FCS Daily Dose: Future Of FCS vs. FBS Games, FCS Teams Playing 2 FBS Opponents In 2024, FCS Teams Playing 0 FBS Opponents In 2024

The FCS Daily Dose is a blog-style article series featuring an assortment of news, rumblings, quick hitters, and commentary on various topics.

A new Daily Dose will be published multiple times a week to keep the FCS discussion going throughout the long offseason.

Future Of FCS vs. FBS Games

The number of FCS vs. FBS games keeps on growing.

FCS teams take on the FBS 121 times this fall, a number that continues to climb.

FCS vs. FBS games by season:
2024: 121
2023: 118
2022: 117
2021: 117
2020: 114 scheduled before COVID
2019: 114
2018: 111
2017: 98

But how much longer will this trend continue?

The thought of a college football power breakaway isn’t message board or social media fodder anymore. The general feeling from college football insiders is it’s going to happen. How and when is still a little murky. The Big Ten and SEC have most of the money and the power over how things look, not only in the college landscape but also in the College Football Playoff. Will they pick apart the other power conferences? Will all of the P4 conferences break away from the Group of Five? Will this new subdivision or league be 40 teams? 48 teams? 80 teams?

Who knows how this split happens or looks? It does seem inevitable, though. Every week there is some new story on Yahoo, ESPN, or The Athletic that points to things heading in this direction.

Some college football insiders think this is all going to go down within the next two years as lawsuits and settlements pile up. Others say it may not happen until around 2030 when some TV contracts are set to expire.

In some ways, this separation could be good.

As I tweeted yesterday, the FBS and the FCS are both too big and watered down. Sam Houston shouldn’t be in the same football subdivision as Georgia. And Mercyhurst shouldn’t be in the same football subdivision as North Dakota State. Just to use two examples of recent realignment.

A middle subdivision with the G5 and the top-tier FCS teams with its own postseason system would be fun. I also understand the G5 wants to attach itself to the P4’s hip for as long as possible. It’s tough to believe the CFB powers will want to share revenue and seats at their table with the G5 for much longer. If these conferences want to reconsider mid-major auto-bids in the NCAA Tournaments, how soon will they question the G5’s auto-bid into the CFP? Heck, would anyone be that surprised if the Big Ten and SEC said only they should get CFP AQs and the other 10-12 spots are at-larges?

As athlete employment and potentially multi-billion-dollar court settlements near, the power programs will get more selfish in hoarding revenue.

This separation would also come with negatives.

A concern among FCS and G5 leaders is if the power teams break off, do non-conference P4 vs. G5 and P4 vs. FCS money games go away?

These matchups are important for many G5 and FCS teams. The guaranteed payouts can be north of $1 million when power conference squads play a G5 school. They can range between $400K-$600K for FCS vs. P4 games. FCS vs. G5 games are in the $200K-$400K range.

Here’s a list of 2024 FCS vs. FBS payouts.

Television, if you didn’t know, holds a lot of power over college football.

TV networks want games that draw eyeballs. As the Big Ten and SEC grow in membership — and could potentially grow more if top teams can get out of the ACC — how soon will the number of conference games grow and the number of non-conference games shrink?

The SEC has been discussing going to a nine-game conference schedule instead of eight. It decided to stay at eight games in 2025, but expectations are it will likely move to nine games as soon as 2026.

This isn’t welcome news for FCS and G5 teams.

And if some sort of Super League or Division Zero or whatever the top tier would be called does form, there may be zero non-conference games scheduled. They may just all play each other if the TV networks tell them to.

Would this decimate the FCS? No.

A misconception is FCS teams need FCS vs. FBS payouts to operate. That might be true for some teams, especially those who consistently play two FBS opponents a year. But for most FCS programs, not getting $300K-$500K via a pay game isn’t going to collapse their football operations. You can find that money elsewhere.

It’ll still hurt if these buy games go away, don’t get me wrong. Maybe the coaching salary pool goes down, or there are fewer equipment and facility upgrades, or less support staff, or you go cheaper when you travel. Any of this still hurts you as a football program. The point is FCS teams won’t be collapsing left and right if FCS vs. FBS games go away.

But it could make a handful reevaluate how much worth is there in operating a D1 football team. Even at the FCS level, there is a high cost and investment needed.

