Author Archives: ASimPerson

Conference Moves – Just the Facts

I was looking through SB Nation’s excellent series of college football previews when I dawned on me that even I didn’t know about all the various conference moves that happened this past off-season. So let’s go through them.

Same As Last Year

  • Big 12 (10 teams): Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Christian, Texas Tech
  • Big Ten (12 teams): Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Pennsylvania State, Purdue, Wisconsin
  • MAC (13 teams): Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Massachusetts, Miami, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Toledo, Western Michigan
  • Pac-12 (12 teams): Arizona, Arizona State, California, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, California-Los Angeles, Southern California, Utah, Washington, Washington State
  • SEC (14 teams): Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana State, Mississippi State, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas Agricultural and Mechanical, Vanderbilt

Dead Conferences
The venerable Western Athletic Conference disbanded in football. The Big East also died for the most part, with most of the schools leaving for different conferences this year or next year. The American conference rose from its ashes, as we’ll see below.

Automatic Qualifying Conferences
Note that this designation only applies for this last year of the BCS. The American is grandfathered into the BCS via the Big East, and they will lose their seat at the table in the new play-off.

The ACC has two new members, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, joining Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina State, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest for a total of 14 teams.

The new, inoffensively named American Athletic Conference debuts this year. It consists of six former Big East members (Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Rutgers, South Florida, and Temple) and four former Conference USA members (Central Florida, Houston, Memphis, and Southern Methodist).

Four New Teams
The number of teams playing top-level NCAA football rises from 120 to 124 teams this year, with Massachusetts, Texas-San Antonio, Texas State, and South Alabama losing the “transitional” tag. Transitional this year is Georgia State, and they will be full members in the Sun Belt next year. More are on their way in 2016 and 2017.

Shakeups in the Minor Conferences
The result of all this are massive shakeups in the minor conferences.

As a result of the dissolution of the WAC, New Mexico State and Idaho found themselves without homes this season, though they will join the Sun Belt in the future. For now, they join fellow independents Army, Brigham Young, Navy, and Notre Dame.

Now here’s the really confusing part.

Conference USA welcomes in Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Middle Tennessee State, and North Texas from the Sun Belt. Louisiana Tech and Texas-San Antonio join from the WAC. They join Alabama-Birmingham, East Carolina, Marshall, Rice, Southern Mississippi, Texas-El Paso, Tulane, and Tulsa to give CUSA 14 teams. (For now.)

The Mountain West picked up San Jose State and Utah State from the WAC, joining Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii, Nevada, Nevada-Las Vegas, New Mexico, San Diego State, and Wyoming for a total of 12 teams.

That leaves the Sun Belt. They gained South Alabama and Texas State. Together with Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Troy, and Western Kentucky they have 8 football playing members.

So, in summary, here’s what I should’ve done in the first place: a table.

Conference Gained Lost
Atlantic Coast Pittsburgh (Big East), Syracuse (Big East)
American/Big East Central Florida (CUSA), Houston (CUSA), Memphis (CUSA), Southern Methodist (CUSA) Pittsburgh (ACC), Syracuse (ACC)
Conference USA Florida Atlantic (Sun Belt), Florida International (Sun Belt), Middle Tennessee State (Sun Belt), Louisiana Tech (WAC), Texas-San Antonio (WAC) Central Florida (AAC), Houston (AAC), Memphis (AAC), Southern Methodist (AAC)
Mountain West San Jose State (WAC), Utah State (WAC)
Sun Belt South Alabama (FCS), Texas State (FCS) Florida Atlantic (CUSA), Florida International (CUSA), Middle Tennessee State (CUSA)

Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: Epilogue

Templates!

The Shame List (teams that play more than 1 FCS and/or transitional team): Clemson, Georgia Tech, Arizona, Alabama, Oklahoma State, West Virginia.

The Praise List (teams that play zero FCS or transitional teams): California-Los Angeles, Stanford, Southern California, Oklahoma, Michigan.

Overall worst schedules! (Somewhat subjective!)

  1. Dishonorable mention: a full half of the Big 12. Between Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, Baylor, and West Virginia maybe the only interesting game is West Virginia-Maryland.
  2. Baylor (0, 1): Wofford, Buffalo, Louisiana-Monroe. Gertrude Stein once wrote “there is no there there”. She was talking about Oakland but I think this works for Baylor’s out-of-conference schedule as well. Also I know they got an honorable mention above, but still.
  3. Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (0, 1): Rice, Sam Houston State, Southern Methodist, Texas-El Paso. Well, I guess no one can accuse them of ducking smaller in-state schools.
  4. Arizona (0, 1.5): Northern Arizona, @Nevada-Las Vegas, Texas-San Antonio. I think this pretty much speaks for itself, yeah?

