Category Archives: OOC schedules

Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: Big 12

And now, the Big 12, ranked 1 through 10.

  1. Oklahoma (1 legit, 0 FCS): Louisiana-Monroe, Tulsa, @Notre Dame. Much to the likely regret of the ADs who scheduled the games years ago, UL-M and UL-L are not quite the bodybag games they used to be. I mean, the Sooners are still going to win, but still. Also, I’m not seeing a lot of pre-season love for Oklahoma-Notre Dame, which definitely ranks up there in terms of the “interesting intersectional and historical matchup” scale.
  2. Texas Christian (1, 1): N-Louisiana State, Southeast Louisiana, Southern Methodist. TCU-LSU is one of the opening weekend games that everyone is looking forward to, and for good reason. It’s nice to see that TCU has quickly established themselves after getting back into a major conference. (Much to the jealously of their cross-town rivals, SMU, I’m sure.)
  3. Iowa State (0.5, 1): Northern Iowa, Iowa, @Tulsa. And now things go rapidly downhill. If you don’t believe me, read on. Don’t forget that when Iowa State is involved, though, there’s always the chance they’ll lose to Northern Iowa and then beat Iowa.
  4. Texas (0.25, 0): New Mexico State, @Brigham Young, Mississippi. Honestly, that BYU game is probably more interesting than that Ole Miss game, but nonetheless it was the Rebels that were responsible for that quarter of a point.
  5. Oklahoma State (0.25, 1.5): N-Mississippi State, @Texas-San Antonio, Lamar. Miss State will try to prove they belong to the upper-tier of the SEC hierarchy once again this season, but I’m not so optimistic about their chance to prove their out-of-conference chops against Oklahoma state. (Note to self: don’t repeat that for Miss State’s write-up.)
  6. Kansas (0, 1): South Dakota, @Rice, Louisiana Tech. I’m not sure if there’s a question that LaTech will beat KU, but more of by how much.
  7. Kansas State (0, 1): North Dakota, Louisiana-Lafayette, Massachusetts. I suspect the Ragin’ Cajuns are a little more spicy than Bill Synder anticipated, but them’s the breaks.
  8. Texas Tech (0, 1): @Southern Methodist, Stephen F. Austin, Texas State. Yes, that’s right: the other thing to get used to this year are the new full-fledged FBS members, like Texas State.
  9. Baylor (0, 1): Wofford, Buffalo, Louisiana-Monroe. If Baylor and UL-M want to replay last year’s game, that’s fine by me. One of the few chances for legitimate entertainment here.
  10. West Virginia (0, 1.5): William & Mary, Georgia State, N-Maryland. Yes, West Virginia is still in the Big 12 for some reason. And they’re still not playing Pittsburgh, so as a penalty I’ve rated their schedule last. Well, also that and they should obliterate Maryland.

Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: ACC

First up, the Atlantic Coast Conference. See last year’s post for all the gory details.

