Football Sam Doughton
Missouri exercising its buyout option altered MT Football’s 2022 Schedule
The answer, as with many things these days in college athletics, features a myriad of moving parts, from changes in administrations, to poor timing, to working through the details while outside of the country due to your bowl game.
The non-conference part of the schedule is now complete and the entire schedule will be announced at a later date. The non-conference slate will be Sept. 3 at James Madison, Sept. 10 at Colorado State, Sept. 17 vs Tennessee State and Sept. 24 at Miami, FL.
Knowing Blue Raider fans wanted answers, Director of Athletics Chris Massaro sat down with GoBlueRaiders.com Staff Writer Sam Doughton to detail the timeline of Missouri pulling out of the game, what would've been the ideal scenario from MT's perspective, how a game on the road with James Madison became the replacement, and much much more.
Let's start from the beginning. Could you start from when MT first signed a contract with Missouri in the summer of 2015 for future football games, and then walk through what happened that led to them looking to get out of the contract?
It was a 2-for-1, where the idea of the original contract is we would play them one game and that would be our guarantee game, and then we'd have a home-and-home after that. We played them on October 22, 2016 and beat them 51-45, and collected our guarantee money, which I think was over $1 Million. We were supposed to open with them at home in the 2022 football season, and the return game in Columbia would be in 2023.
This October, which was really late in the process, I was notified by Missouri that they did not want to come to Murfreesboro. It's attractive to have an SEC opponent, and they were our opener, so we were building a lot of things around it. So of course, I tried to do everything I could to convince them that the series would be good and to honor the contract.
Their thought was it would be in their interests to have that game not be in Murfreesboro, and they were amenable to having it in Columbia. So we'd play two straight games, one in 2022 in Columbia, Mo. and one in 2023 in Columbia, Mo.. And I said no, mostly because it was such late notice. Playing an SEC team at home is a whole lot different than playing them on the road in how you build your schedule.
Alright, so Missouri exercises the out clause in the contract to get out of the game. What were your next steps in finding a replacement game?
If you're not going to play Missouri in 2022, and it's October, starting to creep into November, your options are really limited. There's a scheduling service called Gridiron. It's run by a guy I've known for 25 years named Dave Brown. The only FBS school that was available on that date was James Madison. JMU was in a position where they could not play in Murfreesboro, they needed a fifth home game as they transitioned up into FBS as part of their requirements. Then it became how valuable it is (home game for JMU), so we agreed on a price of $700,000 to play there.
James Madison will count as an FBS game next year because of them transitioning. We tried to schedule an FCS opponent at home. But again, there are hardly any options. For instance, we had some serious conversations with Jacksonville State. That would've been advantageous because they're a future C-USA opponent. I was willing to play two FCS opponents in the same year if we could get Jacksonville State. But they couldn't work it out because of a contract with Davidson, and they couldn't adjust their schedule.
That's where we came together with James Madison. It happened during the Bahamas Bowl week and then that week after that. They were the only school really where we had the option to go play. It's a good opponent, a Group of 5 opponent. It should be a game that both sides feel that they have a good chance to win. James Madison is a good environment to play in, so we're looking forward to playing them.
Given the late notice that we had, we came out of it pretty well. It was really a scramble.
Generally, if you breach a contract or exercise an out clause, there's some form of penalty in there. Is there some sort of compensation from Missouri for putting us in such a tough position?
The buyout on that game was $800,000. Missouri is paying that to not come to Murfreesboro. But I want to stress that this wasn't about money. If we had our druthers, we liked the schedule where we opened with Missouri at home, went to Colorado State and then return to play Tennessee State. That's a good three weeks with two opponents at home that would draw a lot of people. Given our choice, we would've executed that. But as we've learned, it wasn't our choice, with Missouri choosing to buy out the game.
You hope the buyout makes people slow down a little bit. Missouri was in a position where they wanted other home games, so that was their driving factor, they thought it was important for them and their fan base. I don't necessarily have a quibble with that, I was more concerned with the timing of this. It's pretty rare that this starts bubbling up in October and November the fall before you play the game.
They have an AD (Desiree Reed-Francois) that's fairly new (Author's Note: Reed-Francois was announced as Missouri's Athletic Director in August 2021). This contract was signed under a different administration.
Is the original "return trip" scheduled for 2023 to Missouri still on? If so, why?
Yes, because each game is contracted on a separate buyout, and I believe in that setup, so we're going to go play.
Some MT fans will be frustrated that the Blue Raiders will now only have five home games on their schedule. What do you say to folks who are feeling that away at this moment?
I share your frustration. We wanted six home games this year, and we did everything we could to convince Missouri to stay and play here. At the end of the year, when they exercised their buyout with the lateness of it, we didn't have any attractive home options.
And one thing people need to understand is that if you play two FCS games, only one counts for bowl eligibility. So put your program at risk from the very beginning scheduling two FCS games. Going from an SEC to a Sun Belt opponent, even one as good as James Madison has been, I think the odds makers might say that's a closer game. We'll be excited for JMU, we've watched them on TV, we've heard about their atmosphere. I think it'll be a fun trip for our players to go play them at James Madison.
But again, we'd rather have that sixth game at home, but we think the outcome is good.
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Q&A with Chris Massaro on schedule changes - GoBlueRaiders.com
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