With the timeline now finalized for Fresno State and Nevada waiting an extra year in the WAC, questions about scheduling have now arrived for a number of schools with the MWC and WAC schools now requiring 5 non-conference games. I went to fbschedules.com and dug up tons of little nuggets as far as future non-conference games go... I'll list those here so that the people (myself included) who did not know about these games can find out. I'll simply go through the important non-conference games for the future years for MWC teams (Including Utah and BYU). There will be a post for each team on every Tuesday and Thursday and the posts will be in no specific order. If you want to find out which school's post is for that day, then follow us on Twitter for the information on when the post will be.
So Far in the Series
San Diego State
Nevada
TCU
2011 Schedule - @Baylor, Texas Tech, SMU
TCU has a lot of work to do when it comes to their 2011 schedule since they need 5 games for this year's schedule. Looking at past records, There's no question that TCU is going to schedule at least one FCS opponent. That means they only have one realistic open spot left for their 2011 schedule. Their schedule looks pretty intimidating already with three bowl teams from 2010 on the schedule, so Patterson might feel inclined to just schedule 2 FCS opponents instead of one.
2012 Schedule - Virginia, @SMU, Oklahoma
Maybe its just me, but I like the idea of TCU keeping the non-conference rivalries with Baylor, SMU and maybe Texas Tech intact. TCU-Baylor is a pretty bloody rivalry due to the way that Baylor was taken over TCU to the Big 12. That game is really meaningful now that the Baylor program is sort of turned around. Of course, with the possibility of a 9 game schedule in 2012, whether that be in the MWC or the Big East, they realistically only have 1 spot left in their non-conference schedule. TCU had @Texas Tech scheduled for 2010, but Tech backed out of it and are going to have to reschedule that particular game, this might be the slot to reschedule it. Unfortunately, it looks like TCU will be unable to have this schedule open for a big name non-conference opponent with either Texas Tech or the normal FCS School filling the empty spot, then of course there is the possibility of the MWC taking two other schools to make the conference schedule 8 games which would mean that TCU's schedule is wide open.
2013 Schedule - Southeastern Louisiana, @LSU, SMU
This is where it gets interesting, TCU has a home and home with LSU and hopefully LSU will actually be good so that all of the crazy SEC fans will shut up when TCU beats them in Death Valley. This would be perfect because so many times people will say that if a Non-AQ had to face an elite SEC team they would lose. LSU is a perfect team to beat. Other than that, TCU doesn't have much room to grow on this schedule because they already have three games scheduled. If they have the extra spot on their schedule from an 8 game conference schedule, then they could make this year's schedule elite with another game against a respectable BCS Opponent.
Other Non-Conference Games -
2014 - LSU, @SMU
2015 - SMU, @Arkansas
2016 - @SMU, Arkansas
2017 - SMU
TBA - Texas Tech
Bits on the 2014+ Games -
TCU has great schedules throughout 2016... They either play LSU or Arkansas and those are great games. Do keep in mind that you have to add an extra game to each schedule since its a guarantee that Patterson is going to schedule at least one FCS team per year.
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