SEC HOME COOKIN': A DEAD HORSE GETS A FRESH BEATING

…revenue from home games have little incentive to schedule challenging out-of-conference games, which is why Vandy’s happily trotting up to Ann Arbor…

Don’t kid yourself, vanderbilt jumped at the opportunity of playing Michigan on the road, dropping the 4th contracted game at home with local neighborhood bully (at least to vanderbilt) Middle Tennessee after losing the first three games to the Blue Raiders. Losing by thirty-five points (remember, the ’dores have to replace cutler) to Michigan on the road is a lot more attractive to commodore fans than losing by a FG or a TD to Middle Tennessee at home.

After reading your UF-ND article from before, Florida should not schedule just 50% of the preseason top 10 … Florida should schedule 60% of the preseason top 10?

For UF, and most other SEC schools, there is simply no reason to schedule such a difficult set of opponents … at least not while we have this abomination called the BCS that rewards (1) teams that play in pansy conferences and (2) are really, really popular.

Although I understand why you omitted him, Bobby Bowden certainly deserves to be mentioned among the “heavy-testicled badasses.” Putting aside the fact that he practically invented the play anyone, anywhere mentality, FSU continues to schedule tough home and homes against BCS opponents (this year’s embarrassingly UF-esque schedule aside) including games with ND, Colorado, Oklahoma, Alabama, etc.

Interesting article on scheduling on si.com today.

It seems that Vandy had no interest in the Michigan date until ESPN got involved, even promising to throw in a nationally televised game for the Lady ’dores hoops team.

So now the WWL has become a huge factor in football scheduling, but this is actually a good thing, since they as much interest in televising Florida vs Furman as most of us do in watching Quite Frankly.

We didn’t mention him for the obvious reasons, Joe, but they have been relatively progressive lately. This may make up for the junk food binge that was their 1990s ACC schedule.

“Auburn knows about this one from hard experience, since scheduling the Citadel in your 13-0 season gave easy ammunition to the plaintiffs in the case of USC vs. Auburn ‘04.”

I can’t sit idly by and let the fraud about Auburn’s soft schedule during the undefeated season continue. The year of the 13-0 season Auburn had the 5th toughest schedule in the country, whereas Oklahoma’s was 11th and USC’s was 18th.

SEE:

Yes…………I am still bitter.

not while we have this abomination called the BCS that rewards (1) teams that play in pansy conferences and (2) are really, really popular.

That’s not a very nice thing to say about Texas.

The year of the 13-0 season Auburn had the 5th toughest schedule in the country, whereas Oklahoma’s was 11th and USC’s was 18th.

Well, it’s safe to say that Auburn would not have had their ass handed to them the way that Oklahoma did. (I’ll be sure to crack out the DVD on that game during 2006 while the Trojans are on the way to 9 – 3. Good times.)

9-3? Somehow you’ll survive, DCTrojan.

Being road warriors made our program, and allowed us to recruit on a national scale instead of being confined to the CSA.

There’s no way we get Travis Johnson or Lorenzo Booker if we don’t play USC in 97 and 98 and get all that print and exposure in LA.

If you aspire to win a national championship, play a national schedule.

Win nationally, and the money will follow.

NCAA’s SOS doesn’t count 1-AA games (only “inter-division”), War Eagle. So that Citadel game isn’t included. USC didn’t play a 1-AA opponent that year. You’ll have to look elsewhere for a valid SOS comparison.

(and FTR, I believe Auburn and USC would’ve been a low scoring game, toss up as to who wins)

Unrelated and insensitive, but valid, concern:
Remember when Theo Epstein snuck out of Fenway in a gorilla suit?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060414/ap_on_re_us/bear_attack

Increasing the weight of SOS in the BCS component would probably be welcomed by the SEC. As War Eagle points out, even with a I-AA opponent, Auburn had a tougher schedule than the other BCS undefeateds in 2004.

A BCS that weights SOS more heavily would probably be a disincentive to SEC intersectional showdowns. The AD’s would probably reason that SOS is likely to help them anyway, so why add another tough opponent?

Teams from top heavy BCS conferences would be forced to schedule even more top non-conference opponents to keep up, while SEC AD’s could sit back and watch them canibalize each other.

You can’t hold anything against Tennessee on this one. Home and home series with Notre Dame, Open with Cal this year followed by Air Force…….not in the same ballpark as Troy State, Citadel

True dat, Mike. But the MNC isn’t at the top of most coaches’ priority charts; winning the division is.

There’s not much incentive to bend over backward for a national championship—a primo bowl game and conference championship will do, in most places.

hey now…..Northern Illinois is a quality opponent.

Actually, re-reading it, I’m not so sure whether that NCAA chart included 1-AA or not. I’d think if it were accurately titled, it’d be “Intra-division” games if it excluded 1-AA, and “Inter-division” games if it only had games between 1-A and 1-AA. It’s oddly titled and I’m not sure whether it includes it or not. You might be right.

GBE’s SOS from 2004 had Auburn (in the 20s) ahead of USC (in the 30s) too, but I don’t think that included the Citadel game.

Yeah — I don’t know about y’all, but I’ll be lining up for tix when Bama plays FIU, Duke and Louisiana-Monroe.

All I really want is more negative commentary on
Stephen (pain in the) A. Smith.
If that is his real name.

That NCAA spreadsheet doesn’t make any sense. It says Auburn’s cumulative opposition record is 76-47.

When I add them up, including the Citadel, I get 83-69. Take out the Auburn games themselves, and it’d be 83-56. Where did 7 wins and 9 losses go? Take out the Citadel, and it’s 80-49 (and take away Alabama’s 1-AA win and Miss State’s 1-AA loss, and it’s 79-48, which is close, but not exact. I don’t get it.

But I’m pretty sure that the chart does include 1-AA games, because the overall record doesn’t have equal wins and losses (which, it should if it only measured games between 1-A teams).

As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If a certain conference cough SEC cough were to largely schedule cupcakes then all the members of that conference would have inflated W-L records and they would look good on such a table in a way that does not really reflect reality.

Pete Carroll does not really deserve the credit for USC’s scheduling, they’ve been normally been playing at least one serious NC game a year (besides the Notre Dame game) for decades. That policy is a big reason why USC is USC.

