This week Utah State will take on one of two Power Four teams on its schedule, Texas A&M. Three weeks later USU will face another SEC team, Vanderbilt. It’ll make for potentially one of the toughest pair of non-conference games the Aggies will face in quite a while. But under Bronco Mendenhall, these games will be going down to once a year.
It’s typical for Group of Six teams to play at least one game against a Power Four team, sometimes two if things work out that way. These games are most often played with a financial incentive given to the G6 team, usually in the seven-figure range Utah State has played multiple P4 teams three times in the past four seasons. And over the last few years, revenue from these “buy games,” as they’re often called, have accounted for roughly 4% of Utah State’s athletics revenue according to data from the Knight Commision on Intercollegiate Athletics. The Aggies brought in $2.17 million for the 2023 fiscal year and $1.99 million the 2024 fiscal year. This year, games against Texas A&M and Vanderbilt are expected to net USU roughly $2.65 million.
However, USU head coach Bronco Mendenhall isn’t a fan of playing more than one buy game per year. Mendenhall had no choice but to take on this year’s schedule as-is since football schedules are crafted years in advance.
“It’s usually not wise to play two of those games per year. A lot of times when you choose to play two of those games with a very difficult conference full of parity, you end up damaging your team, even though you might grow financially,” Mendenhall said. “It’s usually [at] the expense of your roster. Sometimes it’s at the expense of confidence and it’s really hard to sustain. And so you can count on a game like this every year that I’m the head coach. I’d prefer not to play two.”
One thing Mendenhall wanted to be clear about is that his hesitance to play multiple buy games had little to do with dodging quality opponents.
“I’m not talking about being afraid or not talking about conceding a victory. I’m just talking about the travel, managing the roster and having your best chance to win the conference,” Mendenhall said. He also added that he “(loves) the chance to play really good teams. I love the chance to test the mettle of our team, our staff, our program. The metrics are always really helpful. I never have an issue with picking a game like this and playing it.”
Playing only one P4 team would essentially cut this revenue stream in half, but Utah State may not have a choice as scheduling more than one of those games will end up getting slightly harder in the coming years. The Big Ten and Big 12 each already play nine conference games with the SEC moving to that model in 2026. As of earlier this year, the ACC has no immediate plans to adopt a nine-game conference schedule. These conferences also mandage playing at least one non-conference game against another P4 team. Opportunities for these buy games are getting trimmed by the Power Four seeking to bolster their strength of schedule and insulate themselves from the Group of Six.
Let’s do some math to showcase this. We have the Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC playing just three non-conference games and the ACC playing four. One of those is taken up by a P4 non-conference game and, for nearly everyone, an FCS opponent takes up another slot (only eight P4 teams are not playing an FCS team this year). Add things up across the conferences and that’s roughly 92 games for 68 Group of Six teams, not including variance for P4 teams wanting to play multiple P4 opponents and how many G6 teams Notre Dame will schedule on average. That’s plenty for each of the G6 to have one, but getting multiple each year is likely unsustainable.
