Wanted: Teams interested in a game at Foreman Field
The Monarchs are looking for a few good teams to face in their first football season.
By RICH RADFORD, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 16, 2007
NORFOLK
Bobby Wilder has discovered there's no eHarmony.com out there to line him up a date for homecoming.
Or for any of the other 10 Saturdays his Old Dominion University football team has free in 2009, for that matter.
Wilder, his coaching staff and athletic director Dr. Jim Jarrett instead have been working the phones feverishly since March as they try to line up a first-year schedule for the upstart squad.
"We've spent at least 100 man-hours on this and have contacted over 120 schools," Wilder said.
It's an inexact science. The Monarchs would like six home games a year, with some of those opponents making one-time visits to Foreman Field without requiring a return visit by ODU. But that type of deal costs money: One-year contracts almost always are accompanied by guarantee money, with the home team paying the visitor a stipend.
That stipend from ODU would likely range between $25,000 and $75,000 per team, varying according to the team's marquee appeal and distance traveled. With that in mind, Wilder has approached a bevy of teams within an eight-hour drive of Norfolk - teams that could bus here rather than fly.
Haggling over price is where ODU is now in talks with four schools it wants to play in 2009 and five it is eyeing for 2010. Wilder would not identify which teams they were.
"Schools with the size stadium that we have - Delaware, Montana, James Madison - they routinely schedule six home games because their attendance earns them the revenue to accomplish that," Wilder said. "My goal is to play six home games every year."
Where this scheduling science becomes more of an art for ODU is in the ability to craft a schedule with the right balance. The Monarchs are leery of playing too many teams that might manhandle a young squad.
"Our first rule of thumb in this is to find teams we can be competitive with," said Wilder, who won't welcome his first recruits until the fall of 2008. "We have to be careful about stepping in against established programs with fifth-year seniors. Our redshirt freshmen will be our elder statesmen when we take the field in 2009.
"You have to protect these kids. There's a huge difference between walking onto a basketball court with five freshmen and walking onto a football field with 11 freshmen. Somebody could get hurt if you're completely overmatched."
A first-rate Division I-AA schedule awaits the Monarchs in 2011, when they are first eligible to compete in the Colonial Athletic Association. At that point, eight conference games will be built in, and the schedule gets less difficult to fill out.
Wilder's second rule of scheduling is to "find games of interest."
"We want some opponents fans will be excited about," Wilder said. "But I want people to come to watch Old Dominion football, first and foremost. I want them to fall in love with us before they become overly concerned with who we are playing.
"If you want a good indicator of what our first-year schedule will be, look at what Coastal Carolina did in its first year."
Coastal Carolina had five home games and six road games that first season. The Chanticleers went 6-5 against a list of opponents that ranged from Division II to non-scholarship Division I-AA squads to full-scholarship I-AA programs.
While ODU's athletic department is trying to keep the 2009 schedule quiet until everything is locked up, one opponent on the 2010 schedule recently identified itself when Cornell unveiled its schedule for that season: The Monarchs will visit Cornell on Sept. 18, 2010.
After much hand-wringing, Wilder confirmed that date and added that the Monarchs will get a home date with Cornell in 2011.
"That's the type of team we want to play year-in and year-out, a quality Division I-AA program," Wilder said.
Cornell plays in the Ivy League, a non-scholarship I-AA league.
So as of now, we only know that two dates in 2010 and 2011 have been filled. Everything else remains a work in progress.