During the 04 season you cant fault Auburns schedule during that season they had 4 wins against 10 Win teams. The other two squads cant claim that.
The problem with Auburns schedule was Choklahoma bought the Bowling Green game away. Thats right the game that helped us all enjoy that well fought game all the way up to the coin toss was a game starring one Bowling Green, might as well been Citadel.
In that season what big out of conference games did the other two play?

UGGGH…Bad memories are flooding back..AU robbed of playing for the ADT Security System / Sears & Roebuck “National Championship Trophy”…..I may not be able to sleep tonight.

Its like picking the scab on a wound that has somewhat healed…anyway during that glorious year Auburn had five (5) victories over top 10 teams (LSU, UGA, Tenn (twice) and VT)….won its seven (7) SEC games by an average of 20 points……nobody will EVER convince me that Auburn should not have played for the prestigious ADT trophy mentioned above.

This is sooooo Summer of ’05, only without all the juvenile vitriol.

What if the NCAA went all socialist and restricted the number of games in a year that a team could pay another team to come play them, to say 2 (or even better, 1)? The New Mexico State’s of the world would take a bit of a hit financially, but then some of the Cupcake Kings would be forced into playing legit opposition, and I think most big time CFB fans would prefer the latter to the former.

I am both excited that UGA has stepped up and scheduled home & homes with Colorado (2006 & 2010) and Arizona State (2008 & 2009) as well as comletely embarassed that they open this year by hosting Western Kentucky.

I am both excited that UGA has stepped up and scheduled home & homes with Colorado (2006 & 2010) and Arizona State (2008 & 2009) as well as comletely embarassed that they open this year by hosting Western Kentucky.

Same here with Alabama. They’ve got some real stinkers on this year’s schedule (FIU, LA-Monroe), but have better stuff lined up in the future:

Penn State
Georgia Tech
Florida State

PSU-Alabama!!! Ohhhh, Sugar Bowl redux. Can’t wait.

Kanu might be onto something here…

I’m of the opinion that there are about 20 too many teams in D1-A. Limit the number of pay games, and within 5 years, 20 programs wouldn’t be able to stick around with hemorraging budgets. So they’d head back down to 1-AA, where they probably should be anyway.

And dude! Kanu has a blog! I’m glad to see I’m only a week late.

Congratulations!

I should add that while Alabama has had some scheduling down years, those have been the abberration, not the rule of the program.

They recently had Oklahoma & UCLA and have FSU, Penn State and Georgia Tech coming up. It was really only part of the 90s and the last few years that saw down scheduling. The 90s at least saw decent competition with BYU and NC State (and Penn State once). The 80s saw games with Penn State, Notre Dame, Boston College, Texas A&M and others.

Even their perrennial punching bag Southern Miss (who they broke the series off with) is at least a bowl eligible team most of the time unlike some of the fluff that gets scheduled.

The 60s, 70s, 80s saw very strong out of conference opponents on a regular basis, the 90s dropped off a bit, but in the 00s, it is really picking back up. I think 10 years of mostly fluff scheduling has irritated the fans and seen the program drop out of the spotlight some (not to mention the probation), but now that stronger scheduling appears to be back, I’m happy about it and am sure it will probably serve the team quite well.

Bathyscaphe is one of my favorite words in the English language. Along with the coolness of diving to the Titanic or something, it’s just fun to say.

9-3? Somehow you’ll survive, DCTrojan.

Believe me, I’m not complaining, Mr. Swindle; my low point as a fan will always remain when I attended the Freedom Bowl in 1992: a record of 9 – 3 is a season in paradise by comparison to that debacle.

In any case, this season is like any other season as far as I am concerned: USC can go 2 – 10 as long as the 2 are UCLA and Notre Dame. In fact, they can go 1 – 11 as long as they match the UCLA win streak at 8.

I had forgotten how embarrassing the SEC West schedules were last year.

The East played a single 1-AA opponent, and five of the six teams played at least one non-conference opponent that went bowling. Meanwhile, the West racked up five 1-AA wins as part of the most collectively awful non-conference slate I’ve seen. If we could switch Vandy (the East’s 1-AA, no bowl schedule) with Alabama (bowl opponent, no 1-AA), you’d have a perfect six for six on each side.

On the plus side, Mississippi State managed to win their 1-AA game this year, narrowly averting a relegation match with Georgia Southern.

As Mark Twain said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Disraeli, you mean.

Thanks LD.

I won’t have too much CFB going on until later in the year -y’all cover it too well for me to add anything new/original this time of year. Next month will be Triple Crown & EPL/La Liga/CL heavy, followed by WC2006 and then finally CFB.

Kanu, you’ve picked your niche exquisitely.

one-off series like Oklahoma-Miami or Notre Dame-Texas

My heart just went a-flutter…

Also, as regards Auburn’s overall SOS being better than both OU and USC- that’s acting as if substance rather than soundbite is valued in America. The fact is, The Citadel was on the schedule. Game over. I bring out the fact that you played The Citadel, and you will not win a SOS argument (and this is not an indictment of Auburn’s schedule- hell, I’m a Gator, no room to speak, but it’s the reality in today’s screaming, one-sentence arguments that are based in air rather than fact sports (and at-large) society).

Joe, I disagree (post 3). Notre Dame started the play anyone, anywhere phenomenon; its just that they did it long before any of us were born. I believe it had to do with Michigan trying to keep ND out of the big ten and by trying to keep people from playing ND. I’m sure there are corrections to my abbreviated history, but Bobby did not invent the concept. Pat Hill is certainly the closest analogue to this. I root for them every once in a while because that is the way colleges should schedule games.

i just don’t get this whole “florida doesn’t schedule anyone” thing. when your regular season includes UT, auburn, lsu, alabama, georgia, south carolina, and fsu, you don’t really need to go find other hard games to play. in the holy year ‘96, florida had one of the toughest, if not THE toughest, schedules in the nation, but that didn’t stop them from beating every team the played.

if you want to argue that other teams in the SEC schedule weak, then maybe, but not UF, or UT of late.

