Yearly Archives: 2009

Rating the 2009 Non-Conference Slate, Part 2: Big East

And now we venture deep into the land of 5 out-of-conference games. Yes, that’s right kids, it’s The Big East.

  1. Syracuse (1.75 legit, 1 DI-AA): Minnesota, @Pennslyvania State, Northwestern, Maine, Akron. Even with everyone’s favorite inconsistent Duke guard possibly starting for them at QB this fall, the ‘Cuse could still possibly have a losing record against this schedule. At least they’ll help a couple of Big Ten squads keep bowl eligibility, I guess. For what’s worth though, Otto the Orange is one of my favorite college mascots. I’m not sure why, though it probably had to do with how hilarious it was having a team of anthropomorphic oranges in mascot mode in NCAA Football 2003.
  2. Cincinnati (1.75, 1): Southeast Missouri State, @Oregon State, Fresno State, Illinois. Dear Missouri State University System: Drop the directional names already! Or at least change them to cardinal directions or something. Anyway, this actually a decent schedule, with Oregon State and the Illinoise. It’ll be a little more respectful if Fresno is decent again this year.
  3. Connecticut (1.75, 1): @Ohio, North Carolina, @Baylor, Rhode Island, @Notre Dame. UConn brings up a kind-of respectible third place. The matchup with UNC is a potentially interesting matchup for both teams – UConn as much as an established Big East power as anyone these days and UNC projected to be an up-and-comer in the ACC this year.
  4. Louisville (1.5, 1): Indiana State, @Kentucky, @Utah, Southern Mississippi, Arkansas State. No offense to Sun Belt and Arkansas State fans, but I honestly keept forgetting Arkansas State isn’t a DI-AA team. That said, there’s some meat on these bones, with the traditional early season rivalry bout with Kentucky and a trip out to Utah.
  5. Pittsburgh (1.5, 1): Youngstown State, @Buffalo, Navy, @North Carolina State, Notre Dame. This is really a tie with West Virginia. That’s really all I can say about this, except wait, a road trip to Buffalo? I know they made a bowl and all last year but still.
  6. West Virginia (1.5, 1): Liberty, East Carolina, @Auburn, Colorado, Marshall. The more I look at this the more I like it better than Pitt’s, but oh well. I, of course, love the trip to Auburn. Of course, VPI could tell the Mountaineers a thing or two about watching out for ECU early in the year.
  7. South Florida (1.5, 2): Wofford, @Western Kentucky, Charleston Southern, @Florida State, Miami. Yes, that Miami. It’s the Florida series no one really wants to see but I guess we’re stuck with it anyway. That said, even with two DI-AA opponents this schedule is even weaker than it appears, with USF playing the role of WKU’s only non-Sun Belt DI-A home opponent this year (their first as a full DI-A member, yes that’s right folks, we’re up to an even 120).
  8. Rutgers (0.5, 2): Howard, Florida International, @Maryland, @Army, Texas Southern. This may be the worst schedule in major college football. Pathetic. I suppose I should be happy they’re playing a BCS team at all, but still, 2 DI-AA schools and one of the FIU/FAU pick ’em? The game at West Point just seems gratuitous with all that. Cupcakes, indeed.

Anyway, that’s all for the Big East. And if you thought that was bad, wait until you see some of the doozies coming up in the other “Big” conferences. Until then, goodnight!

Rating the 2009 Non-Conference Slate, Part 1: ACC

If I were convinced anyone were waiting for this, I’d congratulate you for waiting this long! Anyway, here we go, with the ACC.