Best schedules!

Honestly, I can’t really bring myself to do a countdown list here, because these top-rated schedules has certain flaws. Let’s break them down.

  • Clemson (2, 2): Georgia, South Carolina State, Citadel, @South Carolina. Both of their marquee games should be must-watch events, and as mentioned previously seeing an old rivalry played again is always good. But I generally don’t give extra kudos for playing an in-state rival you play every year (though in light of other previously annual rivalries biting the dust with realignment, maybe that is worthy of acknowledgment). Also, a schedule that has two FCS teams simply can’t be called great.
  • Arizona State (1.75, 1): Sacramento State, Wisconsin, N-Notre Dame. If I did do a ranking, this would probably be tops, but didn’t feel right for some reason.
  • Florida (1.75, 1): Toledo, @Miami, Georgia Southern, Florida State. Not bad, and fits several of the criteria I’ve talked about, and has an acceptable one FCS team. Still, it would’ve tough to put this over Arizona State because I like to reward inter-sectional matchups.
  • No team in the Big 12 earned more than 1 “legit” point. Oklahoma’s game at Notre Dame got them the top spot, but still, Arizona State plays two auto-qualifying taems.
  • The Big Ten was pretty bleak as well. A lot of these teams play Notre Dame every year. While that is being threatened by Notre Dame’s new scheduling alliance with the ACC, it’s still the status quo for now.

For, for now, let’s close with each conferences’ schedules ranked by their “legit averages”. (E.g., not the average of each conference’s rating as presented in the first post, but the average of all their members’ legit averages.)

  1. Pac-12 (0.201)
  2. ACC (0.192)
  3. SEC (0.164)
  4. Big Ten (0.141)
  5. Big 12 (0.1)

And that’s all. Reminder, the season starts tomorrow. Look for the usual post.

    Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: SEC

    The SEC conspicuously avoids having a number in their name, but that despite that people will say they can’t count because hey, it’s the South, am I right?*

    1.  Florida (1.75 legit, 1 FCS): Toledo, @Miami, Georgia Southern, Florida State. Florida and Florida State play every year, but I suspect there are still some out there surprised to find out that Florida and Miami don’t. So that’s net in and of itself.
    2. Georgia (1.5, 1): @Clemson, North Texas, Appalachian State, @Georgia Tech. Georgia-Clemson is probably the single most intriguing out-of-conference matchup for the entire SEC and maybe the whole of college football this year. They’re rivals (Google Maps says “Athens, GA to Clemson, SC” is just 79 miles) that don’t play all the time. While they’re both top programs in their leagues, they’re often overshadowed by more successful/well-known teams (Alabama, Florida State). They both generally come into seasons with huge expectations and then fail to capitalize (Georgia is expected to win the SEC East and go to the BCS with a darkhorse national title run a possibility, while Clemson is supposed to win the ACC). The general SEC dominance narrative is countered what was likely last year’s most exciting bowl game, Clemson’s 25-24 win over LSU in the Chick-fil-a Bowl. (More parentheticals: I was channel surfing the other week and saw the beginning of that game again. Goodness, it sured looked like it was going to be a LSU blowout after the first 5 minutes right?)
    3. South Carolina (1.25, 1): North Carolina, @Central Florida, Coastal Carolina, Clemson. South Carolina also plays Clemson, but, well, they do that every year.
    4. Tennessee (1, 1): Austin Peay, Western Kentucky, @Oregon, South Alabama. When I was doing research for the Oregon write-up in the Pac-12 post, I came across this: Operation Rocky Top. The second sentence in the article contains the phrase “illegal activities in charity bingo”. That just seems sort of quaint, doesn’t it? But that’s how political scandals used to roll in the South in the 80’s and 90’s. (Of course, the results are decidedly unfunny (see the article).)
    5. Mississippi (1, 1): Southeast Missouri State, @Texas, Idaho, Troy. Well, that is Texas on that schedule. Will the cachet of playing the Longhorns be back this season?
    6. Mississippi State (0.75, 1): N-Oklahoma State, Alcorn State, Troy, Bowling Green. Protip: this SEC-Big 12 matchup will likely be far more interesting than Ole Miss-Texas.
    7. Alabama (0.75, 1.5): N-Virginia Tech, Colorado State, Georgia State, Tennessee-Chattanooga. This is the SEC-ACC matchup that’s getting more attention going into the start of the season, but I’m not sure why. VPI isn’t what it used to be, but Alabama should the same terrifying college football robot they’ve been the past few years. Meanwhile, in a brazen display of originality following a name change, Chattanooga is the “Mocs” after probably having to change from “Moccasins”.
    8. Louisiana State (0.5, 1): N-Texas Christian, Alabama-Birmingham, Kent State, Furman. LSU-TCU is probably a tad underrated, but we’ll also get to see how “for real” TCU is as a Big 12 program as a result as well.
    9. Kentucky (0.5, 1): N-Western Kentucky, Miami, Louisville, Alabama State. Hint: it’s Rust Belt Miami. Also that WKU game is in Nashville, which makes me wonder if there are really any truly Tennessee cities. I generally tend to think Memphis as an extension of Mississippi, and if Georgia gets an extremely unlikely series of legal decisions to go their way, Chattanooga might as well be in Georgia. Nashville is now hosting neutral site games between two schools in Kentucky, so that pretty much leaves Knoxville I guess?
    10. Auburn (0.25, 1): Washington State, Arkansas State, Western Carolina, Florida Atlantic. I’m not sure what else to say about the Auburn-Wazzou game other than that it could be the best worst college football game of the year.
    11. Arkansas (0, 1): Louisiana-Lafayette, Samford, Southern Mississippi, @Rutgers. I’m trying very hard to come up with something funny to say about Arkansas-Rutgers, but it’s not happening. I still have a while before the game comes up for “This Weekend in College Football”, thankfully.
    12. Vanderbilt (0, 1): Austin Peay, @Massachusetts, Alabama-Birmingham, Wake Forest. Vanderbilt is on the up-and-up, but with this series of OOC games it only need a .500 conference mark to get 8 wins again, so keep that in mind.
    13. Missouri (0, 1): Murray State, Toledo, @Indiana, Arkansas State. This schedule is a non-entity. It is an un-schedule. It is bad when a schedule can be improved by adding Kansas to it.
    14. Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (0, 1): Rice, Sam Houston State, Southern Methodist, Texas-El Paso. Which makes this one somehow even worse. This is the SEC school I want to see Texas play, not Ole Miss.