  1. Clemson (2 legit, 2 FCS): Georgia, South Carolina State, Citadel, @South Carolina. Clemson and UGA meeting up again is always a good thing. “Wait”, you say, “aren’t those two schools your two biggest rivals?” Well, yes. Nonetheless, the Clemson-GT rivalry is not in-state and is not nearly as acrimonious as the one with the so-call “university” in Athens. So unlike when Georgia and Alabama meet, and I can still root for Georgia’s opponent without a twinge of guilt. Anyway, though I usually discount yearly rivalry games for these purposes, I simply couldn’t rate any other schedules above this one, despite the two FCS schools.
  2. Virginia Tech (1, 1): N-Alabama, Western Carolina, @East Carolina, Marshall. I have to say, I like Clemson’s chances against Georgia much, much better than VPI’s against Alabama. Ugh. But it’s good enough for second on this list.
  3. Virginia (1, 1): Brigham Young, Oregon, Virginia Military Institute, Ball State. It’s always good to see East Coast-West Coast matchups, especially in the ACC. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really say anything about the quality of the game that is likely to be played.
  4. North Carolina (1, 1): @South Carolina, Middle Tennessee State, East Carolina, Old Dominion. UNC-USC is getting a fair bit of publicity, as it will be the first major game of the season. It’ll also be an early test for the Tarheels. The rest of their schedule is what it is, as the kids say.
  5. Boston College (1,1): Villanova, @Southern California, Army, @New Mexico State. It’s possible that BC may lose to Villanova, but they deserve some credit for the road game to LA.
  6. Miami (1, 1): Florida Atlantic, Florida, Savannah State, @South Florida. Ranked this low under the “rival game” rule, even though they don’t quite play Florida every year. Might’ve been the top schedule if they rounded up the all-Florida look with the only school they’re missing now: FIU.
  7. Florida State (1, 1): Nevada, Bethune-Cookman, Idaho, @Florida. Again, yearly rivalry games don’t count as much in these rankings. Too bad that’s not the frisky Nevada squad from a few years ago, as well.
  8. Pittsburgh (1,1): New Mexico, Old Dominion, @Navy, Notre Dame. See above on “rivalry games”.
  9. Syracuse (1, 1): N-Pennsylvania State, @Northwestern, Wagner, Tulane. That said, strength of your rivalry opponent does count for something. Perhaps I’m punishing the ‘Cuse unfairly for what happened to Penn State, but them’s the breaks.
  10. Georgia Tech (1, 2): Elon, @Brigham Young, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical, Georgia. All the way down here due to two FCS schools. Also, it’s been recently reported that the GT-Alabama series scheduled for later this decade has been indefinitely postponed. It’s starting to look pretty bleak for the alma mater, I have to say. But hey, there’s room in the schedule now for that GT-Stanford or GT-Cal home-and-home, right?
  11. Maryland (0.75, 1): Florida International, Old Dominion, @Connecticut, N-West Virginia. WVU is playing the wrong ACC team here. Can we get the Backyard Brawl back?
  12. Wake Forest (0.25, 1): Presbyterian, Louisiana-Monroe, @Army, @Vanderbilt. Not much to even joke about here. I imagine Wake is not thrilled about the up-and-coming Commodores, though, as that used to be a competitive matchup for the Demon Deacons.
  13. North Carolina State (0, 1): Louisiana Tech, Richmond, Central Michigan, East Carolina. There’s just nothing to say about this schedule in any way, shape, or form. Well, other than the chance they’ll lose to Louisiana Tech.
  14. Duke (0, 1): North Carolina Central, @Memphis, Troy, Navy. With an OOC schedule like this, Duke will almost certainly make a bowl again, as they’ll need just two conference wins.

Rating the 2013 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

It’s time for the yearly ritual of rating college football’s non-conference schedules.

The biggest change for this year is that we are no longer rating or examining the schedules of the American Athletic Conference (formerly known as the Big East), as only two teams (Cincinnati and Louisville) were even deemed interesting enough to rate. Though the AAC retains the Big East’s BCS spot this year, they do not have a seat at the table in the play-off that will start next year.

Other than that, we were also even stingier with ratings this year. Only the following schools earned a “1” rating for being interesting to play: Florida State, Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan, Ohio State, Nebraska, Oregon, Stanford, Southern California, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana State, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Notre Dame. So that’s 1 for the ACC, 2 for the Big 12, 3 for the Big Ten, 3 for the Pac-12, and 6 for the SEC.

Only one non-automatic qualifying team earned any rating at all: Boise State (with a 0.75).

Here are the average ratings for each conference:

  1. SEC (0.607)
  2. Big 12 (0.528)
  3. Big Ten (0.5)
  4. Pac-12 (0.5)
  5. ACC (0.429)

Compared to last year, the average is down slightly for almost all the conferences.

That’s all for now. Next up: the conference breakdown. 

Rating the 2012 Non-Conference Slate: Epilogue

And here’s the promised wrap-up.