  1. Virginia Tech (1.75 Legit, 0 DI-AA): (N) Alabama, Marshall, Nebraska, @East Carolina. VPI has, by far, the most interesting OOC schedule of any ACC team this year, and that would probably be true with just the opening weekend game with Alabama in the Georgia Dome. Add to that a game at ECU, Nebraska’s return trip, and the lack of any DI-AA teams and we have ourselves a winner. Provided ‘Bama and Nebraska are decent, this could even break right for a darkhorse run to the national title game.
  2. Georgia Tech (1.75, 1): Jacksonville State, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Georgia. The rivalry game with UGA carries the most weight, of course, but playing two other SEC teams (even though they are Vandy and Miss State) allow GT to rack up enough legit points to take second.
  3. Miami (1.75, 1): Oklahoma, Florida A&M, @Central Florida, @South Florida. Major props for Oklahoma, though unless this Miami team is drastically better than last year’s edition it’s hard to see how that will turn out well. Somewhat more minor props for playing both UCF and USF, though I think I speak for most football fans when I say I’d rather see them playing Florida instead of FAMU, UCF, or USF.
  4. Florida State (1.5, 1): Jacksonville State, @Brigham Young, South Florida, @Florida. The showdown with Florida at the end there is the jewel of this schedule, of course, but FSU deserves some credit for playing in-state Big East rival USF, and also for trekking out to Provo, though I have a feeling I’m more excited about that trip than most of FSU’s players.
  5. Maryland (1.25, 1): @California, James Madison, Middle Tennessee State, Rutgers. I just Cal ran out of SEC teams to play, as UMD will take up the reigns this year of providing us the third-most interesting inter-sectional game of the year. The rest of this schedule is uninsipring, to say the least.
  6. North Carolina State (1.25, 2): South Carolina, Murray State, Gardner-Webb, Pittsburgh. Decent BCS OOC opponents bookend two DI-AA schools. For shame, NCSU, and the ACC I guess – 3 teams have 2 DI-AA opponents, while in the other 5 BCS conferences there are only 3 teams that have done so. (Though I suspect Rutgers may join the 2 DI-AA ranks as well, as I’ll explain later.)
  7. Boston College (1, 1): Northeastern, Kent, @Notre Dame, Central Michigan. This is where the quality of schedules starts to drop a bit. BC is only up here due to ND’s inflated legit ranking, which in a way reflects how overrated ND is anyway.
  8. Clemson (0.75, 1): Middle Tennessee State, Texas Christian, Coastal Carolina, @South Carolina. Nothing to see here except the obligatory rivalry game, though TCU has the potential to make it interesting.
  9. Duke (0.75, 2): Richmond, @Army, @Kansas, North Carolina Central. Well, I guess Duke is playing to their level now, but hey, there’s two gaurunteed wins here, a probabale win against Army, and well, that’s 3/4ths of last year’s win total right there!
  10. Wake Forest (0.5, 1): Baylor, Stanford, Elon, @Navy. Wake needs to watch out for Baylor, which has a slight chance of not being completely terrible this year. Outside of that, well, maybe they’ll make a return trip out here for Stanford in a couple years?
  11. North Carolina (0.5, 2): The Citadel, @Connecticut, East Carolina, Georgia Southern. The “I Wish This Were a Basketball Game” series returns, but outside of that, not much to comment on here, other than the usual slap-on-the-wrist for scheduling 2 DI-AA teams.
  12. Virginia (0.25, 1): William & Mary, Texas Christian, @Southern Mississippi, Indiana. The sad thing is that TCU and USM are probably more interesting matchups than Indiana, but that’s not saying much. And there’s still a chance they could go 1-3 on this slate.

Next: The Big East. Stay tuned!

Rating the 2009 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

It’s that time once again. I explained the rules and logic last year, and we’ve followed the same process again. So let’s break down the conference desirability ratings once again:

  1. SEC (0.792)
  2. ACC (0.6875)
  3. Big 12 (0.6875)
  4. Big 10 (0.659)
  5. Pac-10 (0.625)
  6. Big East (0.5625)

The Big 12 slid a bit this year, and the ACC rose a bit, probably mostly due to bias on our part. The Big East is hurt by a lack of any “1” teams, and the Pac-10 is hurt once again by the Washington schools.

Finally, the list of “1”s: Georgia Tech (bias, ahoy!), Clemson, Virginia Tech, Texas Tech, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame, Oregon, Southern Cal, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, and Tennessee.

Coming up soon, the ACC!