Before lauding Mack Brown with too much praise, remember that he openly bitched about having to play the OSU game the entire week leading up to it, saying that he didn’t want to play the game and had to deal with the schedule laid out for him. Of course, after they won he thought it was the greatest thing ever, doing a complete 180 in his post-game interview…

Actually, Sewanee started the “anyone, anywhere” thing. Respect where respect is due.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Columns/Sports/2005/09/08/A_Winner_s_Tale/index.shtml

I love how the 04 Auburn team did something only one other team in Div 1A history did – win 4 games against teams with 10 wins and a 5th against a 9 win team- and have the schedule being called weak. Seriously, don’t believe the ESPN hype. USC is in LA. #1 media market in the nation. OU has a larger national following than AU. The whole diatribe you lay out is based upon $$, yet no one can see the obvious financial reasons for the shark-jumping ESPN lovefest for USC-OU.

For cryin’ out loud, before the bowls Auburn had more wins against 9 win teams than the entire Big-12 or Pac-10 conferences. The Citadel was a red herring.

One more thing, this is from ESPN, on October 31, 2004 – before the games were played…

http://img439.imageshack.us/img439/8256/2004103004ctgubespn5yc.png

Weak schedule, fo sho!

Now that I’ve had time to read the ND article, I’d like them to do an analysis of the Pac-10 vs the SEC, ACC, and Big East. Because, by the looks of it, the Pac-10 is deathly afraid of the Big East.

It should be mentioned in Auburn’s defense that they were scheduled to play GT that year in a 1-1-1 home-nuetral-away series. The reason the Ga Dome game was cancelled was so that GT could play AU in its opening game after redoing Bobby Dodd stadium.

Making a big deal about beating other “10 win” teams is misleading when they all have schedules bloated by the cupcakes and the weak SEC teams.

Somebody asked about the other teams non-conference schedules:

USC: Virginia Tech, BYU, Colorado State, Notre Dame

Oklahoma: Bowling Green, Houstone, Oregon

Auburn: Louisiana Monroe, The Citadel, Louisiana Tech (all home games, another factor in the inflated records of SEC teams).

Clearly Auburn was the team that deserved to be left out of the BCS game.

So Phil, do you honestly think that Bowling Green would’ve beaten AU? They were on the schedule and backed out to play OU. The Citadel was a last minute replacement. And the BG AD was on record saying he wouldn’t go to AU even if we matched, because the OU game was a dream for him, because he was a OU graduate.

And besides, when comparing PERFECT SEASONS, SOS means NOTHING. You could put the 2004 New England Patriots in the Big East and their SOS would look like Mangino’s sex life, but they’d still be the best team in the nation.

As for the other 10 win teams, well, UT, a team Auburn beat by at least 10 TWICE (on at UT, and one in the SECCG) won their bowl game in impressive fashion. The UGA team we wiped the field with won their bowl game in impressive fashion. VT was never in it against AU, and LSU (the 9 win team) lost their bowl game in the last 45 seconds against the Big-10 Co-Champs. LSU was the 4th best team in the SEC that year.

No, you bought into the SOS crap. Had BG been on AU’s schedule, AU would’ve played the toughest SOS in the history of the game. And BG wouldn’t have stood more of a chance against AU than the Citadel did.

The truth is that the advertising dollars put USC and OU in the game. The facts show that Auburn played better football all season long against tougher opponents.

In 2004, USC beat a Top 10 Cal team, a top 10 Va. Tech and a top 10 Oklahoma, all of which had at least 10 wins. It also had a win over a 9-win ASU team.

So, Auburn had exactly one more win over a 10-win team than USC.

But when you consider that Auburn played one of those 10-win teams twice (Tenn), and the fact that Auburn played that patsy OOC schedule, then USC clearly had the more challenging schedule that year, NCAA schedule rankings be damned.

USC played three more teams that had a chance in hell to beat them than Auburn did, which made their undefeated season all the more impressive.

Every one of USC’s 10 win teams lost their bowl game. Color me unimpressed.

Besides AU 04, can you name the only other team in College Football History to go undefeated with 4 wins against 10+ win teams and a 5th win against a 9 win team?

I love it when you BCS folks fight amongst yourselves. Clearly AU was up to the standards of excellence necessary to secure the Mythical BCS Title in ‘04. However, much like non-BCs scum like my team, there is a distinct class division, almost a caste system, that is emerging even within this anti-American BCS system. It will be the ruin of y’all when the BCS bullies reach a point of only allowing 12 or so teams to compete for that tarnished, coveted BCS crown. Fuck all of you BCS turds. Viva la revolution.

Utah was screwed, like Marshall and Tulane before them.

Trivia: When Marshall and Tulane went undefeated, who was their bowl opponent?

Other interesting Trivia: Since 1990, only 4 teams currently in Div 1A have had two undefeated seasons. Who are those 4 teams?

AZ – do I think Bowling Green would have beaten AU? Probably not, which is I would still consider Auburn’s scheuduling cowardly. BG would have been one of USC’s weaker non-conference opponents had they been on the Trojan’s schedule that year.

Auburn was fully worthy of playing in the BCS game that year. They got screwed but somebody had to get screwed in that situation. Lots of undefeated teams have not gotten a shot at the NC over the years. USC had been the team shafted from the BCS game the year before (though it worked out for them with the split-championship) and there was no way it was going to happen to the same team twice in a row.

USC and OU got in that game based on the coaches and AP writers opinions, not advertising dollars.

For the record, I think the articles from the Notre Dame site hit the nail on the head. I’d say the SEC is still overall the toughest conference to win, but in reality that is going to vary from year to year and there just are not enough games between the conferences to gauge the relative strength’s in any meaningful way.

But I assume you do remember what happend the last two times USC played Auburn? And Arkansas last year sure looked better against those SEC powerhouses than they did against USC.

The point is that Auburn played a 10-game schedule that season while USC played a 13-game schedule.

That’s why Auburn didn’t get their shot.

“I’d say the SEC is still overall the toughest conference to win” -Phil
Thanks for making my point Phil now shut it.

Mosebar, How did Auburn play a 10 game schedule but end up 13-0? The Pac 10 has no Championship game so they can schedule that 12th game where as SEC teams have to schedule in preparation to play another top caliber team.

