Setting the future

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Freshman defensive back Charles Nash Jr.(7) tackles Northeast Louisiana senior wide receiver Marty Booker (14) during the game Oct. 24 at Arizona Stadium. The UA is now trying to add big-name schools in the football schedule instead of "guaranteed wins" against teams like the Indians.

It was a name that stuck out like a sore thumb on Arizona's 1998 football schedule.

In the world of scheduling football games, it was called a "guaranteed win" type of game. NLU was guaranteed a big payday to come to get walloped by the Wildcats, earning $450,000 for a 45-7 loss.

It was consistent with the pattern of how Arizona has scheduled games in the past, though a change is brewing for the future.

That change was seen this year when the UA athletic department was able to schedule a game with Big 10 powerhouse Penn State in the Pigskin Classic on Aug. 28 at State College, Pa.

Adding games against big-name schools and eliminating the "guaranteed win" games are part of a process the UA is currently undertaking, said assistant athletic director Bob Logan.

Under former associate athletic director Butch Henry, Arizona pursued at least one game against a weak opponent that Arizona was all but guaranteed to win. Next year that team will be Middle Tennessee, but after that Logan plans to add a second game against a regional foe.

"We like to play one or more games against a regional or geographic opponent," he said. "It doesn't make much sense playing Rutgers. They're not going to get any fans out here, while a team like New Mexico State could probably have a pretty big contingent coming over from Las Cruces."

Currently, in addition to eight Pacific 10 Conference games, the Wildcats play three games against non-conference opponents.

Logan explained that Arizona schedules one game against a bowl-caliber team, preferably from the Big 10, one against a regional opponent, usually from the Western Athletic Conference and one guaranteed win game.

This past year Iowa, San Diego State and NLU fit the bill.

Logan said teams like Iowa, though bad now, were quite good at the time Arizona scheduled them.

"We have schedules planned out up to 2009," Logan said. "That's why some people say, jeez, why do they schedule such lousy teams? When we got Iowa on the schedule they had just come off an appearance in the Rose Bowl."

The Pac-10 plans out its schedules 10 years in advance, Logan said. After that it is up to the individual schools to figure out who they want to play in terms of non-conference opponents.

Other factors besides conference rules come into play when deciding on teams. Logan said the usual process involves one athletic director's office contacting another. Sometimes Arizona does the contacting, other times it's the opposing school.

The factors these contacts are based upon include television, the possibility of home-and-home arrangements and recruiting potential.

UA head coach Dick Tomey, who Logan said "is closely involved with every step of the process," said recruiting areas are important to focus on when choosing which teams to play.

"We're playing Texas Christian next year, and we're trying to add some other games against (Texas) schools," he said. "It's just so hard to get on someone's schedule."

Arizona will typically bring in opponents who will agree to play only in Tucson, because the TV revenue from a road game at that school would not likely be of enough value to benefit the Wildcats, Logan said.

Good examples of this are Texas-El Paso and TCU. In some cases, though, TV deals can be worked out.

Logan said that with San Diego State this year, UA athletic director Jim Livengood was able to swing the game to a Thursday night to be televised on ESPN.

"The importance of games like that is that all the money we get from those games, none of it goes to the football program," Logan said. "It all goes to benefit the other 18 sports here at UA."

So while in some cases things can be worked out to have home-and-home series against WAC teams, the UA mostly reserves home-and-home games for big-name teams like Ohio State.

Logan said that Arizona is currently attempting to negotiate home-and-home series against Michigan and Colorado, which Tomey called "good, it's just that we need to make sure we don't overload on our non-conference schedule."

But the process is not perfect, and Arizona has been rebuffed sometimes in its efforts to schedule games.

"We were going to play SMU this year and they canceled on us," Tomey said. "It's just that the first time a new coach goes in there he decides not to play Arizona in his first year."

Another problem emerged this year with a planned home-and-home series with Virginia.

"It would have had us travel from Corvallis, Ore., to Charlottesville, Va., in a week in the middle of the conference season," Tomey said. "That's just not good for us, despite the money and attention."

So in that case, Arizona was forced to cancel out on the game, though both Tomey and Logan said the Cavaliers weren't that disappointed, seeing as how there is not a large Arizona market in Virginia.