I think we can do better than UMASS, but the reality is we've got three truly local, attractive P5 opponents...BS College, Syracuse and Rutgers. That's it. Unless we can pull off a continuing, rotating H&H series with all three of them, our home schedules will appear relatively bleak.
Venturing a little further away, I think Penn State might be possible, if we get down on our hands and knees doing some serious begging, as a payday game, or in a possible full scale dream scenario, get them to play us at the Meadowlands as a home game for us the year after our beatdown in State College. They do have a huge following in the NYC metro region, so it's a game those folks can get to, who most likely don't get much chance to see games in SC.
Then we have Maryland. That could be a good possibility for a home & home, perhaps with Edsall's former ties being an added plus? It would be tremendous if we could work them in to a standard rotation with Syracuse, BS College and Rutgers.
Thats about it for reasonably close P5's. We've got to work those really hard.
Then there are the lower tier G5's. Not much there except for Buffalo, Army and Temple. They'll play us home & home anytime it can fit. Temple will hopefully not much care about our AAC departure and we can get something going with them on home & homes.
The rest of the MAC has always been a good source for fill in opponents on the schedule, all H&H.
If through some miracle we can get all of those on a rotational H&H schedule (except Penn State which we'll be lucky to get once or twice every ten years), then we'd have a good base of three or possibly four home games each season against the only available P5 and G5 locals. Those are all fairly attractive home opponents. We had a particularly good rivalry going with Rutgers in the old Big East and I think it would be nice for both schools to rekindle that again.
Then there's the rest of the country. Any of the more northern ACC teams are always good. Virginia, Virginia Tech, Duke we've already got, Wake Forest, UNC, NC State we've already got. We'll have to work that hard and keep a rotational schedule with at least one or two series a year with that group.
Vanderbilt has done a couple series with us in the past and would be likely to agree to do one or more again. As for the rest of the SEC, that's more likely fertile grounds for payday games. That's also true for the rest of the ACC further south.
Big Ten? We're already going with Illinois, Indiana and Purdue. We don't know if we're going to retain our pseudo P5 status with them or not. If so, continue trying to get H&H with Indiana, Illinois, Purdue and possibly Northwestern. It's unlikely we will get anything other
than payday games from the rest of the Big Ten.
Unfortunately not all of the above will work out, so the fallback is going to have to involve the handful of other Independents. If BYU doesn't join the AAC as our replacement, they'll do H&H with us because they like coming to New England so their Mormon base here can see them in person. Obviously ND would be the real elephant if we could get them to do a H&H with our home game at the Meadowlands. Yes, that's essentially two home games for them because of the crowds, but it's also double payday games for us. Two hooks here: (1) they want to avenge that lone loss to us, and (2) as former old BE rivals, and considering the current women's BB rivalry, they'd like to get back at us for the multiple BB beatdowns we've administered to them over these many years. I think we can get that done sometime. It would be absolutely huge for us and should be priority No. 1.
Then we obviously have UMASS which is about to become our No. 1 guranteed rivalry, every year for sure. Next closest is Liberty, which wouldn't be that bad if it had to become a yearly H&H.
New Mexico State would obviously be our last resort for H&H with Independents, but unfortunately we may end up seeing them a few times to fill in gaps.
Other attractive teams would include Ap State, Old Dominion, James Madison, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Holy Cross, Stony Brook, Albany, Richmond, Delaware, Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, Colgate, any of the Ivy League schools, but most notably Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown and Columbia.
Maybe least likely for attractive home games, but use as a last resort for filler would be C-USA, Sun Belt, Southern, and Ohio Valley Conferences. It might be fun to bring Skip Holtz back home (born in Wllimantic) for a H&H with LA Tech.
As for the rest of the country, we should always be on the lookout for payday games anywhere. Maybe West Virginia and Pitt would do something on H&H, but it would probably be tough to get. Iowa would be a huge get if Kirk Ferentz can help us out. The rest of the B12 and even PAC12 for paydays. That's about all there is that I can think of. May have missed a few obvious ones. All we're left with now is to hope and pray that enough darts can hit their targets.
. This would give me a great opportunity to get all my family and cousins together who have scattered across the country. Plus, State College on game day can't be beat. There's no shot we'd get a return game and I'm good with that. To play an away game in an awesome college town, get paid for it, and be able to have fans drive there, is a win in my book.