USCs OOC Schedule? Your really going to bring up such power houses as Colorado St. and BYU REALLY?

And Oklahomas? Bowling Green, Houstone, Oregon WOW Those are some real pickems there.

Fact of the matter is Auburn got screwed the schedule shows it, the draft showed it and if you disagree with that than watch that joke of a championship game and tell me that doesnt show it.
Good night and Good luck

Actually USC picked up the extra game that year because they were invited to the season kick-off game against Virginia Tech.

And why not mention Colorado State and BYU (who have been in contention for the National Championship and Heisman honors in the past) when they are better than Lousiana Tech, the Citadel and Louisiana Monroe? But the main point is that nobody in Auburn’s non-conference schedule could compare with Notre Dame or Virginia Tech.

Bringing up the NFL draft is strange when that USC team might-well produce 5 first round picks this year to join the players already in the NFL from that team. Actually in general the Auburn fans who still want to whine about this would do much better to complain about Oklahoma than USC. Maybe they are still sore from the beat-downs USC laid on Auburn in the previous two years.

Auburn got what they deserved for their pansy-ass cowardly scheduling.

Regarding Auburn’s “cowardly” scheduling, it’s worth noting that AU has attempted to schedule home-and-home series with Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame incessantly for years now (in 1988, Penn State backed out of a ten-year home-and-home series with AU before a single game was played). Every one of them has refused to travel to Auburn (Ivan Maisel reported on this last year, but sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise, nobody else at ESPNMANCRUSHONUSC picked up the story).

Does the SEC schedule too many pansies? Absofrigginlutely. Is that entirely the SEC’s fault? Not even remotely. You can’t play people who refuse to play you.

I havent heard anyone say USC didnt deserve to be in that game. Oklahoma did the same thing they did the year before.

BYU and Colorado St have been where and had what again Phil?
When were they up for the National Championship? BYU maybe once in the 80s but no time soon.

Pointing out the facts isnt whining Phil. You cant argue that Auburn should have played in that game instead of Oklahoma, especially after the game can you? My point is proven and sweet sweet Phillip is incorrect.

Thanks for playing Phil, TRY AGAIN.

This always degenerates into a fight about what conference is tougher—frankly, I don’t care. I KNOW that UF doesn’t have to travel far to find quality opponents—that’s not the point. No one should be saying that playing an SEC schedule isn’t tough, because it is. The point is about making more nationally compelling matchups that people all over the country will want to watch. LSU-Auburn may be great football, but frankly the matchup makes me sleepy. Even FSU-Miami has had to go to Monday Nights to get on national TV. A UF-USC or UGA-Texas matchup, however, would be something people would tune into from Maine to Maui. Anybody who’s arguing that LSU/Auburn or FSU-Miami isn’t a tough game is talking horseshit. A tough game doesn’t make it an interesting one outside of the immediate region. And frankly, I’m so tired of the “SEC is scared so they don’t play outside the SEC” “Pac-10 is a bunch of pansies” type arguments (and I’m a Domer, so I’ve got no vested interest in any conference argument) that I’d like to see teams settle it on the field. The bowl games just don’t do it.

Nate, my point about the Pac-10 vs SEC/ACC/Big East was to show whomever looked it up that the PAC-10 doesn’t travel to the east coast much because it costs too much $$$. The Pac-10 has played the SEC the most, the ACC the second most, and the Big-East barely. All teams play regional foes, because it costs too much money to pack a football team on a plane to cross the nation and play in a smaller stadium.

http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin/records/multi-conference.pl?start=1920&end=2005&team=Arizona&team=ArizonaState&team=California&team=Oregon&team=OregonState&team=SouthernCalifornia&team=Stanford&team=UCLA&team=Washington&team=WashingtonState

The Pac-10 has played the SEC 112 times, the ACC 40 times, and the Big East 25 times. According to the argument laid out by the ND blog, the Pac-10 must be shaking in their boots about facing the ACC and Big East. Or, we can recognize reality, and say that those conferences just don’t have the $$ to pull a Pac-10 team across the continent for a football game.

As for USC, you can talk about their OOC record all day long. They’ve got to look for tough opponents, because the Pac-10 just isn’t that good. The second best team can’t even win the Holiday Bowl against the #4 seed from the Big-12 South, and [b]no team other than USC in the history of the conference has won an undisputed MNC[/b]. Yes, BYU has more MNCs than the non-USC members of the Pac-10.

The simple fact is that Auburn 04 did what only 1 other team in the history of the game had done – win 4 games against 10 win teams and a 5th against a 9 win team. And this was done in the league that consistantly puts the most talent in the NFL, and during the entire season, only 1 team (LSU) had the ball in the 4th quarter with a lead or a chance to take the lead. No other team AU faced ever possessed the ball in the 4th quarter with a chance to tie or win the game. That, my friends, is the definition of domination.

I don’t know why the big 10 teams would refuse to play Auburn if they were offered a fair deal. Obviously Ohio State has the current series with Texas and I believe they have a future one set up with USC, so they are not afraid of anyone.

AZ slamming the Pac 10 because the national titles won by Cal, UCLA, and Washington since the 1920’s have been split titles is pretty silly. Just because Miami was undefeated the same year Washington was does not decrease the achievement of either school. I guess Auburn must not be that good since BYU has more “uncontested MNC’s” than they do.

I’m fine with giving the SEC its due as a strong conference. But there is no way that whichever team wins the SEC is automatically the best team in the country that year or automatically more deserving of a spot in the BCS game than the winners of the ACC, Pac 10, Big 10, or Big 12. All teams and conferences have up and down years and they don’t play each other often enough to fix the relative strengths accurately each year.

And the only real point is that more good games between the top teams from different regions would be a good thing and scheduling cupcakes who will all play in your stadium and inflate your record is a bad thing. That should be something we can all agree on.

A playoff would be nice as well.

Currently, I’m reminded of the Oregon Beaver AD who cancelled cheerleading because it wasn’t a sport and there was no NCAA championship.

Sounds quite similar to the Division 1A College Football, which is becoming hard and harder to separate from Male Ice Dancing. Both feature men in tights working for opinion points to win crystal.

