COLUMBIA, Mo. – The art of scheduling in modern-day college football is a challenging and sometimes painstaking process that is one of the more vital components to building a program.  The primary focus when putting a schedule together will always center around how it impacts the team, but many other factors come into play – just a few of which include athletic department finances, fan and donor interests, as well as the impact to the local business community.

While it takes several people behind the scenes in Mizzou Athletics to be involved with scheduling football games many years in advance, one of the primary figures is Deputy Athletics Director Nick Joos.  A 33-year veteran of the athletics industry, Joos has had a hand in scheduling for numerous sports at different schools during his career.  Nearing the end of his second full year at Mizzou, Joos is currently working on future scheduling for Mizzou Football, and along with Head Coach Barry Odom and Director of Athletics Jim Sterk (among others) has been able to finalize MU's schedule out to 2024 (full schedules listed below).

Non-conference opponents who will draw the most attention from Tiger fans include previously announced games at BYU in 2020 (a return game from the 2015 contest in Kansas City), a home-and-home with Boston College (2021 on the road, 2024 in Columbia), and a home-and-home with former longtime conference rival Kansas State (2022 in Manhattan, 2023 in Columbia).

Additionally, the 2025 schedule will be completed in the near future, which will include the beginning of a home-and-home with another former conference foe – Colorado.  And on tap for the longer-term schedule view, a four-game series with Illinois is set to begin annually in 2026, and talks are already underway to extend that an additional four years, out to 2033.

While scheduling work never really stops, Joos said he's pleased to have things shored up and is encouraged by the general balance provided by Mizzou's current slate of future opponents.

"Non-conference games are designed to help prepare your team for SEC play, and we believe that as we've completed our schedule to date, we have been able to accomplish this, while also being able to play seven home games nearly every season on Faurot Field – that will always be one of our primary guidelines as we're building our schedules," Joos said.  "With eight league games in the nation's toughest conference every year, and a ninth game against a Power Five opponent, it is important to have a balance in the other three games we schedule, and we look for nearby FBS and FCS opponents whenever possible," he said.

Just because schedules are built out so far in advance, that doesn't necessarily mean things stay static.  To the contrary, games get moved often, which makes things even more challenging down the road, Joos said.

"There are a handful of games that have been pushed back many years, which is also a challenge to make the scheduling puzzle fit together," Joos said.  "For instance, the original contract with Miami, Ohio was signed in 2009, however, conference realignment and other issues has pushed that final game back until the 2025 season," he added.

Perhaps the trickiest part of scheduling future opponents is the fact that it's such a guessing game as to how strong programs will be in the future.

"It's definitely an inexact science," said Joos.  "You don't want to over-schedule, especially when you already play one of the nation's toughest schedules as part of the SEC, but on the other hand, you don't want to under-schedule.  You just have no way of knowing how strong a team is going to be three, four, five years out," he said.

To that point, Joos said the group of non-conference opponents set from 2020-24 strike a nice competitive balance for the Tigers and their fan base.

"Of the 20 non-conference games in that five-year period, there's only two involving programs that haven't made either an FBS bowl game, or reached the FCS playoffs, in the past two seasons," he said.  "And those two don't come on our schedule until 2024, so there's certainly plenty of time for them to build their programs.  Then, you look at programs like Boston College, Memphis, Middle Tennessee and North Texas, who have all been to at least three-straight bowl games, and you've got plenty of quality teams to challenge your team," he said.

Since joining the SEC prior to the 2012 season, Mizzou has played a schedule which ranks highly related to strength of opponents.  The Tigers have played a top-25 strength of schedule four times in the seven years (2012-18) since becoming an SEC member – with three of those schedules ranking in the top-12 nationally.  The yearly strength of schedule rankings for Mizzou since 2012 include: 2012 (10^th), 2013 (12^th), 2014 (23^rd), 2015 (40^th), 2016 (56^th), 2017 (55^th), 2018 (11^th).

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