Scheduling games between the top college football programs in America can be a massive undertaking that takes months to complete. One way to help? Make schools play nine conference games.
Ohio State and the other 13 Big Ten schools will, for the first time, play nine conference games in the upcoming season. It's a move that the conference hopes will strengthen traditions and rake in more television revenue. But it also lowers the number of times OSU could play marquee nonconference opponents like Oklahoma, who the Buckeyes take on next month.
For more on the scheduling change and just what it takes to line up a big-time opponent like Oklahoma or Notre Dame, Steve Brown and Thomas Bradley from WOSU's sports show After the Score spoke with the man in charge of scheduling football games for OSU, Deputy Athletic Director Martin Jarmond.
The below text is an automatic transcription of the above conversation, please excuse all errors and typos.
Steve Brown: I'm Steve Brown on 89.7 joined in studio by Thomas Bradley my co-host on WOSU's weekly sports show After The Score.
This is the first year that Ohio State and other Big Ten football teams will play nine conference games. Here to talk about that with us is Martin Jarmond. He's the deputy athletic director at Ohio State and he is in charge of football scheduling. Good to have you back on the program Martin.
Martin Jarmond: Great to be back. Steve what's going on brother?
Steve Brown: You are, man. So why move to non-conference games?
Martin Jarmond: Big Ten wanted a more competitive schedule. Allows us to really be strong with nine conference games. Not everybody in the country and the Power 5 is doing nine conference games, and it's something I think our fans will be more excited about today to see another Big Ten game as that of some of the other games that we had on the schedule.
Steve Brown: You say the powerful, those are the top five conferences. What are the other four?
Martin Jarmond: The ACC, the Big 12, the Pac 12 and the SEC.
Thomas Bradley: And so you said it's moved toward more conference games to add a little bit of a competitive edge. But some would argue that some of the Big Ten games are lesser opponents than what we could go out and schedule. I know right off the bat this year Ohio State has Oklahoma in the early season and there's not going to be a game like that until we get to a Michigan State or Michigan later in the season. Is this to help some of the smaller Big Ten schools schedule those bigger games or is this to help the bigger Big Ten schools schedule more competitive games?
Martin Jarmond: No that's a great point. It all comes down to the scheduling philosophy for each school, for each institution. At Ohio State we want to compete for national championship. We want to compete for a Big Ten championship every year. So in order for us to do that we have a schedule and strategy. It wouldn't be realistic for us to play Oklahoma and then to other top five teams as our three non-conference games.
Steve Brown: Just for fear of losing? I don't know. I don't want sugarcoat it, no offense but for fear of losing games?
Martin Jarmond: Not necessarily fear of losing, but that's I mean you're talking about injuries, you're talking about the challenge of a game that is just the challenge. And the system that we're in right now as you guys know we we were one of the best teams if not the best team in the country last year we lose one game, we don't play in the playoff. So it's not worth the risk reward to schedule in that kind of manner. So where the Big Ten going to nine games helps is, you we always like to do a Top 10 traditional power.
That's Oklahoma for this year. It will be Oregon in the future, it will be Texas, Notre Dame. But Oklahoma is it this year and the other games that usually surround around that are not schools that are in the top 25 or most of the time not even in the top 50. So now, instead of one of those type schools you're going to get a Big Ten game. So that makes our schedule more attractive, our strength of schedule more attractive and the quality of opponent will be stronger. So that's something that your fans would rather pay to see you play a Big Ten match up instead of one of the other schools.
Steve Brown: These Big Ten schools have bigger alumni base is presumably better nationwide TV ratings.
Martin Jarmond: Correct. Correct.
And they're stronger, they have more tradition. So that's that's one of the main reasons why you go to the nine game schedule, and I understand your point about Oklahoma but the reality is we wouldn't schedule three Oklahoma's in a year. Actually we are out scheduled Notre Dame, Texas and Boston College in a year. And we did that before all of this change, so that's going to be a challenge in itself.
Thomas Bradley: The formula you mentioned seems to be working if you if you look at Ohio State, if they go undefeated there's no doubt in anyone's mind that they're going to make the playoffs. But if you look at the team last year like Iowa, who was going undefeated for most of the season and people were like 'well are they a good team? They don't have a very good schedule, their non-conference schedule is weak, their conference schedule is weak,' and they made it to the Big Ten championship game and lose to Michigan State. So there's got to be that fine line you've got to tiptoe across between making it too hard to go undefeated and making the schedule too easy.