NewAZTiger is right…when your conference just isn’t up to par with other conferences, you’re forced to go looking for strong OOC games to make your schedule look good. Arguing over just the OOC games misses the point of the rest of the schedule. Look at the conference schedules for Auburn and USC and try to tell anyone that USC had the tougher schedule.

And while Miami being undefeated the same year as Washington does not decrease their achievement, its definitely worth pointing out the number of championships that a conference has produced if you want to talk about strength of schedules. By and large, the PAC10 is a relatively weakling in the college football world.

In mentioning the Citadel game, we didn’t mean to say that Auburn didn’t have a strong schedule; we just meant to say that perception-wise, the game with the Citadel didn’t do them any favors in the extracurricular lobbying wars that followed the season.

…Division 1A College Football, which is becoming hard and harder to separate from Male Ice Dancing. Both feature men in tights working for opinion points to win crystal.

hilarious (and true)

Ice dancing WOW. Pretty good point.
I have to agree with Orson on the Citadel point. I just have trouble with people acting like a team like Bowling Green would have done a whole lot better than Citadel (Just using Auburn as an example I have a feeling this argument will come up for plenty of teams in the future in every conference)
I would also like to ask that all “domers” stay out of this conversation since yall are too good to associate with any real conference and every game is OOC.

In mentioning the Citadel game, we didn’t mean to say that Auburn didn’t have a strong schedule; we just meant to say that perception-wise, the game with the Citadel didn’t do them any favors in the extracurricular lobbying wars that followed the season.

Just ignore DI-AA games. Isn’t that fair? In Auburn’s case (and in most team’s cases, I believe: I know it’s true for University of South Carolina and Penn State this year), the Citadel was scheduled because a previous opponent borked out on them at the last minute, and there were no Division I teams left (*).

It’s tough to criticize, for instance, Penn State and South Carolina this year for the DI-AA teams – the MAC just up and decided ‘yah, we’re gonna change the schedule, so you’re all screwed’.

The other possibility to avoid crap like this is to have the NCAA set up some system to connect teams that get screwed.

(*: disclaimer – second hand information, though I have no reason to doubt it)

Pat, you are correct.

The Citadel was a replacement for Bowling Green, who backed out to play OU for a larger $$$.

The La Monroe game was also on the schedule because GT backed out of the season opener that was supposed to happen at the Ga Dome. They needed another home game for the $$ for their renovations to their stadium.

So, AU originally had a great OOC schedule (GT, BGSU, La Tech), but late-backouts had us scrambling for opponents. The PR spin was devastating to AU’s Orange Bowl chances, and AU’s AD dropped the ball on explaining to the media what happened, and how tough AU’s schedule still was.

SOS, however, is a red herring. It is statistically invalid because there are only 3-4 games for each team to enter into the pile for comparison. All the conference games become a statistical wash, and therefore OOC games gain unwarranted weight when comparing teams. For example, the SOS “calculations” I’ve seen for AU 04 go from #4 toughest (NCAA’s official site) to around 91 (some guys computer – formula unreleased, of course). There were only 117 teams in Div 1A in 2004, so a SOS range of 87 in a 117 point pool means that the measure is statistically invalid.

What was statistically valid, however, was that USC would generate ABC/USCPN the most amount of advertising $$$, and OU would generate the second most amount of advertising $$$. AU is clearly third in that race, and that is why the Herbstreit/Corso act of “Well, if they’ll just beat UGA, then they’re #1” followed by “Well, if they’ll just beat AL, then they’re #1”, followed by “Well, if they’ll just beat UT, then they’re #1”, followed by “Well, they’re just not good enough for our advertisers.” UGA and UT were top 10 teams, and were defeated by double digit margins with the game in hand by the 4th quarter.

When comparing undefeated teams, SOS doesn’t set the bar on how great the team is. I.E. it doesn’t tell you how high the bar goes, only how high it has been jumped. This is easy to see by putting the 04 NE Patriots in the Big East. They would clearly be undefeated, have a worse SOS than AU/OU/USC, but you’d be an absolute idiot to think that they weren’t the best team, particularly if you based that upon something as arcane and invalid as SOS.

And, an interesting thing is that Colley allows you to play what-if on his schedule. With SOS, had Kentucky beaten Ohio that year, AU would’ve had the #1 SOS on Colley’s computer, and it wouldn’t have even been close. As it was, UK lost to Ohio and AU was #3 in the SOS, but it begs the question – WTF does the UK-Ohio game have to do with how good AU/USC/OU were? SOS backers must explain this.

I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again…

AU 04 gave up 147 points all season, the lowest point total in the nation. Of those 147 points, 64 were given up when AU was up by 20 or more points. Thus, 43.5% of all AU points allowed were when the game was in hand. (Season Average for first stringers: 6.3 ppg)

USC 04 gave up 169 points all season, the fourth lowest point total in the nation. Of those 169 points, only 34 were given up when USC was up by 20 or more points. Thus 20.1% of all USC’s points allowed were when the game was in hand. (Season Average for first stringers: 10.3ppg)

AU 04 trailed 2 times in 2 games all season, never trailed by more than 6 points, never trailed once they got a lead, and only had 1 opponent all season have the ball in the 4th quarter with the lead or a chance to get the lead. Read that again. In 13 games, 5 of which against 9+ win teams, only 1 team had the ball in the 4th quarter with a lead or a chance to take the lead.

USC 04 trailed 7 times, in 7 games, trailed by 2 or more scores in 2 games, relinquished 2 leads, and had multiple games where an opponent had the ball with a lead or a chance to take the lead.

Both are undeniably great seasons, but, had your school of choice only trailed twice all season, never by more than 6 points, never relinquished a lead, and had the games in hand by the 4th quarter with a 1st string D that gave up 6.3 PPG, you’d be screaming that that is one of the most dominant performances in all of CFB history. Not quite 95 Nebraska dominant, but damned close.

And consider that AU 04 did that winning 4 games against 10 win teams, and a 5th against a 9 win team. Only OU 2000 can match that schedule.

