I believe that the reason you always see the top tier teams with unfilled schedules is because it is so hard to find coaches who want to play a top team. They know almost for certain that they will be putting another loss on their record. Even though, in my opinion, playing the top team actually improves the lower team in many ways. A lot of coaches are shooting for improving their won-loss record in order to pad the resume.

On the other question, most playoff bound teams don't want to play a team that they are going to meet again toward the end of the road. It makes the second time much harder to prepare for.

This is exactly why I am a proponent of 6 or 8 team districts. It is a lot more possible for a winning coach to fill 2 or 4 games than 6. (those door-mat teams have no trouble at all filling the schedule. There was one of those this year that is not even fielding a team that showed up twice on one school's schedule) IMHO

 

[CoachTJones]

At this point, another big reason is that a lot of teams are finding out they don't have enough to field a team. This is causing cancellations which leave open weeks.

 

[FCSA football]

My recent experience causes me to agree with Coach Jones. In February/March I had all 10 games filled.
Since that time I had 8 cancelled or rescheduled.
The way I finally got 10 was to schedule to play one team twice and play another game in week 11. It's been quite a frustrating experience for me but I know it's even more frustrating for some of the coaches that had to cancel.