    We’ll do a wrap-up after this, just in the nick of time. Stay tuned!

      *: Reminder that every time I do math wrong on here or have horrendous spelling and/or grammar issues that my entire K-12 education was a product of the State of Alabama.

      Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: Pac-12

      Next up, a conference that apparently knows how numbers work, the Pac-12.

      1. Arizona State (1.75 legit, 1 FCS): Sacramento State, Wisconsin, N-Notre Dame. A solid schedule for a team that’s hoping to make a splash this year. Of course, that goes both ways, as they could very easily go 1-2 against this schedule.
      2. California (1.5, 1): Northwestern, Portland State, Ohio State. A solid schedule for Cal, but not one that does them any favors in terms of getting out of the 3-9 hole from last year. That said, the fact that they managed to get two Big Ten teams at home is something of an accomplishment.
        3. Michie Stadium, West Point, NY
      3. California-Los Angeles (1, 0): Nevada, @Nebraska, New Mexico State. Nevada led off last year with a win over a Cal school, and honestly I wouldn’t count them out here. I would almost be willing to bet that will be a more interesting game than the Nebraska game, all things considered.
      4. Stanford (1, 0): San Jose State, @Army, Notre Dame. Not much to write home about here, though that away game at Army is actually at Army’s home stadium, which seems unusual to me. The pictures on Wikipedia make it look pretty nice, that’s for sure.
      5. Oregon (0.75, 1): Nicholls State, @Virginia, Tennessee. I suspect that these games were initially supposed to be a little more high profile than they currently are. But let’s also think on the amusing difference between the fan cultures of Tennessee (their fight song is literally about moonshining and other hillbilly activities) and Virginia (one of their fight songs is based on “Auld Lang Syne”). Given the proclivity of West Coast types to just lump the entire area south of the Mason-Dixon line into “the South”, any fans who make the trip should be expecting a slightly different atmosphere in Charlottesville than in Knoxville. 
      6. Washington (0.75, 1): Boise State, N-Illinois, Idaho State. One of the things I look forward to at PAX every year is when Washington or Wazzou have a game that weekend in Seattle, and so fans decide to take advantage of the holiday weekend to check out downtown, only to find it full of nerds. Actually, I’d think most Washington fans probably wouldn’t go downtown (given the school is in a different neighborhood), but Boise fans… yeah, definitely looking forward to a lot of confused people in blue and orange t-shirts. Oh, yeah, the schedule: well, Boise’s probably a better team than Illinois, so it will be U-Dub’s major chance to make a statement in the out-of-conference schedule.
      7. Washington State (0.5, 1): @Auburn, Southern Utah, Idaho. I suspect it’s mainly because both of the teams were awful last year, but I feel like it should be a bigger deal that Mike Leach and Gus Malzhan will be facing off in a football game this year. Expect points. Lots of points. (Which, given how bad the offense was last year, may be like “24” for Auburn, but still.)
      8. Southern California (0, 0): @Hawaii, Boston College, Utah State. Utah State might be the most interesting team on this schedule, so I will use this as likely my last chance to remind everyone that the last regulation game of football played by the University of Southern California was a loss to Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl.
      9. Utah (0, 1): Utah State, Weber State, @Brigham Young. Playing all three of your in-state rivals? I’m down with that. The problem for Utah, as a fledging Pac-12 team, is that it’s very possible they won’t will all these games. Also, the real burning question is: will Utah students prematurely run onto the field at an away game?
      10. Oregon State (0, 1): Eastern Washington, Hawaii, @San Diego State. I think I did a pretty decent job on the first nine teams, unfortunately I’m just drawing a blank on anything remotely interesting to say about this schedule. I’ve probably worn out the “odd field color” jokes already, which is a shame because Colorado also plays Central Arkansas.
      11. Colorado (0, 1): N-Colorado State, Central Arkansas, Fresno State. It hasn’t been a good couple of years of collegiate football in the state of Colorado, and, well, I’m not sure I like the Buffs chances against Fresno.
      12. Arizona (0, 1.5): Northern Arizona, @Nevada-Las Vegas, Texas-San Antonio. UTSA is the “half” team on that count, but otherwise this is a pretty standard awful Arizona schedule.

      Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: Big Ten

      And now the Big Ten, ranked 1 through 12.

      1. Purdue (1.5 legit, 1 FCS): @Cincinnati, Indiana State, Notre Dame, Northern Illinois. Yeah, this isn’t a strong start here. Cincy only barely counts and normally I would discount a game against an in-state rival, but, well, this is what we have to work with in the Big Ten this year.
      2. Michigan (1, 0): Central Michigan, Notre Dame, Akron, @Connecticut. Mostly because the other two teams with 1s or better also play Notre Dame every year. I guess there is that game at UConn here, but eh.
      3. Michigan State (1, 1): Western Michigan, South Florida, Youngstown State, @Notre Dame. Reminder: it only gets worse!
      4. Illinois (0.75, 1): Southern Illinois, Cincinnati, N-Washington, Miami. If you’re not up on my school name gimmicks, just now that I never specify which Miami it is unless it’s not obvious from context. Also we probably should’ve given UDub a little more credit here, so I’m going to blame my brother for that.
      5. Northwestern (0.75, 1): @California, Syracuse, Western Michigan, Maine. Honestly, NU-Cal is probably the most intriguing match-up so far, but I gave Illinois credit for playing two teams with a higher average ranking.
      6. Wisconsin (0.5, 1): Massachusetts, Tennessee Tech, @Arizona State, Brigham Young. If I were Wisconsin, I’d play in the Southwest every year in, say, November or thereabouts. But that’s not how they roll in the Big Ten.
      7. Nebraska (0.5, 1): Wyoming, Southern Mississippi, California-Los Angeles, South Dakota State. Nebraska-UCLA is at least interesting from a the inter-sectional matchup perspective, so let’s hope that this is rated higher on the return trip.
      8. Ohio State (0.5, 1): Buffalo, San Diego State, @California, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical. This isn’t a great schedule for a team though to be a national championship contender. Cal is expected to be better this year, but considering they were 3-9 last year that’s not saying much. The Buckeyes will need to dominate this schedule.
      9. Indiana (0.25, 1): Indiana State, Navy, Bowling Green, Missouri. Not much here, but, well, they are Indiana.
      10. Pennsylvania State (0, 0): N-Syracuse, Eastern Michigan, Central Florida, Kent State. While not as bad as everyone thought last year, it’s hard to see how Penn State will be any better this year. This schedule should be good for three wins, though.
      11. Minnesota (0, 1): Nevada-Las Vegas, @New Mexico State, Western Illinois, San Jose State. San Jose State is a trendy underdog pick this year, which may be bad news for the Golden Gophers.
      12. Iowa (0, 1): Northern Illinois, Missouri State, @Iowa State, Western Michigan. As stated previously, we generally don’t look favorably when the only major conference team you play is a traditional in-state rival, so having your rival be Iowa State doesn’t really help your case.