Category Archives: OOC schedules

Rating the 2012 Non-Conference Slate: Big East

It’s the Big East. Let’s get this over with.

  1. Syracuse (2.25 legit, 1 FCS): Northwestern, N-Southern California, Stony Brook, @Minnesota, @Missouri. 4 BCS conference teams out of 5 non-conference games is kind of crazy, even if one of them is Minnesota. Nonetheless, this may say more about Syrcause than anything else. If they were as good as they were in the late-90’s, would their schedule look like this? I doubt it.
  2. South Florida (1.5, 1): Tennessee-Chattanooga, @Nevada, @Ball State, Florida State, @Miami. USF benefits from playing both FSU and Miami (as in, “da U”). They might be the only major conference team to have three non-conference road games.
  3. Pittsburgh (1.25, 2): Youngstown State, Virginia Tech, Garnder-Webb, @Buffalo, @Notre Dame. The usual matchup with Notre Dame is in, but sadly, the Backyard Brawl is out. Also, traveling to Buffalo? I assume there’s a 3-for-1 involved here.
  4. Rutgers (1, 1): @Tulane, Howard, @Arkansas, Kent State, Army. Again, traveling to Tulane? Well, I guess they can sell travel packages for New Orleans or some such.
  5. Cincinnati (1, 2): Delaware State, N-Virginia Tech, Miami, Fordham, @Toledo. Again, the only thing I can figure for this rash of mid-major road games are 3-for-1 deals. The Big East needs to get to 9 teams if for no other reason than because this 5 non-conference games thing isn’t really working out for them, I’d say. Of course, I just remembered that this is Pitt and Syracuse’s last year in the Big East. Whoops!
  6. Temple (0.5, 1): Villanova, Maryland, Pennsylvania State, Army. Yes, that’s right, this is your only team in major college football with an 11 game schedule. That’s a heck of a way to dive back in, though. The Owls will play their inter-city rival in Villanova, and then play Pitt in-conference and Penn State at home. Not a bad way re-introduction.
  7. Louisville (0.5, 1): Kentucky, Missouri State, North Carolina, @Florida International, @Southern Mississippi. The Cardinals go on the road to both FIU and Southern Miss? Color me perplexed.
  8. Connecticut (0.5, 0.5): Massachusetts, North Carolina State, @Maryland, @Western Michigan, Buffalo. Well, at least they’ll have that 5 game OOC schedule thing fixed soon.

This will probably be the last year I include the Big East in this feature. Next year they will lose Pitt and Syracuse (the last two programs other than Rutgers that have any vague semblance of “tradition” or “history”) and add Central Florida, Houston, Memphis, Southern Methodist, Boise State, and San Diego State. At that point, they’ll basically be what Conference USA was before all these shenanigans started. Provided it even happens at all, which I honestly still have doubts about.

    Rating the 2012 Non-Conference Slate: ACC

    First on the docket is the Atlantic Coast Conference. The format for this, and subsequent posts, is to list each team from 1-12 with the number of legit points in their OOC schedule and then number of FCS (the subdivision formerly known as DI-AA). There are lots of ties of course, which tend to be broken in arbitrary ways. Usually, I tend to favor a quantity of other major conference teams over quality simply because it’s harder to predict the ups-and-downs of your opponents (unless you’re scheduling Duke) and so playing two major conference teams is usually braver than playing just one. I also tend to slightly discount teams that are each other’s yearly rivalry. Generally, though, my main tiebreaker is the number of FCS teams played. Most teams play 1, but some play one or one of the transitional teams (which I count as “half” a FCS team), and a select few even play two. Anyway, let’s do this. Also, a “N-” means the game is at a neutral site, and teams in italics are FCS.

