Yesterday the news was released that the Michigan State Spartans and the Oregon Ducks had agreed to play a home-and-home series on the gridiron.
The Ducks host the first leg of the series with a home game in Eugene in 2014, followed by a return trip to East Lansing in 2014. This announcement comes mere months after The Pac-12 and Big Ten decided to embark on a conference partnership starting in 2017.
Seems as if Sparty and the Ducks are getting things started a little early, and honestly this is the sort of date that should be applauded on the college football landscape.
As other teams bow out of tough series because of conference realignment, and the pressure to succeed forces athletic directors to pull the plug on intriguing match-ups, these two teams are stepping up to the plate.
While we don't know what will become of the system or the formula for success in the future when it comes to college football's postseason, we do know that the regular season is becoming increasingly devoid of marquee match-ups.
As it stands right now we have a couple nice openers, largely put on by ESPN, and then a handful of games that matter in the non-conference.
This Oregon-Michigan State match-up is great for the two teams, but it is even better for the sport.
It stands as an oasis in a desert of Big Ten vs MAC and ACC vs Colonial Athletic Association games. This is the type of game that fans want to see. This is the type of game that makes it a lot easier to gauge just how good a program is in the vast college football world.
In short, this is the type of college football game that more teams should be playing.
College football is a sport that puts heavy weight on finishing with the fewest losses. How you get there is of minimal consequence in the grand scheme of things. With such little value placed in the strength of schedule and so much put in the final win-loss numbers, it is safe to say that the non-conference schedule has suffered immensely. Throw in the financial benefit of playing an extra home game against an FCS school or a low level FBS team and there really is no incentive to do more than the bare minimum.
The onus has to be on college football's guardians—athletic directors and coaches—to shore up the state of the sport.
By devaluing the non-conference schedule they are eroding the very thing that makes college football the great sport that it has become. Continued erosion of marquee match-ups only serves to push the sport closer to the realm of college basketball: irrelevant for the regular season.
This isn't about giving fans what they want to see—although this is what fans want to see. This is about feeding the beast. Keeping the regular season as it is, 13 weeks of heaven on grass and field turf, with match-ups that sell on television and games that help people gauge the ability of teams who both win and lose.
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