Iowa State/Bowling Green scheduling move shows reputation concern for MAC

Iowa State made a business decision.

After seeing its Big 12 conference mate West Virginia travel to Peden Stadium and lose to Ohio last year and also doing the same themselves in 2023, the program decided traveling to Bowling Green was too risky.

The Iowa State Cyclones announced a number of future schedule changes on Wednesday morning, with the most notable being their 2027 game against Bowling Green –meant to be the away leg of a prior scheduling agreement– changing venues from Doyt Perry Stadium to MidAmerican Energy Stadium.

There‘s more to this shift beneath the surface. Despite moving the Bowling Green game to Ames, the Cyclones kept their 2029 road game against Tulane, another "Group of Six" school. One can construe this as a summary of the national perception of the MAC.

C’est la vie. This is college football in the 12-team College Football Playoff era.

In Iowa State’s perspective, a loss on the road to Tulane is more respectable than a loss to Bowling Green or their College Football Playoff resume can even benefit from beating Tulane as opposed to Bowling Green.

The path of least resistance is the most rewarding. Schools refuse to let fans experience unique atmospheres for the sake of the College Football Playoff glory and spoils.

Thus, the Cyclones will awkwardly host Bowling Green in consecutive years.

Currently, this leaves the MAC with only two future home games against Power Four schools per FBschedules.com. (The conference has multiple home games against the rebuilt PAC-12, but that is a semantic discussion for another time.)

Toledo hosts both games, bringing Kentucky to the Glass Bowl in 2028 and Syracuse in 2029. Now, there is reason to believe neither of these games will not happen. Kentucky notoriously pulled out of a scheduled 2024 road game at Akron, the school with three bowl appearances and three winning records since 2005. The Wildcats still have to shed a non-conference game to comply with the SEC’s nine-game conference slate that year. The writing is on the wall for this one.

The Syracuse game looks safe. The Orange have three non-conference games scheduled for 2029, including an FCS school.

After this, the days of MAC schools hosting Power Four teams on campus may be over. However, the key word is on-campus.

One has to wonder whether Bowling Green officials ever seriously considered moving the 2027 Iowa State game to the Cleveland Browns’ FirstEnergy Stadium. In an era where many Power Four schools reluctantly participate in bowls or even opt out entirely, the “in-season bowl” model could have been worth pursuing.

Toledo may have to resort to this for its future games against Kentucky and Syracuse as well. Both Kentucky and Syracuse could benefit from the added recruiting benefit of playing a game in an NFL stadium other than Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the site of the SEC Championship game. 

Other schools may take this approach when scheduling future Power Four series. It would simply be a return to old practices for many.

UMass used Gillette Stadium to attract the likes of Indiana, Colorado, and even Mississippi State to the Bay State. Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan both hosted Big Ten schools at Ford Field in the late 2000s. 

The College Football Playoff has caused many deleterious adjustments to scheduling philosophy at the FBS level. The increased risk aversion of many Power Four schools is detrimental to many Group of Six schools.

As with many things, the MAC will just have to find a way to adjust.