First, the shaming. There are four teams that play two FCS teams this year: Texas A&M, Florida State, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. The latter two at least have a good excuse, as they need to fill out a five game non-conference schedule.

Due to our revised method of rating the “legit”-ness of teams, there are more zeros this year than in years past. Therefore, I’m only going to rank the top four worst schedules, which are somewhat arbitrarily decided.

  1. Dishonorable mention: the bottom four teams in the Pac-12: Utah, Washington State, Colorado, and Oregon. Especially the latter two, and really especially Oregon. I guess they thought they needed a breather from playing other major teams.
  2. Mississippi State (0, 1.5): Jackson State, @Troy, South Alabama, Middle Tennessee State. I don’t really include the Kansases and Indianas of the world on lists like this because hey, they’re awful, it’s okay to not load up your schedule. But Miss State isn’t really awful, so there’s less of an excuse. I suspect they probably go with something along the lines of the “toughest division in college football” or some such.
  3. Texas Tech (0, 1.5): Northwestern State, @Texas State, New Mexico. There’s nothing approaching a good team on this schedule, and there’s an inexplicable road game to a school that isn’t a full FBS member yet.
  4. Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (0, 2): N-Louisiana Tech, @Southern Methodist, South Carolina State, Sam Houston State. There’s nothing here that really justifies playing two FCS teams. Sure the game at SMU could be a challenge but I have my doubts

The top schedules list isn’t terribly inspiring this year, and there’s certainly no equivalent of last year, where LSU played both Oregon and West Virginia. The below are probably the top four non-conference schedules in the land.

  1. Miami (1.75 legit/0.4375 average, 1 FCS): @Kansas State, Bethune-Cookman, Notre Dame, South Florida. Three “major” teams, and a road game. Not bad.
  2. Clemson (1.75/0.4375, 1): N-Auburn, Ball State, Furman, South Carolina. Tigers-Tigers should be an interesting game, which is the main thing that keeps this above Miami because I ordinarily discount rivalry games for this purpose.
  3. Michigan (1.75/0.4375, 0.5): N-Alabama, Air Force, Massachusetts, @Notre Dame. Michigan-Alabama is one of the premiere matchups of the year, even if almost everyone thinks Michigan will lose.
  4. Syracuse (2.25/0.45, 1): Northwestern, N-Southern California, Stony Brook, @Minnesota, @Missouri. Quantity over quality for this one perhaps, though there is the game against USC. Even taking the average into account, the ‘Cuse still comes out on top. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for their chances in most of these games.

While I’m at it, here’s a quick list of teams that play only full-on FBS teams this year: Southern California, UCLA, Stanford, Texas, Ohio State, Penn State, and Nebraska.

And, finally, the ranking of conferences by their members’ “legit” average.

  1. ACC (0.276)
  2. Pac-12 (0.2153)
  3. Big East (0.2125)
  4. SEC (0.172)
  5. Big Ten (0.1354)
  6. Big 12 (0.1)

 A-C-C! A-C-C! I suppose.

Anyway, real, actual football talk will be coming, and not a moment too soon. Until then!

      Rating the 2012 Non-Conference Slate: SEC

      First, a quick note: one of my favorite college football blogs, Sunday Morning Quarterback, is back. I’ve been following Matt Hinton’s other efforts since he retired from doing SMQ four years ago, but none of them are quite the same as the more long-form, statistically-inclined writing he produced for his original blog.

      So anyway, we’ll wrap up our tour of this year’s non-conference schedules with the SEC.

