Bye Week: Good or Bad

With no BYE, these players get more reps in game

Bye weeks or “open dates” in college football are an interesting topic of conversation. Interestingly, it is not uncommon for OSU to play 12-13 consecutive without a bye. There are both pros and cons to a team having a bye week in their schedule. First I will take a look at the positives of having an open date. 

With having 1 or 2 bye weeks per season, along with the new Big Ten Championship Game, OSU and other teams in the Big Ten will likely be playing into December. Extending the season this far puts the Big Ten on par with the other conferences who also play late into the fall, a clear benefit to bye weeks. Another positive to the bye week, especially when they are scheduled later in the season, allows injured players to have a chance at becoming healthy and strong enough to play before the season is complete. Obviously during a 12-week season, many players get dinged up; having extra weeks during which these players can get healthy and strong enough to re-join the team for a championship push is beneficial.

The most negative aspect to having a bye week, is where the bye or byes are placed. Take a look at the current 2014-2015 schedule. With the schedule OSU has now, they have two byes. Blindly, without seeing the specific schedule breakdown, that sounds like a good thing. That would give the team two separate weeks to prep for two different teams and two weeks throughout the season to get healthy. However, take a look at the schedule. OSU will have 2 bye weeks in a 3-week span. The two byes will surround the Purdue game and will be in late September and early October. As a result, the Buckeyes will close the season with 7 straight tough Big Ten games and possibly a Big Ten Title game; in other words, 8 straight weeks without a break. AD Gene Smith has talked about moving one of the other non-conference games (either Kent St. or Virginia Tech) into one of the open dates. However that would not solve the problem. Since both of those non-conference schools are scheduled to play OSU early in the season that would create another early bye week, not providing any late season relief for the players. We can also look one year prior to this and focus on the 2013-2014 schedule to identify another bye week scheduling negative. They currently only have 10 teams on their schedule, and are looking for another out of conference team to fit into one of their open dates (September 7^th, 21^st, October 12^th, and November 9^th). Unless the Buckeyes use their fill in team(s) (and hopefully it will be at least 1 game against a big conference opponent in Columbus) into one of the later days they again will be playing late into the season with no breaks.

Taking all of these factors into consideration, I’d like to share my opinion on having bye weeks in a team’s schedule. I believe every college team, including the Buckeyes, should have one bye week built into each season. The bye week should proceed or follow a conference game (ND and the other independents can do what they please). For those conferences that have a championship game, a second bye week should be slotted in just prior to that game, giving the two participating teams and their players an extra week to rest before they play for a trophy. The 2011-2012 season’s schedule is almost the perfect model. OSU has a 12 game schedule, with four out-of-conference games, two against big conference teams, and a bye between weeks 7 and 8 (after Illinois, before Wisconsin). Wisconsin is the perfect game - a revenge game - for the bye to proceed, allowing the Buckeyes a week to get as healthy as they can before playing the Badgers. Aside from having a bye week and thus a chance to rest-up before the Michigan game, the week before the Wisconsin game is the next most logical week to rest. The only way to make the upcoming season even more perfect would be for the Buckeyes to make the Big Ten Championship game, and have a bye before that game. Oh, and the Buckeyes playing Michigan in Columbus wouldn’t hurt either.