Last week the Daily Mail ran this story about WVU's future schedules. It brought about some controversy on the message boards and on the Statewide Sportsline. I know you've all been wondering my take on the situation, so let me pontificate for a few paragraphs, including a neat little idea Charley and I have discussed on numerous occasions.
I know everyone would love to have USC, Texas, and State Penn on our schedule year in and year out, but the fact is that they would only play us on a neutral site or a two for one. Teams do not want to travel to Morgantown because of our home field advantage and they can make money playing at home against South West Missouri State of Southern California.
I'm on board with Mike Parsons and CRR about only playing neutral site games for the right price. The University needs a seventh home game because our athletic department is self sufficient. The Morgantown business community relies on big football weekends for its money. Six million sounds perfect to me because that may be the amount we lose if we were to get beat and somehow miss a BCS game.
Because of money and home field advantage I would take a seventh home game over almost any neutral site game. This brings me to a neat little idea.
Imagine the above picture, Bristol Motor Speedway, with a football field at the center, filled to the brim with fans wearing gold and orange. My dream neutral site game would be WVU v. Tennessee at Bristol. Both teams would equally share the ticket allotment and revenue from the game. With a seating capacity of 160,000, not to mention the fact that seats would likely be placed on the track, it would break a college football attendance record and make a lot of money. A national TV audience would tune in to see the Mountaineers take down the Vols.
This will never happen but it is pretty sweet to think about.
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