“It is certainly important for our departments,” Ryan Ivey told me on my podcast in February. He was the Stephen F. Austin Director of Athletics at the time and has since taken over as Louisiana Tech’s AD. “We’re not all fortunate where we can have a donor or individuals that are giving half a million dollars at a clip. Those are very few and far between for some of us. So to have an opportunity to quickly generate some revenue to help with that helps our entire budgeting process. But I would also submit to you that in the event Stephen F. Austin doesn’t get to play an FBS opponent in the future for whatever reason, that isn’t going to cripple us. It’s not going to bankrupt us. We don’t base our entire budget off of that. Yeah, it would be a 350-to-600,000-dollar hit on an annual basis, and we would have to figure that out. But we would figure that out.”

FBS pay games are key in making FCS operating budgets more manageable. They can also result in memorable upsets. As shown below, though, there’s a long list of FCS teams not playing an FBS opponent in 2024.

I’m rooting for three football subdivisions to happen within D1. P4 football teams don’t have much in common with most G5 football teams when it comes to resources. And top FCS teams have more in common with the G5 than their FCS competition. The gap in resources and investments is so wide within the FBS and within the FCS. When the power leagues eventually split off, give me a middle subdivision with the Montanas, Dakotas, James Madison, App State, Wyoming, Colorado State, Jacksonville State, UC Davis, Delaware, Marshall, etc. etc. etc. etc.

But I also understand the negatives that come with a power conference breakaway. Revenues would take a hit as buy-game opportunities lessen or completely go away. Some FCS teams would struggle without these guaranteed payouts. G5 teams would also be hit hard if P4 buy games went away, and if the current CFP revenue pot shrinks when the powers want more access and money.

FCS Teams Playing 2 FBS Opponents In 2024

This list is a bit longer than usual because the FCS is a 12-game season in 2024 (due to the calendar) compared to the typical 11-game season, which adds an extra non-conference game.

Bethune-Cookman at USF
Bethune-Cookman at Western Michigan

CCSU at Central Michigan
CCSU at UMass

Chattanooga at Georgia State
Chattanooga at Tennessee

Duquesne at Boston College
Duquesne at Toledo

Eastern Illinois at Illinois
Eastern Illinois at Northwestern

Eastern Kentucky at Mississippi State
Eastern Kentucky at WKU

Florida A&M at Miami
Florida A&M at Troy

Gardner-Webb at Charlotte
Gardner-Webb at James Madison

Houston Christian at SMU
Houston Christian at UTSA

Idaho at Oregon
Idaho at Wyoming

Merrimack at Air Force
Merrimack at UConn

Murray State at Kentucky
Murray State at Missouri

Nicholls at Louisiana Tech
Nicholls at LSU

Northern Iowa at Hawaii
Northern Iowa at Nebraska

Northwestern State at South Alabama
Northwestern State at Tulsa

Portland State at Boise State
Portland State at Washington State

Sacramento State at Fresno State
Sacramento State at San Jose State

Saint Francis at Eastern Michigan
Saint Francis at Kent State

Southeastern Louisiana at Southern Miss
Southeastern Louisiana at Tulane

Southern Utah at Utah
Southern Utah at UTEP

Tennessee Tech at Georgia
Tennessee Tech at Middle Tennessee

UT Martin at Kansas State
UT Martin at Kennesaw State

Wagner at FAU
Wagner at UMass

Western Illinois at Indiana
Western Illinois at NIU

FCS Teams Playing 0 FBS Opponents In 2024

Montana
Tennessee State
Bryant
Hampton
Stonehill
Georgetown
UIW
Mississippi Valley State
Southern
Sacred Heart
Brown
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Harvard
Penn
Princeton
Yale
Butler
Davidson
Dayton
Drake
Marist
Morehead State
Presbyterian
San Diego
St. Thomas
Stetson
Valparaiso
*West Georgia
*Mercyhurst
**Delaware

*New FCS members in 2024
**Leaving for the FBS in 2025

Other Daily Doses

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Returning FCS All-Conference QBs, Lack Of FCS-to-FBS Transfer QB Success … READ MORE

Top FCS Teams Are Also The Least Subsidized, McCormick New No. 1 FCS Draft Prospect? … READ MORE