By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – When Dewayne Alexander was a player for Tennessee Tech and climbed aboard to make the trip to UNLV in 1985, it was the first time he had ever been on a plane.
"It was really the first time I had even left the Southeast United States," Alexander reminisced. "We went to UNLV, then to Tulsa and some other FBS games in my time here as a player. I certainly remember those games very well."
Since then, the Tech head coach has logged a significant amount of miles. In 2023, with Friday's announcement of a Football Bowl Subdivision game scheduled against New Mexico, he'll get to share that experience with a new crop of Tennessee Tech players.
"It's always a neat experience," Alexander said. "Any time you can travel with these guys, it's exciting. It's part of the college experience -- to go to different places and get the opportunity to compete against other competition and conferences. Certainly, traveling to Albuquerque, New Mexico, will be a great experience for our team. They have a unique venue, they host a bowl game at their stadium. It's really a neat place and a different part of the country – again a place most of the guys on our team wouldn't ordinarily get a chance to go."
New Mexico, a member of the Mountain West Conference, finished 2-5 in the pandemic-shortened season, defeating Wyoming and Fresno State. Danny Gonzales, a 1998 New Mexico alum, enters his second season in the fall of 2021 at the helm of the program.
The game against the Lobos is set for Sept. 9, 2023, with a time to be determined at a later date.
"When you first schedule these games, it seems so far away, but it's not," Alexander said. "It's only a couple of years."
Tech has made three appearance against Mountain West-affiliated teams since the Division I I-A/I-AA split in 1978: 2001 at Air Force, 2010 at TCU and 2018 at Utah State. It will be the first meeting against the Lobos in the Golden Eagles' present 99 seasons of football.
Among the NFL notable names to come out of the New Mexico program is linebacker Brian Urlacher, receiver Terance Mathis, linebacker/defensive end Robin Cole, fullback Don Perkins and defensive back Glover Quin.
The Golden Eagles already had the 2021 FBS matchup at Tennessee announced in January, set to take on the Volunteers on September 18 at Neyland Stadium.
In the program's history since the I-A/I-AA split, Tech is 2-35 against FBS competition, seeing representation across the present Power Five and Group of Five conferences. Still, it's a thrilling event for many of the Golden Eagles to get the opportunity to compete against names and schools they know. Alexander knows it well – he's been there before.
However, it also plays an important role in recruiting.
"We talk to our recruits and they ask about our conference, especially when you're recruiting guys from Georgia, Alabama or Florida," Alexander said. "The Ohio Valley Conference has been around since the late 1940s and is one of the oldest conferences in FCS football. We talk about the opportunity to play in the playoffs and compete in a playoff like you did in high school and have a chance to compete for a national championship. We talk about our non-conference schedule and playing teams from surrounding conferences that are very good – we've played just about every team in the Southern Conference at some point, teams from the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
"Then we talk about the Power Five and the Group of Five teams that we have on our schedule. The guys get excited about the opportunity to go play in Neyland Stadium. Many of them, obviously, would love to have an opportunity to play for the University of Yennessee, but it wasn't there. They still get the chance to play there."
The stadiums the Golden Eagles have played at in recent years is incredible, giving Tech's players a scenic tour of the FBS.
"We've played at Wisconsin, which was an awesome experience when I was an assistant coach," Alexander said. "As a player, I still remember UNLV. We've played at Georgia, at Auburn, at Iowa, at Oregon. The guys you're recruiting look at that – if I play here in four year's time, I have a chance to play at Tennessee, at New Mexico and other places like that. We've already got these games scheduled through 2026, and it is a really neat opportunity for our players."
Tech never does shy away against some of the biggest competition in college football.
"That's right," Alexander said. "We've played against the SEC and the Big Ten and that's as big as it gets. We've played Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee in the past, about to play Tennessee again this fall and those are all storied programs that have played for and won national championships. We've played Iowa and Wisconsin and those are Rose Bowl teams. The year we played Wisconsin, they won the Rose Bowl."
However, it isn't just the players on the field that benefit from these games but the program as a whole and the universities that sponsor them.
"You can't deny the finances that are involved," Alexander said. "We can take the money from these games and invest it back into our program and our athletic programs to get as at the top of the FCS as we can be. It takes finances and these games present that opportunity.
"It also gives you a chance to expose Tech on a national level. You play at Tennessee and you're playing on a nationally televised game with a lot of media attention on the game. People see Tennessee Tech on TV and they get out their phone and start Googling Tennessee Tech. Where's Cookeville? They start going through your website and doing all that. That exposure doesn't cost us anything. We're not buying that airtime. They do features on your university and they advertise your school. To buy that kind of exposure would cost tons of money."
Alexander continued, "Athletics, especially football, men's and women's basketball, can expose your university – the baseball team did in 2018 with the trip to the NCAA Super Regional. The exposure lines them up on your front door to look in and see what it's all about. These games are important in so many ways, from marketing your program to the financial dollars they bring and the recruiting opportunities they bring."