The NCAA is actually making it harder, not easier to schedule compelling out of conference match-ups. They decided to add the 12th game, but in their infinite wisdom decided not to add a week to the regular season. That gives you 13 weeks to play 12 games. For those conferences with a championship game, this almost requires playing 12 games in a row with no off week.

I also think the gutless comments aimed at previous schedules of schools like Florida, Auburn, and South Carolina are a little unfair. As it was pointed out, in many cases the schedule is less than attractive because a team cancelled a contract.

Yall keep going back and forth about Auburn vs USC’s worthiness when the real paper tiger that year was obviously Oklahoma.

One team of Oklahoma, USC, and Auburn was going to get screwed, of course. Each team can always make the argument, though.

Also: I don’t know how you guys think you could increase the ‘strength of schedule’ component in the BCS. The only way you could do that is by increasing the percentage given to the computer polls, considering all but about one of the computer rankings are purely ‘strength of schedule.’

The one computer ranking that has a non-strength of schedule component (Billingsley) is decidedly wacko, too, so don’t suggest we need more of them.

I agree the real paper tiger was Oklahoma that year. But since the AU vs USC horse was still being beaten I decided to look at the two schedules and decided overall they were basically a wash (though one could spin it either way, of course).

My take on the opponents, bottom to top:
Washington (1-7) is better than Citadel (2-5 1AA)
Arizona (3-8) is better than Mississippi State (2-6)
Colorado State (4-6) is better than Kentucky (2-9)
BYU (5-6) is better than Mississippi (3-5)
WSU (5-6) is better than LA Tech (6-6 in a minor conf)
Stanford (5-6)is better than LA Monroe (5-6 in a minor conf)
UCLA (6-6) is better than Arkansas (5-6)
LSU narrowly beat Oregon State 22-21 on the field
Notre Dame beat Tennesee on the field
Virgina Tech (10-3) is a pick em with Alabama (10-2)
Cal (10-2) is a pick em with Georgia (10-2)

That leaves the second UT game for Auburn, and I don’t think a team deserves full credit for beating the same opponent twice so I’ll call that even with USC beating Arizona State (9-3). And of course the whole thing works out within the margin of error of the biases one has going into it.

The problem with strenght of schedule arguments is that, it is completely biased.

Say that 2 conferences have 10 temas and they only play in conference schedule (no teams in conference have OOC opponents). So if each conference won by a team that win all their games, then both of those teams will have same strenght of schedule. (all opponents win-loss will be same)

Now say that all teams in those conferences play one ooc opponent. One conference plays cupcakes which are easy to win while other conference plays all hard teams. What happens is that, the winners of the 2 conferences will have different strentgh of schedule this time. And the one in the conference who plays cupcakes will be higher. While it gets an easier opponent from OOC, its opponenets will have better record in its conference due to all playing cupcakes.

So does that makes the team from a conference that schedule easy OOC schedule have a harder strenght of schedule? It doesnt. So how can you tell Auburn schedule is harder?

“After reading your UF-ND article from before, Florida should not schedule just 50% of the preseason top 10 … Florida should schedule 60% of the preseason top 10?”

Well, is’nt that the issue? SEC teams go into the season with these high rankings and will never be challenged by anybody outside the conference. When you knock each other off it’s ‘well we lost to a highly ranked SEC team…we play defense down here yada yada yada.’ Georgia…good lord! Come on people, when you step up to play someone out of the cozy confines of the South then, and only then, will you get the respect you crave/deserve? Schedule a game at Autzen, Seattle, South Bend, Lincoln, Norman,Austin,Ann Arbor, Happy valley, or the Shoe…especially during the months Oct-Dec. Better yet, try Tempe, Arizona for a day game in Sept-Oct for fun. After that, let’s see how many teams the SEC has in the top 10.

Look being a BAMA fan I know this years schedule is easy outside SEC games. But what you may not know is that there were scheduled games with Penn State and the Golden Domers that were moved back. Now on a year to year basis I will stack up the core SEC teams against any conference out there.
As for Auburn and there dead horse, didn’t they play USC in back to back seasons. I’ll have to check but isn’t that an out of conference game. Tenn scheduled N.D.. Alabama played Oklahoma.
Now I may be wrong but how many SEC teams has N.D.,USC, MICH scheduled over the last ten years?
Could it be that these power house and historically strong programs don’t want to schedule SEC teams?
I know FSU has never played Alabama since Lord Bowden has been there. Is that because He didn’t want to schedule them or is it Bama wouldn’t sign the Noles up.
The point to this being I could make an arrgument either way.
So shut up and play football.
On a long enough curve the probability of survival is zero.

I have very little animosity left over towards Tommy T, but I still have to laugh his team for getting left out of the BCS title game for SOS issues in ’04. After all, this is the guy whose first order of business as new AU football coach was to back out of the coming season opener against FSU in favor of scheduling Appalachain State, a game that AU nearly lost anyway. Karma has a way of finding you in the end, and if Bowling Green backing out on AU was the reason for them missing out on the BCS title game, then they deserved to miss out on it for being pansies in the past.

To argue strength of the SEC, no other conference can claim that half of its members have finished in the Top 3 in the polls at least once in the last 15 years.

Best finishes per team:
UF – MNC in 1996
UT – MNC in 1998
LSU – 1/2 MNC in 2003
Alabama – MNC in 1992
Auburn – No. 2 in 2004
UGA – No. 3 in 2001

Name another conference that comes close to having that high of a percentage of the conference compete for MNC’s in the last 15 years. That shows the depth of the conference.

Are USC, Mich, and ND afraid of the SEC? It does not look like it. USC is in the midst of a home and home with Arkansas and just finished one with Auburn. The Domer’s just played Tenn and MI has an all-time record of 18-5-1 against the SEC (but 9 of those wins were against Vandy).

How would USC do in the SEC? Their all-time record is 16-10-1 against the conference and they don’t play the weaklings. The records against individual teams: Alabama: 2-5, Arkansas 3-1, Auburn 2-1, Florida 0-1-1, Georgia 3-0, LSU 1-1, USC 1-1, Tenn 4-0.

Even if the SEC is the deepest conference it does not mean that the winner is better than the winner of the other top conferences. After all the SEC winner got whacked by the Big East Champ last year.

