When you go 28-3 at home over a two-year span, you kind of become a victim of your own success and have a hard time finding people willing to come to you. And with UCA’s budget, you’re not exactly in a strong position to buy games vs D1 teams.
So no, the home OOC portion as a whole isn’t amazing – though getting an in-state team that just went to the NCAA Tournament (and happens to be led by a Sugar Bear alum) in your building is a pretty big game and something to look forward to. But that’s fine.
I think it’s a really good schedule. And very functional. You make some money and get to take a swing at a couple SEC teams that aren’t going to be confused for South Carolina or LSU; you get both ASU & Little Rock; you save some money by getting cheap home games against a couple local non-D1s … and only 2, not 4 like we used to get; then a couple quality regional games against really tradition-rich programs in La. Tech & Missouri State (which won 26 games and was 65th in the NET rankings last year – one spot behind Auburn, a couple ahead of Texas Tech); a quick jog down to Grambling in mid-December when you wouldn’t have much of a crowd for a home game anyway; and then 3 games for, essentially, the price of 1 with the MTE down in Atlanta on Thanksgiving week when, again, it’s not all that advantageous to have home games with students gone & families all over the place.
You’re looking at one flight at most (maybe none) and relatively short trips otherwise – budget-friendly and also gets you in some good locales within the recruiting footprint … going to be easy for kids in eastern Kansas, St. Louis, Northwest Arkansas, Atlanta, northern Louisiana/East Texas, etc. to come see you when maybe they can’t make it to Conway. And, most importantly, there are a lot of winnable games, and then some that are going to be tougher (but not impossible) but are going to help prepare for conference play and hopefully also help boost the NET some which may come in handy when it comes time for postseason consideration if we’re not in the NCAA field.
Top to bottom, I think it’s a really good, intriguing schedule that serves a lot of purposes. Team’s going to look quite a bit different this year, but I think they’ve got a chance to be every bit as good as they were the last couple years. Ready for it to be here.
