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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/BurkusCircus52 on 2023-08-06 18:54:11.
So, with all this realignment craziness and the death of the Pac 12, the prevailing theory is that Oregon State, Washington State, and Cal will do come shenanigans with the Mountain West, while Stanford strikes off as an independent. There becomes a very obvious problem to that: How the hell is Stanford going to add nine games within a year? Wouldn’t that be a massive logistical headache? Is there even nine teams who could play Stanford? Let alone on nine different weeks?
First let’s look at Stanford’s existing schedule for 2024:
| Game | Date |
|---|---|
| TCU at Stanford | Week 1 2024 |
| Cal Poly at Stanford | Week 2 2024 |
| Stanford at Notre Dame | Week 7 2024 |
| Oregon State at Stanford | TBD 2024 |
| Stanford at Cal | TBD 2024 |
| Washington State at Stanford | TBD 2024 |
That is literally it. The Pac 12 hadn’t even announced the 2024 schedule before it was blown to smithereens. This should be fun.
I started by firing up FBSchedules.com, and looking at teams changing conferences to see if they have any “non-conference” games that would be transitioning to conference games in 2024. As of now, there’s three such games, though that number would increase to seven should OSU, WSU, and Cal join the Mountain West. The games are:
| Game | Date | New Conference | Old Conferences |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona at Kansas State | Week 3 2024 | Big 12 | Pac 12 vs Big 12 |
| Baylor at Utah | Week 3 2024 | Big 12 | Big 12 vs Pac 12 |
| BYU at Utah | Week 2 2024 | Big 12 | Independent vs Pac 12 |
| Oregon State at Boise State | Week 2 2024 | Mountain West | Pac 12 vs Mountain West |
| San Diego State at Cal | Week 3 2024 | Mountain West | Mountain West vs Pac 12 |
| San Jose State at Washington State | Week 4 2024 | Mountain West | Mountain West vs Pac 12 |
| Washington State at San Diego State | Week 2 2024 | Mountain West | Pac 12 vs Mountain West |
This gives us eight more teams to play against, but with many being either ex-Pac 12 or current Mountain West, why would they want to help a University either they just left in the dust, or who gave you the finger and claimed they’re too good for you? However, San Jose State is also missing a game, so I guess we can pencil them in. Lucky break there.
My next tactic was to look at Hawaii’s 2024 home opponents, to see which had used the 13th game option. Problem? If OSU, WSU, and Cal are joining the Mountain West, then the conference would need to redo their schedule, meaning there’s no way to predict who’s playing at Hawaii aside from the non-cons. So, just looking at those, Oregon, is the only one. Meaning UCLA and Northern Iowa are also now on the table, though UCLA has the same problem as Utah and Arizona, having just left Stanford.
Okay, maybe Stanford can convince some teams to scrap an FCS game and play them instead. Unfortunately, there’s no good list of 2024 FBS vs FCS games I could find. So, back to FBSchedules to do this manually. I figured the other independents would be most likely to have an FCS game (forgetting that the SEC is addicted to them), so I went to Army’s page and… wait, they only have 10 games scheduled? Huh. Guess we can just add them to the list as well. Next up, UConn, and… they are also missing a game!? How many teams still have open spots this year?
My dear reader, the answer to that question is 22. There are 22 FBS teams that are missing at least one game on their 2024 College Football Schedule. Those teams are:
- Air Force
- Army
- Auburn
- Boston College
- Central Michigan
- Duke
- Florida Atlantic
- Florida International
- Houston
- Jacksonville State
- Mississippi State
- NC State
- Northwestern
- Oklahoma
- Rice
- Rutgers
- San Jose State
- SMU
- UConn
- Utah State
- UTSA
- Washington
In addition, due to realignment craziness, literally every conference has yet to officially nail down the specific dates for their individual games. Hell, the Big 12, Conference USA, MAC, and Sun Belt don’t even have opponents figured out, and the Big 10 and Mountain West will likely have to redo them anyways. The only team who’s 2024 schedule is fully set in stone is UMass.
TLDR: Yes, Stanford could absolutely go independent, at least in terms of getting a schedule together. This is the easiest time in College Football history to become independent. With near limitless options, this isn’t even a remote issue.