With the 2011 football season in the books, it is time to start looking ahead to what is in store in 2012 for the Wildcats.
This year the Wildcats played 10 games and had a bye week. Eight of the teams ACU played were in-conference games against familiar Lone Star Conference foes like West Texas A&M, Tarleton State, etc.
The other two games were against in-region Western Oregon and Lone Star Football Festival opponent North Alabama. While the UNA/ACU Cowboy Stadium game was planned in 2010, Western Oregon didn’t show up on the schedule until late in February of this year.
It is always important to get tough teams to beef up the schedule like North Alabama, and although ACU lost, the strength of their schedule was increased by the Gulf South Conference foe.
With that in mind, the Wildcats have added to an already tough LSC schedule in 2012. Along with the eight conference games, the Wildcats will see two GSC teams this year that ACU has never played against.
“(The games) definitely filled a need,” director of athletics Jared Mosley said. “I think they certainly accomplished what we need them to: to get games on the schedule and to play quality opponents. Our draw gets two very good playoff teams.”
The first Gulf South opponent ACU is slated to see will be Delta St. In what is expected to be one of the premiere match-ups of the year for the Wildcats, ACU will travel to Cleveland, Miss. to take on the Statesmen who are currently in the Final Four of the NCAA football playoffs.
Delta St. is a perennial Division II powerhouse and was the runner-up to the national championship in 2010.
“Delta St. has the track record, and West Alabama certainly played some very good games in the last couple of years. It will be an interesting dynamic plugging those two games into an already solid conference schedule,” Mosley said. “It will be one of the strongest schedules we have played in a long time.”
The other GSC team, West Alabama, will make the trip to Abilene later in the season. While not as nationally acclaimed as Delta St, West Alabama will offer the Wildcats another tough opponent.
The Tigers have made the playoffs in two of the last three seasons, and even beat North Alabama last year.
It won’t just be ACU playing teams from the Southeast, however. The LSC and GSC have partnered to provide 10 inter-conference games next year as part of the inaugural GSC-LSC First and Ten Challenge. Both conferences have lost members recently so the games not only provide quality opponents to both conferences, but give schools such as ACU much needed games to fill out the schedule.
Another possibility in next year’s schedule is ACU returning to Cowboy Stadium. The original deal was for the Lone Star Football Festival to be a one year agreement, but this year’s success has opened the door to the Wildcats playing in “Jerry World” again.
“The thought process moving forward is to involve the entire Lone Star Conference,” Mosley said. “You would look at having to play that over a Friday and a Saturday. The goal is to definitely continue that though.”
According to Mosley, the Football Festival would take place over the weekend that the Wildcats have penciled in Tarleton St.
Those ten games leave one open spot on the schedule that Mosley says will be filled, although the opponent is unknown. One possibility to fill that spot is McMurry University.
Nothing is final until the official schedule is released sometime in the spring, but with all the opportunities for ACU next season, 2012 is turning into an exciting year.