    1. Clemson (1.75 legit, 1 FCS): N-Auburn, Ball State, Furman, South Carolina. This is what I meant when I said that sometimes this is somewhat arbitrary. The neutral site game with Auburn should be fun once again, though, and is the most appealing out-of-conference ACC matchup.
    2. Miami (1.75, 1): @Kansas State, Bethune-Cookman, Notre Dame, South Florida. Yes, there’s three major conference teams here (though how much does the Big East really count anymore?) but I couldn’t put this over the top. Miami-Notre Dame is one of the few things that probably makes people wish it were the 80’s again, though.
    3. Florida State (1.5, 2): Murray State, Savannah State, @South Florida, Florida. This is your reminder that South Florida is not, in fact, in what most people would call southern Florida. Anyway, they should’ve just gone for the sweep and scheduled FAU and FIU.
    4. Virginia (1.25, 1): Richmond, Pennsylvania State, @Texas Christian, Louisiana Tech. I originally had Boston College ahead, but it’s not UVA’s fault what’s going on at Penn State and going to TCU is certainly a brave choice.
    5. Boston College (1.25, 1): Maine, @Northwestern, @Army, Notre Dame. Whereas BC plays Notre Dame all the time, and while Northwestern isn’t awful anymore they’re still Northwestern.
    6. Georgia Tech (1, 1): Presbyterian, Middle Tennessee State, Brigham Young, Georgia. There’s very little exciting about our OOC schedule this year. We play BYU for the first time since my freshman year in 2003. Hopefully we win this time.
    7. Virginia Tech (1, 1): Austin Peay, @Pittsburgh, Bowling Green, N-Cincinnati. This had the potential to be more exciting, but Pitt and Cincy are just too wildly inconsistent to get worked up about.
    8. Wake Forest (1,1): Liberty, Army, @Notre Dame, Vanderbilt. The Wake Forest-Vandy series continues, which is nice to see, though occasionally a bit confusing since they have the exact same color scheme.
    9. Maryland (0.75, 1): William & Mary, @Temple, Connecticut, @West Virginia. Maryland is getting kind of beat down thanks to the introduction of zeroes this year, but it’s not like they thought Temple was going to be in the Big East when they scheduled them. Also, how many points will WVU score on Maryland? My guess is somewhere around “a lot”.
    10. Duke (0.75, 1): Florida International, @Stanford, North Carolina Central, Memphis. I wonder if Duke will have more fans in Palo Alto than when Wake Forest came out here. I’ve got my doubts.
    11. North Carolina State (0.75, 1.5): N-Tennessee, @Connecticut, South Alabama, The Citadel. NC State playing Tennessee in Atlanta. It sort of makes sense, I guess. Maybe. Okay, not really, but it’s happening anyway.
    12. North Carolina (0.5, 1): Elon, @Louisville, East Carolina, Idaho. There’s not a whole lot to get excited about here, that’s for sure.

    Somewhat begrudgingly, next up is the Big East.

    Rating the 2012 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

    Yes folks, we’re back! Let’s talk about football.

    We’ve slightly tweaked the rules for this scheduling rating thing. For starters, there are four transitional members to the top level of Division I this year: Massachusetts, South Alabama, Texas State, and Texas-San Antonio. I’ve counted each of these as half a DI-AA (or DI-FCS) team, as they are not (for the most part) eligible for bowl games or conference championships. In years past, we also stuck to rating all BCS conference teams with a 0.25, 0.5, .75, or 1. However, we have now begun employing the zero rating for certain teams: Boston College, Duke, Maryland, Iowa State, Kansas, Connecticut, Temple, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Colorado, and Kentucky. Remember, this rating is a entirely subjective rating on our part of teams that we consider the “most desirable” for out-of-conference play, which as just as much to do with perception as it does them actually being any good (hence why Notre Dame still carries a 0.75).

    Also worth noting is the list of teams rated with a “1”: Florida State, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Oregon, Southern California, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana State. Breaking it down by conference, that’s 2 for the ACC, 3 for the Big 12, 0 for the Big East, 5 for the Big Ten, 2 for the Pac-12, and 5 for the SEC.

    Averaging everything out by conference, and you get:

    1. SEC (0.696 legit average)
    2. Big Ten (0.583)
    3. Big 12 (0.527)
    4. Pac-12 (0.5)
    5. ACC (0.479)
    6. Big East (0.357)

    The addition of zeroes definitely hurt the ACC, Big East, and Big 12 the most, but this is probably a more accurate rating overall.

    Anyway, we’ll be doing the usual conference-by-conference break down over the next several days. Until then!

    Rating the 2011 Non-Conference Slate: Epilogue

    The college football season, mercifully, starts today. But before getting into the schedule for the weekend, let’s take a quick look back at the best, and worst, of this season’s out-of-conference scheduling.

    First, some dishonorable mentions: North Carolina State (2 DI-AA teams, the only ones to do so this year) and Kentucky (for scheduling a neutral site game with Western Kentucky in Tennessee).

