There are associated costs with playing an 11th game, even if it is at home. The biggest one would be having to back up the start of training camp, which means the football program has to pay the university to house and feed 80-100 players for another week. That's costly. I would imagine most, if not all, PSAC programs have to do this.
If you add an 11th game but don't start your camp a week earlier than you would have before, you're playing with fire. For most teams, more than half the roster will be freshmen who have never played a college game, and so training camp this year takes on an even greater importance.
I would think for most teams, since zero revenue was brought in from ticket sales in 2020, adding expenses isn't something they want to do, which means an 11th game on the road seems like a questionable idea.
Having said that, in 2017 and 2018, IUP played (and beat) a very good Ashland team. In 2017, it helped IUP get the No. 1 playoff seed because they were 11-0 and Shepherd was 10-0. So playing a good team was irrelevant. Just getting the win was the difference. In 2018, because IUP lost to SRU and Cal in the middle of the season, they were not even in the regional rankings at the end of the season, when they mailed it in against Shippensburg. So their win over Ashland that year meant nothing.
TL;DR ... You can't predict the value of an 11th game. And if I'm a coach, this year there are more negatives than positives to playing one.
If you add an 11th game but don't start your camp a week earlier than you would have before, you're playing with fire. For most teams, more than half the roster will be freshmen who have never played a college game, and so training camp this year takes on an even greater importance.
I would think for most teams, since zero revenue was brought in from ticket sales in 2020, adding expenses isn't something they want to do, which means an 11th game on the road seems like a questionable idea.
Having said that, in 2017 and 2018, IUP played (and beat) a very good Ashland team. In 2017, it helped IUP get the No. 1 playoff seed because they were 11-0 and Shepherd was 10-0. So playing a good team was irrelevant. Just getting the win was the difference. In 2018, because IUP lost to SRU and Cal in the middle of the season, they were not even in the regional rankings at the end of the season, when they mailed it in against Shippensburg. So their win over Ashland that year meant nothing.
TL;DR ... You can't predict the value of an 11th game. And if I'm a coach, this year there are more negatives than positives to playing one.
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