MORGANTOWN - The line between schools in the Power 5 conferences and the schools in the Group of 5 conferences has probably never been thicker.
Exactly how thick? Consider schools in Conference USA, which Marshall calls home, will make about $200,000 in television revenue for the 2016-17 athletic year. That's 1 percent of the $20 million or so in television revenue the Big 12, which West Virginia calls home, will issue to its members for 2015-16 - and don't forget, WVU and the nine others in the league will each deposit more than $10 million more this year from other Big 12 revenue sources.
This is the sort of critical imbalance the little guys - the American Athletic Conference (AAC), Conference USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West and Sun Belt - were concerned about when the big guys - the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC - sought and secured autonomy two years ago and were granted permission by the NCAA to essentially write their own rules.
So if the gap is that big and widening between those two groups, you can assume the border between the Power 5 and the Football Championship Subdivision is just massive. It is, but you can expect to see the FCS close to the Power 5 soon enough, at least on the football field.
The Mountaineers announced last week they'll play host to Delaware State in 2017, a mediocre FCS program, even by Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference standards. But the present shapes the future, and the division between the Power 5 and the Group of 5 is such now that the little guys will try to and certainly can hold the big guys hostage when it comes to scheduling.
To schedule a one-time non-conference game, you have to pay the other team to make the trip. When you're a Power 5 team, that means paying the other team to make the trip and typically take a loss without the lure of reciprocity. Those fees - guarantees, payouts, blood money, whatever you want to call it - are soaring. The Group of 5 is hitting the hydraulics faster than the Power 5 can control, and that's why the Mountaineers are right and smart to be open to the FCS in the future.
WVU has one schedule opening each season from 2018-24, and it's fair to assume that some of those slots will be filled by FCS teams. It's fair to accept that, too. Forget the finances, though that's a powerful motivation we'll revisit in a moment. First, consider the surroundings.
The Big 12 has no rule prohibiting teams from scheduling FCS teams. The Big Ten does. Baylor has scheduled one FCS opponent in 2017 and 2018, Iowa State from 2017-23, Kansas in 2018, Kansas State in 2017, 2018 and 2022 and Texas Tech in 2017-19. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU and Texas have no FCS teams on upcoming schedules, but each has multiple openings and incentive to at least consider it.
That incentive is not necessarily of their doing, either. True, the Sooners and Longhorns have the prestige and the pockets to avoid the FCS, but none of those four are any different than the others in the league. They're being made to deal with the shadow of a 13th game beginning in 2017, when the Big 12 will restore its conference championship game.
That 13th game is there solely to give the league's strongest College Football Playoff candidate the best available catapult toward inclusion. There is no reason to jeopardize the specter of a 14th game with a needlessly bold first, second or third game of the season. No one will be compelled to be reckless, especially when the Big 12 - even Baylor - has been so good about otherwise ambitious schedules.
The Mountaineers are as good an example as anyone with two Power 5 opponents in 2016 (if you count BYU) and 2018-24. The exception is 2017, when WVU plays against Virginia Tech in one of three future neutral-site games and plays host to the AAC's East Carolina to conclude a preexisting contract. In any event, the combination of those two games in each season, nine conference games and a conference title game should be strong enough to get WVU or anyone else into the CFP.
A September blowout against a team from the FCS won't hurt, least of all in the ledger, and the bank account's voice will never be ignored. WVU paid Liberty $400,000 last season and will pay $500,000 to Youngstown State this season and Delaware State next season. You say those are boring teams that don't matter geographically or competitively, and you want someone else like a team from, say, the MAC.
Oklahoma paid Akron $1 million for a game last season. Illinois will pay Bowling Green $1 million in 2020, and that's $225,000 more than WVU paid the Falcons in 2011.
How about the Sun Belt? WVU paid Georgia Southern $850,000 last season. Nebraska will pay Arkansas State $1.65 million next season. How about Conference USA? Charlotte, which would make a lot of sense for the Mountaineers, made $900,000 for a game at Kentucky last season and will make $1.2 million for a game at Illinois in 2021.
How about the Mountain West? UNLV, which WVU paid $740,000 in 2010, is getting $1.5 million from Southern California in 2019. How about the AAC? Tulane will be paid $1.5 million to lose at Ohio State in 2019.
It's a price the Mountaineers don't need to pay, and it's conceivable they cannot, either. In the 2014-15 athletic year, WVU football cleared $5,094,659. That includes a $3.2 million payday for playing Alabama in Atlanta's Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game. Pretend that didn't happen. WVU's now down to $1,894,659 in revenue, and that's before paying someone to fill Alabama's spot on the schedule. Clearly, it's in football's best interest to schedule an FCS team for about half of what a Group of 5 team would want.
WVU isn't merely doing a lot right with football scheduling. It's doing nothing wrong, and a future with more neutral-site games worth at least $1 million more than a home game, plus occasional FCS opponents, is something the Mountaineers should take to the bank.
Contact Mike Casazza at 304-319-1142 or mikec@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mikecasazza and read his blog at http://blogs.wvgazettemail.com/wvu/.