Ranking SDSU’s Future Power 5 games
News broke earlier this week that SDSU will travel to Stillwater, Oklahoma at some point during the 2024 season to play Oklahoma State. In return, SDSU will recieve $450,000 as part of the “buy game” deal. A great job by the athletic department in getting this game. As Stig pointed out to the Argus Leader, the stronger the FCS program, the more challenging it is to secure a Power 5 game.
“It’s getting so hard for us to get an FBS game that whenever we get one, we rejoice,” Stiegelmeier said. “We call a lot of people. When you have success it’s harder. It doesn’t help when you beat Colorado State.”
SDSU now has Power 5 games in ’22, ’24, ’26, ’27, ’28 and ’30. Slade Larscheid, deputy athletic director, also pointed out that they are “aggressively pursuing” FBS opponents for ’23 and ’25.
While FBS opponents—in my opinion—aren’t a necessity, they help fund the athletic department and are endlessly fun to speculate over. Here’s a ranking of SDSU’s future Power 5 games and a short wish list of future opponents.
2022 at the University of Iowa
2026 at Northwestern University
2024 at Oklahoma State University
2027 at Iowa State University
2028 at the University of Nebraska
2030 at the University of Nebraska
I mean its hard to not to be pumped about the upcoming Iowa game. Less than 60 days out. Pre-season All-Americans everywhere. The return of Mark Gronowski. 11:00 a.m. kickoff at Kinnick on Labor Day weekend. Driveable for most of the Jackrabbit faithful. What’s not to like?
The Northwestern game was a pleasant surprise to be reminded of because I completely forgot that was on the schedule. Another game that I think the Jacks can likely be competive in while also in a great city that is fairly driveable for most in the Upper Midwest. Crossing the fingers that this game actually happens.
Oklahoma St. is exciting to see on the schedule but their stadium is meh and their tailgating is even worse. Still, will be great litmus test for the Jacks as the Cowboys have traditionally been a top half Big 12 program.
The rest of the list is a “been there done that” situation but it’s great that SDSU is getting another crack at both ISU and Nebraska. The only problem is I’m not compeltely confident those games (and the Nothwestern game) will even happen. Considering the most recent conference realignment moves, there’s a very high probablity that Big Ten (and SEC, Big 12 , ACC, corpse of the Pac-12) schools will move to more conference games with their only remaining non-conference games being reserved for other P5 opponents. My confidence level in seeing SDSU play at Nebraska in 2030 is low.
Dream non-conference opponents
University of Wisconsin
I’m actually a little surprised this one hasn’t happened yet, considering Stig spent some time coaching there, as did Mike Daly (SDSU’s former head coach) while Jason Eck (SDSU’s fomer OC) played there. Anyways, if you haven’t been to Madison in the fall, the town buzzes during Badger games. Madison is also very driveable from Brookings and UW often schedules FCS opponents.
University of Wyoming
Because of conference realignment, college football is moving farther and farther away from regional opponents/rivalries which—in my opinon—is terrible for the sport. SDSU vs. Wyoming makes sense regionally and competitively. Add-in that Wyoming’s head coach is Craig Bohl and the matchup makes a decent amount of sense. Only issue is I don’t think Wyoming would even consider agreeing to this game.
University of Hawaii
I wrote a story last week about Hawaii’s new football stadium for Mountain West Wire and it got me looking at Hawaii’s non-conference schedule.
This is a pipe dream but give me SDSU vs. Hawaii in 2025. Hawaii already has Portland St. and Sam Houston but this is dream land—drop the Bearcats (or Vikings) and add the Jacks. E hele kāua.