After reading for the umpteenth time about how teams that otherwise play a ridiculously hard schedule should indeed schedule a cupcake breather I have come to the conclusion I am dealing with a bunch of delusional Irish fans on this board who think that only their beloved ND never takes it easy. That the Irish are the only ones whose schedule is worthy...etc..etc...hogwash. From CFN: "I used to be a big critic of coaches who scheduled a weak non-conference and loaded up on wins. But after seeing this behavior repeatedly rewarded (or at the very least not punished) I have recently changed my mind, especially after my team went 5-6 last year. What is your take? - David H. A: Let me guess, Tennessee fan? It depends on what conference you’re in. If you’re in the Mountain West, WAC or Conference USA, you want to play anyone, anywhere, any time. However, if I’m in the SEC and I have to deal with Florida, Auburn and Georgia, or if I’m in the Big Ten and have to play Penn State, Michigan and Iowa, I’ll have enough tough battles to deal with. With the new 12-game schedule, if I’m the head coach of a team that plays in a tough conference, I’d want to schedule a total cupcake to open the season to get all the kinks out. My second game would be against a mid-level MAC or WAC team. I’d schedule one game against a name BCS-league team that’s not a total killer (Purdue, Virginia, or Missouri), and then I’d schedule a game late in the year against another cupcake. Wins over the top teams are fantastic, but you’re not going to be in the discussion for the BCS without a big record.
Hey I sort of agree with that guy. In all the battles we've had about schedules around here I've always said that (with the old 11 game schedule) that your OOC games should be 1 patsie no way you could lose, 1 midlevel BCS school that you should be able to beat, but not a patsie, and 1 really good BCS school. Talk about tough schedules though USC, with Ark, Neb, and Notre Dame as their OOC opponents, Wow that's a tough schedule. I give them their props. But I never complain about the Gators schedule, you play FSU every year so that's the 1 really tough game OOC I think is important for a top 10/25 team. Auburns terrible OOC schedule might have cost them a shot at the NC 2 years ago. Gator schedule with FSU on it won't ever be a problem, Tenn always has a premium OCC opponent. Georgia never plays a premium OOC opponent, Clemson and Ga.Tech aren't patsies they are quality opponents, but they never play a premium opponent. Everybody in Texas has been very excited about the series with Ohio State, most fans want the Longhorns to schedule somebody like Ohio State in OOC every year, and they don't want to see North Texas, ULaLa, Sam Houston State at all on the schedule. The unique thing about the Irish schedule is that we play home/home almost exclusively, we play from coast to coast, we play teams from all the BCS conferences. We have really big names like Penn State, Michigan, UCLA and USC on the schedule and we have some midlevel teams like Purdue, Mich State, Stanford, UNC, Ga.Tech. Air Force based on it's last 20 years record should be in that group. Army and Navy are in the patsie category, while they play us tough and we frequently don't roll over them by 50 points, we should still be able to beat them 999 times out of 1000 without our A game. Irish schedule is consistently a very good schedule year in and year out. Naturally some years are better than others. Thing that irritates me is that fans of schools in conferences frequently downgrade our schedule as unworthy because of no conference, and they upgrade every conference foe as a "tough" conference foe. Texas fans do it, they talk about playing a "tough" B12 schedule....sure it is some years, and some years it isn't for the past few years the B12 N teams have collectively been avg to below avg teams....yet they are "tough" conference foes. Terry
With something like 117 Div-I schools to choose from, I just don't believe there's any excuse for an SEC team to schedule teams from a lower division conference like the SoCon, which includes Wofford, Western Carlolina, Elon, Chattanooga and The Citadel... If it was a one-time deal, that would be fine, but this is every friggen year. There is no satisfactory explanantion...
RE: Chattanooga... We have to play that school about once every two or three decades. It is part of the UT system. Thos Mocs hate our very existence. They are the red headed step children of UTK. Most of their equipment is hand me downs from UTK and they resent being treated that way. If the truth be known, if it were not for hand me downs, they would have nothing at all. They should be grateful. They’re not! They play way above their game just to have the remote chance to knock off the “giant” of the UT system.
It's difficult at times to compare the strength of football played in the various sections of the country. Matchups like SC at Auburn, Texas at OSU, ND at Tenn. give us some idea. Those to me are the most interesting and often most entertaining games. Then there are the schools that never leave their own area code. You know the type. They finally get hooked up with a team from out of their area like MSU, Neb. or ND and get ripped.
<Sigh> <r><E>:?</E> <br/> I remember the days when the Aggies would play real teams... <br/> <br/> Then AJ dumped Bill Byrne on me, and now I get to sweat through Citadel, ULaLa, and LaTech. <br/> The clock is ticking down on the cancellation of our only remaining non-patsy - Miami. <br/> <br/> It has gotten so bad, our AD has taken future schedules off the official website in the hope we won't complain when we see what's coming!<br/> <br/> tick - tick - tick. <br/> <br/> <E>:roll:</E></r>
Yeah..it's nice Gipper to see my Gators rip up the likes of Syracuse (as Big East Champs with McNabb), murdering Iowa last year ( hey you mentioned MSU), and Joe Pa and the Nittany Lions. That tells me how UF would fare against national competition pretty well. Heck...even Ron Zook gave Michigan all they could handle in the Outback Bowl. The same Ron Zook that got his ass kicked in the Big Ten last year.
Gee, I never mentioned any teams. But if the shoe fits....oh wait.... Nebraska has just scored again!
RE: The same thing could be said of Tennessee in the Orange bowl. We were happy to be in that bowl. So happy, we forgot to play. Nebraska tore us a new... well you know.
"Remember, outside of the win over an average Michigan squad, last year's team didn't beat anyone with a pulse" The above quote is from CFN who rank ND at No. 18 in the country.
So where did CFN rank these teams who didn't have a pulse before last season? Hint, many were ranked ahead of ND. So, why is it again that we're supposed to care about their rankings?
Oh and in case you don't have the time Tenn. was 3rd Mich was 7th Purdue was 16th and Pitt was 22nd. So CFN had three teams without a pulse in there preseason top 22 (just on ND's schedule) Don't they realize how stupid they make themselves look?
FYI...Purdue had a bunch of intangibles wrong with that team that CFN couldn't have known about...basically boiled down to some primma donnas (sp?). Hopefully Tiller has righted the ship and we'll be more competitive this year. stu
I'm sure that there are similar reasons for Tenn. and Pitt. I guess that CFA just doesn't know that much about college football!
Purdue was a headscratcher last year, you had all of a pretty good defense comming back. But I do think Tillers going to more of a Utah Spread Option offense was a factor in the offense not really clicking. Maybe the 2nd year it will be more effective. Terry
:idea: I watched the replay of the ND-Purdue game yesterday and Tiller should have cleaned house after that one. The first half was thee, single, poorest performance by an Irish opponent all season. The Boilers literally quit on the field in the 2nd quarter. They showed up a little better in the second half, but even color-man Boob Davie remarked throughout the game how Purdue was one of the poorest tackling teams that he'd ever seen and you had to agree based on the video evidence. How in the world did a team with 11 starters returning on an above average defense perform so poorly? There was one TD run by Darius Walker where he ran UNTOUCHED through the middle of the line from around 20 yards out. How could that have happened? Even the DC said into his mic, "What happened?" He didn't get it either. In all my decades of watching Notre Dame-Purdue games, this was the worst execution I've ever seen. If the game had been in South Bend, they would've needed a 3-digit scoreboard. I'm with the Purdue DC...what happened? ..........JO'Co :?