Martin Jarmond: You're exactly right. Scheduling is an exact science. Iowa what they did is they put themselves in a position if they would have beat Michigan State to get to the playoff. And quite frankly people forget no matter how hard or challenging your schedule is, it is hard to win week in and week out every game. That is really hard to do, especially in football with injuries and emotion and you're talking about 18 to 21-year-old kids that's hard. So it is an exact science. You do have to schedule strong, but you also have to give yourself a chance realistically to try to get as far as you can unscathed, because that's going to be both attractive as we've seen in the two years that the College Football Playoff.
Steve Brown: I know this is the first year going to nine conference games, but does that kind of seem like the sweet spot? Is there any way you could go to 10?
Martin Jarmond: I like, me personally speaking this is not on anybody else in a Big Ten. I like nine games. I think it is a sweet spot. I think that when you have three nonconference it allows for a major kind of opponent. Just like Oklahoma. It also allows for a game where you try to play maybe something with regional ties like a MAC school that we play with Bowling Green were playing this year open up ,which is great for the state of Ohio and then you have one more game where you can kind of do something with. So to me I like that because it fits into Ohio State's schedule in philosophy. Ten games that's really tough, that's really tough. You have to make some really hard decisions on how you're going to schedule best.
Steve Brown: That's crazy that one game makes such a big difference.
Martin Jarmond: Huge, huge difference. Huge difference.
Thomas Bradley: And a number of teams scheduling a different game.
Steve Brown: It's a nationwide metric with all these teams flying everywhere.
Thomas Bradley: How much work do you guys do with the Big Ten conference to schedule those games? Do you let them know availability and stuff like that? And do they work with every school pretty intensely?
Martin Jarmond: Yes. That's a great question. We work hand-in-hand with the Big Ten Conference. So typically they send out a schedule of everyone's schedule and the dates you have in the future. So we send it back to say that is accurate. Sometimes they have a mistake. They might have something that was on there from before and it's not accurate anymore. But typically when I look in the schedule someone or I'm getting close, I'll call Mark Rudner at the Big Ten office and I'll say you know 'Mark this is who we're looking at and this date' because you always want to make sure the Big Ten is not thinking that date for something else or a conference game or something like that. Part of the nine game schedule, if you guys remember that we went to the Big Ten is we allow for early conference games. I think in 2017 we're playing Indiana first game of the season or 2018. 2017 or 2018, I can't remember which one right now. So now you have to make sure you coordinate with the Big Ten office beforehand because they may say well we're actually have something you know and the schedule that we haven't sent out to schools yet that has you playing in that first week or that second window.
Thomas Bradley: I remember five, maybe six years ago I think it was Halloween. Ohio State played New Mexico State in the middle of the season with the move to nine conference games, is that the end of a mid season non-conference game or was that kind of the end of that trend or that when that trend just anomaly I guess?
Martin Jarmond: Yeah. You know I think every situation is different you probably won't see that as much just because you like to get in a groove once you're in the season and the conference is as disruptive somewhat. I know the SEC has been doing it for years as far as they play like the FCS school.
Thomas Bradley: They play a real small school in the middle of Mississippi or Alabama or something.
Martin Jarmond: But they've been doing it for years.
You know that's their pattern. So I think the Big Ten, our pattern is once we get going in conference you kind of want to stay in conference and keep that going.
Steve Brown: How tough is it, how big of an undertaking is it to schedule a game like Oklahoma? I mean is it is it months of back-and-forth, is it years of back and forth how long does something like that take?
Martin Jarmond: You know it's interesting. It all depends on the school. Oklahoma, first of all if you have a relationship, the athletic directors have a relationship it makes it a lot easier.
I can tell you Joe Castiglione at Oklahoma and Gene Smith they're top five ADs in the country and they are very good friends. So that was very easy.
Steve Brown: Even though the schools haven't played in decades right?
Martin Jarmond: Correct. But they are very good friends so that was easy they both been on the men's basketball tournament committee together. So that becomes easier. When you don't have a relationship, not that it can't get done but it's more of a challenge. And then you know this one was fast, whereas Oregon that took all of a year because of the back-and-forth with TV, with the contract with different particulars. And I love Oregon, they were great, but they were very particular about everything. And as you know once you get lawyers involved in contract we knew we wanted to play, but it was just well we're you know it was business then and it took a long time and that usually does not take a year. But like Oregon that took a year.
