Air Force. Boston College. Connecticut. Villanova. Marist. All of these schools have something in common. And one really doesn't.
These are five of the announced season openers for Patriot League schools this fall. And, or course, Georgetown fans have no need to make plans to Colorado Springs, Boston, East Hartford, or the Main Line of Philadelphia. Because Georgetown doesn't aim like that. We get Marist. Because we'll always have Marist.
Marist is a relic from the MAAC days and also a reflection of Coach Sgarlata's long standing friendship with Marist coach Jim Parady, who marks his 30th season at the college this fall. The teams have played 22 times since 1994 but as we've commented before in these pages, frequency is not a rivalry. Few if any care at Marist to play Georgetown. Even fewer care at Georgetown, and the expected opener at Cooper Field will be a school many GU students west of I-95 have probably never heard of.
Imagine the interest if that opening opponent was, say Villanova, or a little less so, Butler. Instead, Villanova opens at Lehigh and Butler is at Illinois State.
Marist checks a box for the football office, who want, well, a good chance at a win, and the priority to play in the New York area at least once and sometimes twice a year. Three of the Hoyas' 11 opponents in 2021 are in the New York area, down from as many as six a quarter century ago. But this area once formed the majority of the team, too. In 1996, a substantial 50 of the 90 members of the team were from New York or New Jersey. In 2019, New York and New Jersey accounted for just eight student athletes combined.
While the volume of recruiting has certainly diminished over the years, Marist remains on the schedule at the expense of more prominent opponents who are probably more likely to deal the Hoyas an early loss. And while it stands to reason that a team with one winning season in 20 years wants all the wins it can get, opening with an opponent that no one is terribly interested in seems a form of addition by subtraction.
Two Ivy League teams return to the schedule and even this isn't what it used to be. The arrival of Ivy teams dates to the Bob Benson playbook of the 1990's, where he sold Georgetown officials on Ivy teams as the perfect match for academic peers to play each other. However, it's been largely one-sided (8-39-1 all time, 1-15-1 versus Harvard, Yale or Princeton) and it's not even a draw for students in that Georgetown does not play Ivy schools regularly as other PL schools do. Counting the 2019 NIT game versus Harvard, Georgetown has played exactly two home basketball games against Ivy teams in the last 40 years.
The last two opponents are newcomers and a result of necessity; that is, Georgetown needed opponents and they really did. Delaware State and Morgan State are in the MEAC, which has been torn asunder by defections to other conferences. The formerly 11 team conference has lost five schools in the last five years, most recently three teams leaving in 2021. The conference canceled its spring schedule for lack of available schools, and those that remain suddenly have games to fill.
So what is the ideal Georgetown schedule? Depends on who you ask. Some would argue for a schedule full of Ivy League teams. Some would prefer the old opponents of the 1970's. Most frankly don't care. And it doesn't have to be Air Force or Stanford, both are on the future schedules at Colgate. (Repeat: Colgate is playing Stanford in 2022.) Here are my thoughts:
1. Seek to schedule Butler and Villanova every season. More often than not, Butler is a win and Villanova is a loss, but the Big East designation would carry some interest.
2. Schedule one Ivy League game. The interest doesn't go beyond that.
3. Schedule regional opponents in rotation (Morgan State, Towson, Howard, Richmond, William & Mary, VMI).
4. For the fifth game, go big. Big. Get on the schedule at Connecticut.
"What? A Patriot League team can't stay on the field with that school!"
Except that Holy Cross can. And Lafayette is on the docket in five years. Every PL and Northeast Conference team in the East has at least one major college opponent on future schedules, including upstarts like LIU and Merrimack. Even Sacred Heart, who played the Hoyas a decade ago, has an FBS/I-A opponent.
After seven years in the AAC, the Big East Huskies are now an independent in football and need to fill 12 games every year. They've got some tougher teams awaiting their schedule in the next few years (Michigan, Syracuse, Maryland, North Carolina) but they need some more comfortable home games too--Yale is already on board for a game. If Lafayette can compete with UConn why can't Georgetown, or is that against the "ethos and culture"?
Yes, there are bowl game issues at major college opponents, which is why I didn't shout out for a game at Tulane or Rice that would be good recruiting trips. It's why, in no small part, Army and Navy will play other PL teams but not Georgetown. The Hoyas don't have to sign up for "body bag" games the way Howard does, but schedules are more than filling a slate. they send a message about where the program is headed. Thankfully, Georgetown doesn't have to sell the promise of a new home stadium to recruits anymore, but how about an opponent that people would be interested in, say 2025, when this year's recruiting class will be seniors?
Villanova at Georgetown at Audi Field would be a great start. An occasional game with UConn, even more so. Stanford isn't happening, but oh, what a weekend.
It's a new decade, and time to take a fresh look at the opponents on the schedule. It's not 2004 anymore.