      1. Alabama (1 legit, 1 FCS): N-Michigan, Western Kentucky, Florida Atlantic, Western Carolina. Alabama-Michigan is one of the most intriguing games of this season, though it’s hard to see how Michigan will win unless Denard Robinson is just utterly beguiling to Alabama’s uber-disciplined defense.
      2. Mississippi (1, 1): Central Arkansas, Texas-El Paso, Texas, @Tulane. Ole Miss gets two teams from Texas in town. Will they be good enough to beat either?
      3. Florida (1, 1): Bowling Green, Louisiana-Lafayette, Jacksonville State, @Florida State. Not much to look at here other than the obligatory FSU game, which is why this is #3 on this list.
      4. Auburn (0.75, 1): N-Clemson, Louisana-Monroe, New Mexico State, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical. Tigers-Tigers is back once again. I was hoping Auburn also played Mizzou, but they’ll be the other other Tigers in the SEC schedule this year. Also, I find it a bit odd that Auburn would actually play Alabama A&M, but A&M’s probably just that bad that they’re not as worried as they would be about playing, say, the Troys or UABs of the world.
      5. South Carolina (0.75, 1): East Carolina, Alabama-Birmingham, Wofford, @Clemson. Unfortunately, I had to break this tie backed on the strength of obligatory rivalry games. Us Tech fans tend to be a self-deprecating bunch, though, so it wasn’t really that hard of a decision. Also, that makes UGA look worse, which is also always a good thing.
      6. Georgia (0.75, 1): Buffalo, Florida Atlantic, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech. Suspicious Tech fans would probably that UGA is playing Georgia Southern, who run pretty much the same offense as us, as preparation for the game against us. To which I’d say, you’re probably over-thinking it.
      7. Vanderbilt (0.75, 1.5): @Northwestern, Presbyterian, Massachusetts, @Wake Forest. Next year, this schedule would let Vandy get up to the 4th spot because they’re playing two major conference teams (even if they are Northwestern and Wake Forest), but alas, UMass is still provisional.
      8. Louisiana State (0.5, 1): North Texas, Washington, Idaho, Towson. Well, there is that game against UDub. Honestly, the game I’m looking to most this year for LSU is the Arkansas game. Les Miles versus John L. Smith, a matchup of two of the probably craziest coaches in major college football.
      9. Missouri (0.5, 1): Southeastern Louisiana, Arizona State, @Central Florida, Syracuse. Now that the Mizzou-Illinois series is over, Mizzou’s schedule is just that much more boring. How did it not work out for them to play Kansas again?
      10. Tennessee (0.5, 1): N-North Carolina State, Georgia State, Akron, Troy. If the Tennessee-NC State game were scheduled for, let’s say, Octoboer, then I’m not sure anyone would care outside of their respective fanbases. But hey, have it to help kick off the season? Now we’re talking.
      11. Kentucky (0.5, 1): @Louisville, Kent State, Western Kentucky, Samford. Not much to see here. Obligatory rivalry game, a MAC team, another in-state team that it would be really funny if they lost to, and an FCS team. Again, not much to see here.
      12. Arkansas (0.25, 1): Jacksonville State, Louisiana-Monroe, Rutgers, Tulsa. Well, I already used my Arkansas-LSU thing for LSU, so I have to figure out an alternate strategy to use here. Maybe complain about how last year this would be the last blurb I’d have to write? No, not quite true yet. Maybe point out that the UL-Monroe game will be at Arkansas’s home-away-from-home, War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock? Maybe look up to see if the Rutgers game has a return leg? Let’s go with that, because yes it does: the Razorbacks will make the return trip to scenic Piscataway, New Jersey. Well, I’m guessing it’s scenic because the Wikipedia article only has a picture of dudes grilling Greek food on it and not any pictures of the town.
      13. Mississippi State (0, 1.5): Jackson State, @Troy, South Alabama, Middle Tennessee State. Watch out, Miss State: the last major conference team to visit Troy was Oklahoma State in 2007. They lost 41-23. Other than that, not much here to worry about for the bulldogs.
      14. Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (0, 2): N-Louisiana Tech, @Southern Methodist, South Carolina State, Sam Houston State. I’m not sure if the LaTech game is a neutral game site game or not, as it could just be a home game that’s being played in Shreveport instead of Ruston. Either way, A&M probably is probably as worried about this schedule as I am excited about it, which is to say, not very worried at all.

      That’s that! Soon, a hastily put together wrap-up of it all, and then hopefully the opening weekend TV guide in time for the kickoffs Thursday.