Our schedule just got easier!
- Thread starter jakldawg
- Start date
"And it must be noted that every SEC team except Ole Miss plays a legitimate BCS non-conference opponent"
topdawg said:
he either
A. Doesn't think much of Georgia Tech
B. Still thinks that GT is in the SEC
C. Did a half assed job of research
I could at least have given them some credit if it were a case of ESPN-like name confusion, but this is just sloppy reporting.
so everyone schedules a perceived cream puff or two. SEC teams are also playing Clemson, FSU, GaTech, VaTech. I suspect many BCS conference teams have similar schedules. Nebraska play UL-LA and Florida Atlantic but also @VaTech. Hell, I wish MState had 3 FCS teams to play this year.
the day will come when we'll play 2. We're sure as hell never going to pay $1M for a buy game from a Sunbelt team when we'd only net about $1M from that game to begin with and Byrne is committed to play 7 game home schedules as much as possible. The economics of the 12-game schedule are going to force a lot of teams to play 2 I-AA teams in a season. Mississippi isn't the only one. I know off the top of my head that Texas Tech played 2 last year and North Carolina is playing 2 this year. I doubt they're the only ones.SLUdog said:
On the weak scheduling, the SEC is just ahead of the curve. We've figured out that we're a big enough league that OOC scheduling really doesn't matter all that much. Plus, we've also figured out that our fans show up to home games at such a high rate that we need to maximize the number of home games on the schedule, which means more buy games with weaker opponents.
Who cares who we play OOC? We're still the best conference in the country regardless of who we play outside the league.
Who cares who we play OOC? We're still the best conference in the country regardless of who we play outside the league.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Good point if you were playing Florida and Georgia from the east but you are not. Your SEC schedule is also weak. You play SC, Vandy and Tenn. They have not been lighting the world on fire the past three seasons. Hell Miss State is going to be just as stuff as those three. You only have two hard games, LSU and Alabama and if you do get to Atlanta that will not go unnoticed. However I don't think you will be in Atlanta. The best you guys will do is get to the Cotton Bowl if not you will be in the Liberty Bowl.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></p>RebelBruiser said:
</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Your gay out of conference schedule will come back to bite you. Really! Northern Arizona and South Eastern Louisiana? You Panzies!
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patdog said:
Amen. Just get me 4 wins. That's all it's about. I didn't see many MSU fans complaining in 1999 when you were 8-0 and ranked in the Top 10 with your biggest win coming against a Kentucky team that would finish the regular season 6-5.
I wish we could have 4 patsies every year OOC and a favorable SEC schedule every year.
patdog said:
Exactly. And even with that weak schedule, you still had enough respect nationally to jump into the Top 10, and had you swept through the best 3 teams on your schedule that year (Arkansas, Alabama, and Ole Miss) to end the season, you'd have been very much in the hunt for the national title. Schedule strength is way overrated. Give me cupcakes and wins all day.
<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">What you are forgetting is the fact that they are Ole Miss. The University of Mississippi, that alone will hurt and when you add in a weak schedule that will doom them. If they were Texas Tech who has had nine straight bowl appearances then they would get the love but they are not! They are Ole Miss. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break"> <br style="mso-special-character: line-break"></span>patdog said:
Big D said:
Texas Tech is not respected anymore than we are nationally. They started the season at No. 12 and No. 14 in the polls, lower than we will this year. Our schedule will not hurt us anymore than TTU's hurt them last year. In fact, I think our schedule should help us by giving us some gimme wins along the way to break up the tough games.
If we were to go 4-0 to start the season and then beat a Top 5 Alabama team, we would jump into the Top 5. That's just the way it is. Your name and your schedule didn't hurt you in 1999, and you started out that season unranked.
Texas Tech's strength of schedule last year was ranked #27 last year. UM's SOS this year is predicted to be around #80. Last year TT didn't avoid their two of their conference's best teams like UM will this year. That is not UM's "fault", but it's a huge reason that UM is ranked so high preseason. Give UM the same schedule that LSU or Bama has, and UM wouldn't be predicted make the Top 15 or the Top 3 of the SEC West. <br><br>patdog said:
It IS UM's fault that they scheduled such a weak non-conference schedule. When they were looking for a fourth non-conference opponent for 2009, their A.D. was quoted as saying "Ole Miss doesn't want the opponent to be too good".
MedDawg said:
And how much did you enjoy your beating last year by Georgia Tech in Atlanta? And how much will you enjoy it when they do the same thing this year to you in Starkville? Will it be worth the respect, or would you rather have Memphis in that spot so that you have a better shot at making a bowl game?
6-6 (2-6) with a weak OOC schedule (see UK last year) is better than 4-8 (2-6) with a tough OOC schedule. In reality, you wish you had the same schedule we do this year. patdog is willing to admit it. This is college football, not baseball or basketball. SOS means little to nothing. In fact, it is more likely that having a weak OOC schedule will help you rather than hurt you if you play in one of the respected BCS conferences.
I was talking about their out of conference schedule. Eastern Washington (I-AA), Nevada (7-6), SMU (1-11) and Massachusetts (I-AA) isn't exactly murderer's row. And for the record, Mississippi does play LSU and Alabama this year which aren't that much worse than Texas and Oklahoma (if at all). The Big 12 fraud got exposed big time in the bowls last year.