USC—1/2 MNC in 2003
USC—MNC in 2004
USC—No. 2 in 2005
Washington—1/2 MNC in 1991
Oregon—No. 2 in 2000
ASU—20 seconds from MNC in 1996
UCLA—One bad call from BCS title game in 1998

Looks fairly comparable to me. Seven contenders, six if you don’t count UCLA. And the Pac-10 has fewer teams.

Oh, let’s not forget that every Pac-10 team in the last 15 years, except for Stanford and Cal—I’m talking UW, WSU, Oregon, OSU, USC, UCLA, ASU and Arizona (or 80%)—has finished in the top five at some point. I’d say that’s pretty impressive. When’s the last time that Vandy, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss. State or SC has finished in the top 5?

I count 5 contenders you listed Pundit. USC only counts as one team, not 3. I was talking about how many programs are in each conference that have shown the capability of competing for national titles. That doesn’t mean that the SEC champ is the best team in the country every year. It just means that the SEC is a very deep conference. The Big 12, ACC, and Big East are not deep at all. The Pac-10 and Big Ten are also deep conferences. I’m not arguing that, just that the SEC is about as deep as they come.

I’d add Cal to HP’s list of teams that has been in contention for a MNC, since they were first and goal at the end of the USC game in 2004 and had they won that one it would have been them in the 3 way logjam for the BCS game that year.

And I’d say that in an average year the SEC would be the deepest conference, but in the Pac 10 and Big 10 I could imagine any team winning the championship in 5 years (Even Northwestern and Stanford (under Willingham) have gone to the Rose Bowl in modern times). But it really stretches the imagination to think that Kentucky or Miss State or Vandy could go on such a run.

And the thing about the “home cookin” scheduling of cupcakes, everything really depends on reputation rather than facts. Becuase if more quality ooc games are not scheduled the results would be exactly the same under the scenario that A) the SEC gets even better or B) the quality of the SEC goes down the drain. Either way the SEC teams knock off the cupcakes and then half of them lose when they play each other. We have no data as to how good they are.

i find it amusing how people will annually bash ND for their alleged weak schedule and apparently undeservedly inflated rankings, but also use them as an example of a team that their team of choice (TOC) plays in order to validate their TOC’s schedule strength. but i also find people amusing in general.

Up until five years ago scheduling USC would have been like signing to play Boston college at best. Unless you want to go back to the seventies. Washington hade a good run in the Ninties. And then Oregon has been second best alot.
Cal has a good year here and there but beating USC once doesn’t make you a top notch program.
West coast teams more times than not are also rans and that makes most of you act like a child at a friends birthday party. Just pissed you aren’t gettin any attention.
Every year in recent history there has been a southern school winning or playing in the Championship game and that makes you mad. Deal with it. You can show me a bunch of numbers saying otherwise but show me a year where there wasn’t a southern team that didn’t at least deserve a shot.
Show me a trend where other that one team there is a bunch of teams worth a shit year in and year out.

16 National champions from the south since 1976 have been won by a southern school do the math biiiiatchs.

So Charlie, now the SEC includes FSU, Miami, Va Tech etc?

I suppose if that’s the case then the Pac-10 gets Colorado, Kansas St., Oklahoma, BYU, Utah, etc.

I’m not sure who would get Texas, since they were part of the Confederacy put have a western identity. Charlie seems to be counting them as the South since otherwise you sure don’t have to go back very far to find a year when a southern school wasn’t playing in the championship game.

In general though football programs in both the South and West should improve relative to the North and East as the national population continues to shift.

First I was stating that in recent history west coast teams have a little case of penis envy. And southern football has been the best region for football. I was only including FSU and Miami not the expantion team Va Tech.
As far as the past goes Alabama has a better history than any west coast school period. So if you want to talk history you lose.
You still did not show me a group of Pac 10 teams that are National contenders on a regular basis.

To expand on phil’s comment (#78):

This was posted on MGoBlog by T. Kyle King back in January:

From October 10, 1903, to November 7, 1908, the Commodores (coached by Dan McGugin for most of that period) posted an overall record of 41-4-2. All four losses were to the Maize and Blue.

In the 10 seasons that Michigan played Vanderbilt, the ‘Dores went 7-1 (1905), 8-1 (1906), 5-1-1 (1907), 7-2-1 (1908), 8-1 (1911), 5-3 (1913), 2-6 (1914), 8-0-1 (1922), 5-2-1 (1923), and 4-6 (1969). Vandy hasn’t had a winning record since 1982, but six or seven of the Wolverines’ contests with the Commodores were against good teams.

Saying and MI has an all-time record of 18-5-1 against the SEC (but 9 of those wins were against Vandy).
isn’t being very fair to Vanderbilt!

Personally, I’m strongly in favor of scheduling tough OOC matchups, and am a little disheartened by Michigan’s recent trend toward diluting the schedule (dropping the ND series after 2008 for example). Though again, our game against Vandy this fall is still a far better alternative than against I-AA Maine, who was the fallback school if Vandy wouldn’t play. Playing 12 games in 13 weeks is a tricky proposition for any scheduling guru.

And remind me again how exactly this thread devolved into an AU vs USC debate, when clearly BOTH of those teams were more deserving than Oklahoma? Is it just a lack of Oklahoma bloggers to fan the flames?

I’ve always liked Alabama and mildly rooted for them but I’ve never been envious that’s for sure. And which SEC team is a contender for the MNC every year? I hope you are not counting Alabama in that group since one championship in the last 25 years isn’t what I’d say was frequent.

As far as the total history of the game I’ve always considered Notre Dame #1, USC #2 (and gaining some ground in recent years) and Alabama #3. Then I see a cluster of schools including Michigan, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State and maybe Georgia and Tenn towards the bottom of that cluster.

The three big Florida schools have been up there since the 1980’s (especially Miami) but are playing catch up since none of them did much before that.

So I’d agree that in the past couple of decades the South has been a strong region for football (though in my opinion the South as a cultural region ends somewhere north of Miami) if you want to talk all-time the best would still be the midwest with Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, Oklahoma, & Nebraska

rebel84: Re the AU-FSU cancellation in 1999, Bowden was on record after Tater Tot was fired saying that he wanted out of the game. AU didn’t jump at the chance then to get out of the game and have the PR land on FSU (and there wouldn’t be much PR about that) but waited till later.

