I checked out our future football schedules yesterday to remind myself for when our trip to Berkeley in the next few years was booked and discovered that we've done a lot of filling in of the schedule without anyone (well, me, at least) noticing.
So much filling in, as a matter of fact, that our next available open slot for an out of conference (OOC) game is now in 2018. Most of the newer games on the schedule are more of the filler variety than main courses, but they're booked.
Details about our future schedules after the jump.
Here are our scheduled OOC games for the next ten seasons. In all cases, the games are listed in the order to be played, and all three OOC games will be the first three games of the regular season, before we play any conference games. (Home games in BOLD.)
- 2011: RICE; BYU; @ UCLA
- 2012: WYOMING; NEW MEXICO; @ Ole Miss
- 2013: NEW MEXICO STATE; @ BYU; OLE MISS
- 2014: NORTH TEXAS; BYU; @ Arkansas
- 2015: @ Notre Dame; RICE; CAL
- 2016: NOTRE DAME; UTEP; @ Cal
- 2017: MARYLAND; CENTRAL FLORIDA; @ USC
- 2018: @ Maryland; TBA; USC
- 2019: NOTRE DAME; TBA; TBA
- 2020: TBA; @ Notre Dame; TBA
Some observations:
- Can anyone else remember Texas so aggressively filling up its schedule so many years out?
- The game at Arkansas, postponed in 2009 when the Pigs began their JerryWorld series with the sheeplovers, has reappeared (as some had speculated) in 2014.
- The home game with UCF, originally scheduled for this fall but postponed as a result of our having to drop an OOC with the expanded conference schedule, has been moved all the way out to 2017.
- I can't remember if the Maryland series had ever been officially announced, but there it is. The game at Maryland is supposed to be played at FedEx Field, home of the Redskins, though I wouldn't be completely surprised if the reptilian owner of the Redskins has successfully made a push to have his own version of JerryWorld built on the present site of RFK Stadium by then. (That's an inevitability in my mind; it's just a question of how quickly it can happen.)
- The season-opening Sun Belt cupcake has gone the way of the wishbone. Only one Sun Belt team (UNT in 2014) appears at all on the schedule, a disappointment for those like me eagerly awaiting the visits of Troy, Middle Tennessee State and Florida International to DKRTMS so that we could collect the whole Sun Belt set.
- At the same time, in a direct departure from Mack Brown's established scheduling regimen, we start opening seasons with a bang, with games against Maryland and Notre Dame kicking off seasons.
- 2017 looks loaded. Two quality BCS schools (Maryland and USC) and a third game against a team (UCF) I'd wager pretty good money will be a top-level Big East school by the time we play them again.
- On the flip side, 2012, with back-to-back home games against lower-tier MWC teams (Wyoming and New Mexico), might be our easiest OOC slate. And even our easiest slate includes a road trip to an SEC school.
- Seven of the 25 scheduled OOC games over the next decade are against independents Notre Dame and BYU. They're the only two schools we play more than a home-and-home. Their repeated presence on our schedule has prompted some conspiracy-minded followers of realignment to believe that we might be seriously considering independence myself. I don't believe that myself, but those thoughts are out there.
All of these game are, of course, subject to change of whim (such as the scheduled series with Minnesota thrown in the trash bin once we had a chance to book Notre Dame) and conference alignment.