Ain’t Played Nobody: 9 college football teams avoid Power Five non-conference games
By John Buhler
Not every college football team will play a Power Five program in its non-conference this year.
Let’s crush the college football programs who avoided putting a Power Five team as part of their non-conference schedule for this season.
FB Schedules outlined nine such programs that do not face a worthy adversary of that ilk in the non-conference. While two of these teams are not Power Five programs (Air Force, Liberty), seven are. Although Houston and UCF are moving up to P5 level, you are sitting at the big kids’ table now. Even if non-conference schedules are not created equally, somebody is ducking somebody…
Let’s look at who is not playing a Power Five opponent this season in the non-conference, who is justified in not doing so and who should be crushed for its weak sauce of a non-conference slate.
Table of Contents
- Introduction: Air Force Falcons
- Page 2: Boston College Eagles, Houston Cougars
- Page 3: Liberty Flames, Michigan Wolverines
- Page 4: Oklahoma Sooners, Oregon State Beavers
- Page 5: UCF Knights, UCLA Bruins
College football teams avoiding a Power Five team in the non-conference
Air Force does not regularly schedule Power Five teams
The Air Force Falcons are a repeat offender in this scheduling endeavor. Although they are not Power Five themselves and play in a competitive Group of Five conference over in the Mountain West, Air Force can keep getting away with this for two reasons: One, it is a service academy and must play other the service academies annually. And two, they do not play in a Power Five league.
While the Falcons do face Army and Navy, their two other non-conference games are vs. Robert Morris and Sam Houston, who is moving up to the FBS level. Keep in mind that Navy has to play Notre Dame annually in addition to an eight-game AAC schedule. Army is a national independent, so the Black Knights do not have a choice in being able to cut out Power Five teams on their slate.
One would think Air Force would play more Pac-12 or Big 12 schools annually, but they rarely do.