Barry Alvarez: No More Big Ten Football Games Against FCS Schools

On Wednesday, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said the Big Ten conference has agreed to stop scheduling games against FCS schools. 

“The nonconference schedule in our league is ridiculous,” Alvarez  said during his monthly radio show on WIBA-AM. “So we’ve made an agreement that our future games will all be Division I schools. It will not be FCS schools.”

As CBS Sports notes, there has been no “official confirmation” from Big Ten officials to confirm if this will be a formal policy or a “gentleman’s agreement,” but Alvarez’s comments indicate the Big Ten will end the so-called “paycheck games” (schools often pay FCS schools to play them) the conference  has been infamously associated with.

When college football begins its four-team playoff system in 2014, strength of schedule will be a factor in selecting college football’s final four, and the Big Ten teams – if they schedule FCS schools like they have notoriously done in years past – would be at a disadvantage.