One of the hottest topics in the GLIAC from this past season revolved around what the league would do about its football schedule moving forward. The abrupt departure of Notre Dame College is the lynch-pin causing the issue, and what the league will do to accommodate the remaining 15 football-playing members is indeed an interesting question. The D2F message boards have been rampant with speculation for quite some time on this topic, so I thought I would provide a bit of the detail I have learned.

First, the next schedule cycle for 2014 and 2015 is set and has been approved by the membership. In truth, the schedules (barring league changes) are set through 2019. I'm not aware that the league will be releasing anything in particular on this, and typically the schools like to "release" their schedules with their own spin of promotion, etc. So, for anyone wanting to know exactly who-plays-who-when, you'll have to wait until your favorite school releases their slates in the future. Again, a lot of that will hinge on whether any other changes happen over the next 12 months or so, including how clubs will choose to fill their bye weeks. Everyone will still have one, but with an odd number of teams it's not mathematically possible to give everyone the same week "off". Folks who already had non-conference games scheduled for Week One of 2014 obviously received some consideration and were allowed to keep them. Outside of that, everyone week has at least one "bye" in the schedule, and filling those in throughout the season can get tricky. We'll see how hard clubs will go after filling those weeks and adding an eleventh game.

As for the basic elements of the scheduling, it's pretty simple: The fifteen football-playing clubs will be broken in to three five-team Divisions, or "pods". They will look like this:

NORTH

Michigan Tech
Northern Michigan
Saginaw Valley
Northwood
Ferris State


CENTRAL

Grand Valley
Hillsdale
Wayne State
Findlay
Tiffin


SOUTH

Lake Erie
Walsh
Malone
Ashland
Ohio Dominican


Of course, each team faces all four of its division-mates. The remaining league games will consist of playing three clubs from each of the other two divisions, give each team a ten-game conference slate. Heading into 2014, the AD's voted to keep the "North/South" Divisions for standings purposes. Since the league will have an imbalanced schedule and will continue to only award a single championship trophy, I'm not sure what benefit that offers but I suppose in the midst of change they may have been seeking to maintain some familiarity.