Big D said:
Yep, it's our immense love of male genitalia that is the reason we scheduled Northern Arizona. I can't believe you outed us like that. We're actually gay for North Carolina right now, and don't tell them, but we've got a DL deal worked out with Texas Tech as well.
we are a struggling program at the moment. MSU should be the one with the schedule like Ole Miss has this year. We know we are not a BCS type team so SOS means absolutely zilcho for us. Just give me a schedule that allows for some wins. When our program has improved then the schedule can improve. Ole Miss, on the other hand, has BCS aspirations and in a year where they already miss playing either of the best 2 teams in the East (Florida & Georgia), they choose to play 4 cupcakes OOC (2 that are weaker than cupcakes). Maybe the majority of the OOC schedule was already set before the administration realized they would have a high quality team this year but it just seems that one decent team could have been added toward the end to bolster the SOS a little. If you are going to go for a BCS spot SOS certainly matters. Ole Miss will HAVE to have a better record than any of its competitors for a BCS spot this year to get one given their projected SOS. If you are like us and just trying to garner enough wins to make a bowl, SOS is my very last concern. Given our schedule this year, we can have an improved team from last year and still not win any more games.
It doesn't count at all in the Harris or USA Today polls, which are 2/3 of the ranking. And other than the title game, the BCS standings don't really mean much anyway. The only criteria is that you have to be in the top 14 to qualify as an at-large team. Wins are far, far more important than strength of schedule.
patdog said:
Exactly. SOS is only a percentage of the other 1/3 as well, and the difference between Wake Forest and Northern Arizona OOC makes such a small difference in your overall SOS computation on top of that.
The two polls generally react to things in this order, assuming you're from a quality conference:
1) Where you start in the polls
2) When you lose (better to lose early than late)
3) Who you lose to
4) How badly you lose or win
Strength of schedule comes well down that list. It's such a small factor in college football that if you're an SEC, Pac-10, or Big 12 school, you really don't even need to concern yourself with who you play OOC. Playing a quality OOC opponent can help you get on the map if you can pull off a big win, but if you're already on the map (like say No. 10 in the preseason poll), you don't need the momentum of a big OOC win to help you jump in the polls.
College football is all about wins first and foremost. Last year we went 8-4. If we go back and replace the loss to Wake Forest with a win over UAB, we're 9-3, and there is a good chance the Capital One Bowl picks us over a 9-3 Georgia team that's coming off a big loss. If Kentucky plays Virginia Tech instead of MTSU, they're sitting at home instead of playing in the Liberty Bowl. Florida last year went to the national title game over other 1 loss teams because they lost early, and they dominated to close the season in the SEC.
ETA: Don't bring back Auburn 2004 either. The reason they got picked over is because USC and OU were No. 1 and No. 2 in the preseason polls. The Citadel wasn't their problem in 2004. Their problem was the fact that they failed to be in the national title mix in 2003, thus hurting their preseason 2004 ranking. Speaking of that Auburn team, the 2003 Auburn Tigers went 7-5 with a Music City Bowl bid. They played USC and Georgia Tech OOC, losing both. Replace those games with games against Florida International and Arkansas State, and they are 9-3 with a likely bid to the Peach Bowl at the very least, possibly even an Outback Bowl or Capital One Bowl.
and a couple others wouldn't play us this year. We actively tried to schedule some BCS schools. It just didn't happen.
Everyone knew that UGA wouldn't make it through their schedule last year but that didn't stop them from being at the top of the polls. Polls should be a reflection of how good you think a team is, not the likelihood that they will breeze through their schedule. This idea that they are ranked high because of their soft schedule is ridiculous.</p>
The SOS has nothing to do with the BCS. It is made up from the Coaches poll, Harris poll and the Computer Generated poll which has six voters. The highest and the lowest is thrown out and the last four are average together to get the poll. All three polls are average together to get the BCS ranking.
The SOS come into play in the human nature. It could effect the way one votes. Plus you have to look where the voters of the computer voters are located. I am sure they will have no problem figuring out who Ole Miss is. Which brings us back to Texas Tech. They played and beat #1 Texas, #18 Kansas,#8 Ok State and played and lost to #5OK. Plus since 1995 there has only been two years in which they did not go to a bowl game. That was 97 and 99. They have earn the respect of voters and were given a pass on the gay schedule. I don't know for sure that will work for Ole Miss. Do Ole Miss even have four teams schedule that will be preseason ranked?
In general you are correct about the SOS. How ever this will not stop us from giving you **** about your gay schedule.
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The SOS come into play in the human nature. It could effect the way one votes. Plus you have to look where the voters of the computer voters are located. I am sure they will have no problem figuring out who Ole Miss is. Which brings us back to Texas Tech. They played and beat #1 Texas, #18 Kansas,#8 Ok State and played and lost to #5OK. Plus since 1995 there has only been two years in which they did not go to a bowl game. That was 97 and 99. They have earn the respect of voters and were given a pass on the gay schedule. I don't know for sure that will work for Ole Miss. Do Ole Miss even have four teams schedule that will be preseason ranked?
In general you are correct about the SOS. How ever this will not stop us from giving you **** about your gay schedule.
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