FAU-Wagner on Aug. 31 will have to go against Boca-West Boca, American Heritage-Atlantic and Glades Central-Dwyer.

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At most places the high school coaches would be worried about the college game taking away from their attendance.

Here, FAU is the one that should be worried.

I hope this is the last time we have to worry about being outdrawn by a high school game.

It's not the fact that it's the same night as non-district high school games, it's the fact that it's on opening night of high school football.

We will lose the casual local fans who might attend both a prep game on a Friday and FAU on a Saturday. And we will definitely not have the support of the area football teams which regularly attend FAU games.

Not to mention FAU will now have to compete for local media coverage (as limited as it may be) with high school ball.

I'm all for FAU scheduling a winable opening game at home. But did we really have to bow down to Wagner's scheduling request? I really wish we could have gotten ANY Division I-A school from Florida to open with, or at least somebody who didn't have travel issues.

I agree CanadianOwl. Too bad be could not get (did we ask?) the local high schools to not schedule that Friday night. I think ULM Coaches asked and got the local schools to move to Thursday games for their Baylor @ ULM game.

High schools should not have been asked to move their games to accomodate Wagner's travel plans - i.e. to cheap to fly out on Sunday.

High schools in Monroe moved their games for the Baylor-ULM game because its a home game  against a Big 12 team and that schedule is dicated by ESPN - a very legitimate reason.

This is a big screw-up. The only solace is that the guy who set it up has already been fired.

AND - hopefully it is a season opening win! Ring that victory bell!

 Just read the story about the Friday night game. Why do you think football states like Florida and Texas have always avoided Friday games ?  The locals will go to the high school games before FAU. I will be at FAU but the people I usually bring and their football playing high school children won't be. We definately lost out on some attendance. Not too smart.

I am going to go ahead and assume it is a joke that we are threatened by high school football games.

You have got to be kidding me. We want to be considered big-time college football but cr*p our pants at the thought of having a game the same time as some prep kids?

This article must be a joke.

@NJOWLER,

You can rest assured, the article is no joke.

if you don't think that attendance will be impacted by Boca-West Boca and Atlantic-American Heritage you are dead wrong.

How many people will attend each of these games?

A few thousand at each - easily. American Heritage really packs them in.

And don't forget Dwyer-Glades Central.

Also, it's not just attendance, but media attention from local newspapers and TV stations both on Friday and the week leading up to the game.

No question, there will be a negative impact, but we can just wait until Aug. 31 to see how many fans are at FAU's game.

I really can't believe anyone would argue that high school football will keep some fans from attending - I've already heard from pepole who have said their group will be smaller b/c of the games!

One would think that a college football game would be the prime game to be at.

We should not have to worry about competing with high school games. We are a big-time college football team, and if someone disagrees with that, then they should come to a game.

@ NJOWLER...in a year when we are looking for attendance numbers as well as promotion, this Friday game is a bad choice. Not only will local FB fans go to the HS games but the 10 and 11 o'clock news will  have the entire sports segment dedicated to the high school coverage. This is why it isn't done in states like Florida and Texas. HS ball is a major factor.