Don’t expect this to quiet the critics of Baylor’s scheduling habits. In fact, if anything, it’ll likely do nothing but increase the volume of the howling. And laughing and/or chuckling, as the case may be.
According to Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com, Baylor and Louisiana Tech have scheduled a future three-game series. The 2020 and 2022 games will be in Waco, while the 2021 game will be played in Ruston. Additionally, McMurphy’s ESPN colleague, Jake Trotter, tweets that BU will face FCS-level Abilene Christian in 2018.
Per @McMurphyESPN, Baylor has added a 3-game series w/ La. Tech in 2020-22. Bears have also scheduled Abilene Christian for 2018.
— Jake Trotter (@Jake_Trotter) February 26, 2015
As it stands now, Baylor has just one non-conference series scheduled against a Power Five program: Duke in 2017 and 2018. Aside from that, it’s a cornucopia of lower-level creampuffs as far as the eye can see.
Four of the next five years, BU has an FCS team on its schedule: Lamar (2015), Northwestern State (2016), Liberty (2017) and Incarnate Word (2019). The other teams on the Bears’ future schedules through 2022 include those from the AAC (SMU, 2015 & 2016) and Conference USA (Rice, 2015, 2016 & 2019; UT-San Antonio, 2018; La Tech, 2020-22).
Part of the reason Baylor was shut out of the first College Football Playoff was its strength of schedule, or lack thereof. If such a scenario plays out in the future, the Bears can look to ongoing -- and some would say stubborn -- scheduling decisions such as the ones revealed today as a reason why.