Tubs did what was best for the AU program at the time – not give the press a huge event to drag Tater Tot back into the picture.

N.D. then USC are you out of your mind?
There is no question The domers are #1 all time.
But USC second???? BAMA 12 USC 11 all-time National Championships.
Bama ….. more Bowl game appearences than anyone.
Most Bowl victories all time.
Sixth best total victories. USC is tenth.
Most ten win seasons 28, usc has 21 that is good enough for fifth.
And by the way from 1973 til now 3 MNC for BAMA and 4 for USC.
Check out this link.
http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/rankings/all_time_team_rankings.php

Not 12 again. Only 2 of Bammers MNCs were unanimous, one is when Bama went 9-2 and didn’t even win the SEC, several are retroactive, and most of the so-called-12 weren’t even recognized until Stallings. It’s more like 6 legit and the other 6 are some sort of inflationary B.S.

http://www.geocities.com/bafflemaster/nc.htm

ok you can argue the MNC’s but all time record ,10win seasons, bowl games and victories.
Find a hole in that.

I’m not. It’s just typical Bammer to overinflate accomplishments. It’s like a kid with a small ego overstating his accomplishments to look good in the eyes of people who don’t give two shakes.

However, I guess that’s to be expected from a school that changed its team name after tying Auburn and picked a mascot after beating a 3-5-1 Ole Miss team.

Are you a LSU fan? The team with 1 or 2 MNC’s,it’s according to who your a fan of. This conversation was between two fans of schools who actually may have a claim.
Not some team who has Championships 100 years apart.
I can remember in the not to distant past when playin LSU was a lot like playing MSU. Dare I say coach Retardo.
You can’t inflate all-time records ass clown.
Either you consistently good or your not.
I thought we were all on the same side in this argument?
SEC strength versus PAc-10?
I would think you would rathher have had your ass beat year in and year out over the decades by a top three school rather than an overinflated chump school.
But either way check the record.

Charlie: That cfb stat site is good but it all depends on the formula’s used that can be cooked up to give various results (I’ve already misquoted the guy with the gears earlier). So I’d describe that particular formulation as legitimate but not authoritative. I’m sure Michigan fans might come up with a formula that weighs more on total victories for example. If I were running the numbers I’d include some points for having a Heisman Trophy winner. My impression as a fan whose been lucky enough to experience his team winning both, I’d say that the MNC is the ultimate, but bringing home the Heisman does not lag that far behind. Ask your friends at AU what Bo Jackson did for that program or the guys at Georgia about H. Walker.

You may not want to count Heismans, and that’s fine for you. But the USC fans sure are happy to consider the Heismans in the history of the program. And clearly no USC fan that I could think of would look enviously at Alabama (as impressive as thier history is) with jealousy given the disparity in legitimate MNC’s and Heismans in USC’s favor.

Wolverbean: I didn’t intend to slight either MI or Vandy earlier. I never knew that Vandy had been so strong back in the early days and I learned something, thanks.

I would love to have a Hiesman trophy true enough.
And there have been a bunch from USC and i would be proud.
Somehow this turned into a Bama USC conversation.
It was a SEC bashing session first.
But I learned a lot in this little talk.
Did you know tha Mr. Hiesman played at Ga Tech and they were in the SEC at the time I believe.
But I could be wrong.

I’m wrong, and I can admit it.
He coached at Ga. Tech.

I didn’t know that Heisman coached at Ga Tech, though I did know that he coached at Division III Oberlin in Ohio for awhile.

I never intended to bash the SEC, it is obvously a fine conference with a strong case for being called the best overal and great traditions. More good non-conference opponents would be a good thing though, and it sounds like nearly everybody agrees on that.

As a point of correction, the Michigan-Notre Dame scheduling agreement extends through the 2011 season. Neither school has commented about what will take place in 2012 and beyond, but as a Wolverine fan, my guess is that Michigan will continue its practice of playing one marquee non-conference opponent on its schedule in coming years. For 2006 to 2011, that team will be Notre Dame.

Instead of making Notre Dame a permanent fixture on the non-conference schedule, I suspect Michigan will look elsewhere to contract home-and-home series with major programs from the BCS conferences after 2011. Perhaps then we’ll see the Wolverines engage in some more cross-sectional rivalries from teams in the ACC, Big XII, and the SEC. It certainly seems to be the plan Ohio State is using, and I think we’re all looking forward to the upcoming game between the Buckeyes and Longhorns in Austing next September. My personal hope is that Michigan play Notre Dame in a home-and-home series every eight to ten years, with a rotation of other major opponents (like an Auburn) in the intervening seasons.

IMHO, the incentives and structure of the Bowl Championship Series don’t lay room for the larger programs with hopes of getting to the championship game to put more than one major non-conference opponent on the record. The obvious exception to the rule is the Big East. Also, I would say that the teams within conferences with two divisions and a championship game of their own really don’t have an incentive to play more than one major team. That’s why I find the idea of Florida playing Notre Dame in 2009 laughable—especially since the date/opponent in the article mentioned for it is immediately before the final game of the season with Florida State.

For strength-of-schedule arguments, I like to utilize Sorenson’s rankings. Go to:

1993 (Washington State, Notre Dame, Houston) – 18
1994 (Boston College, at Notre Dame, Colorado) – 1
1995 (Virgina, Memphis, at Boston College, Miami-Ohio) – 9
1996 (at Colorado, Boston College, UCLA) – 4
1997 (Colorado, Baylor, Notre Dame) – 36
1998 (at Notre Dame, Syracuse, Eastern Michigan, at Hawaii) – 43
1999 (Notre Dame, Rice, at Syracuse) – 2
2000 (Bowling Green, Rice, UCLA) – 41
2001 (Miami-Ohio, at Washington, Western Michigan) – 17
2002 (Washington, Western Michigan, at Notre Dame, Utah) – 9
2003 (Central Michigan, Houston, Notre Dame, at Oregon) – 23
2004 (Miami-Ohio, at Notre Dame, San Diego State) – 35
2005 (Northern Illinois, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan) – 1