    But who had the worst overall schedules in college football? Well, here’s a sample of all the teams that got a 0 for their scheduling:

    • Virginia Tech: Appalachian State, @East Carolina, Arkansas State, Marshall. This is really kind of embarrassing. Appy State could well be the best team on the list. Nonetheless, it’s only the second or third worst schedule.
    • Washington State: Idaho State, Nevada-Las Vegas, @San Diego State. See, Wazzou is just kind of terrible, so this is at least understandable. As in, they’re so bad that it’s entirely possible they’ll lose to SDSU.
    • Mississippi State: @Memphis, Louisiana Tech, @Alabama-Birmingham, Tennessee-Martin. Also embarrassing. Miss State used to be bad, yes, but they’ve gotten better. There’s no reason to schedule like this anymore. Well, except for the four guaranteed wins I guess.
    • Texas Tech: Texas State, @New Mexico, Nevada. It’s either these guys or Miss State that’s the worst. I’m going to go with this, simply because Texas Tech has been on the “shame” list for three consecutive years now, and it’s not like Tommy Tuberville’s going to rock the boat in this regard.

     So who has the top schedule in all the land? Again, I am mostly considering not only score, but also interesting ineter-sectional matchups that aren’t rivalry games. So, without further adieu, the top six OOC schedules for the 2011 season are:
    6. Southern California: Minnesota, Syracuse, Notre Dame. Barely makes the list, but these are all major conference schools, technically. Er… maybe I should’ve just gone with a top 5. Anyway.
    5. Maryland: West Virginia, Temple, Towson, N-Notre Dame. UMD and WVU do play a lot, but it’s not an every-year sort of affair. Combined with the ND game and this is pretty decent.
    4. Florida State: Louisiana-Monroe, Charleston Southern, Oklahoma, @Florida. @Florida being a rivalry game hurts this schedule a bit, but that will be the icing on the cake if the Seminoles somehow triumph over the Sooners.
    3. Oregon State: Sacramento State, @Wisconsin, Brigham Young. Again, this is a good slate, with a cross-country road trip to Madison and a visit from the Stormin’ Mormons.
    2. Pittsburgh: Buffalo, Maine, @Iowa, Notre Dame, Utah. Feels like Pitt appears on this list every year, but at least they use the 5-game OOC schedule to their advantage. Yes, they play ND every year but Iowa is pretty underrated every year and Utah is Utah. Solid, and again, maybe a platform to do a little more than get to the Orange Bowl.
    1. Louisiana State: N-Oregon, Northwestern State, @West Virginia, Western Kentucky. Oregon and WVU on the same schedule made this decision pretty easy. Especially coming from a conference usually accused of ducking interesting OOC games, LSU knocks it out of the park with two potentially great and interesting games.

    And finally, let’s close with the conference “legit” averages. That is, the average “legit”-ness of each conference’s OOC schedule:

    1. Pac-12: 0.323
    2. ACC: 0.281
    3. Big East: 0.263
    4. Big 12: 0.25
    5. Big Ten: 0.203
    6. SEC: 0.203

    The tie between the Big Ten and SEC was broken by the number of DI-AA teams played (10 vs. 12, respectively).

    So, with that, let’s talk some actual football! I’m excited, you’re excited, we’re all excited! Stay tuned for the weekend TV guide.

    Rating the 2011 Non-Conference Slate: SEC

    And it is time, finally, for the Southeastern Conference. Fun fact: every SEC team plays a DI-AA team this year.

    1. Louisiana State (2 legit, 1 DI-AA): N-Oregon, Northwestern State, @West Virginia, Western Kentucky. Mea culpa: apparently when I wrote the WVU preview I said that game would be in Baton Rouge. Well, it isn’t. Flip everything around and what I wrote still applies, I think. As for the Oregon game, go look at the Pac-12 post.
    2. Georgia (1.5, 1): N-Boise State, Coastal Carolina, New Mexico State, @Georgia Tech. Man, I really hope Boise wins. That’s all I got for this.
    3. Alabama (1, 1): Kent State, @Pennsylvania State, North Texas, Georgia Southern. A rare, but highly encouraged, SEC-Big Ten matchup with two traditional powers meeting. Always in favor of that. Also, at least this GSU won’t be quite the punching bag the other one was.
    4. Arkansas (1, 1): Missouri State, New Mexico, Troy, N-Texas Agricultural and Mechanical. Even though it is part of a now long-running series, I still put Arkansas over Florida because the TAMU game isn’t required.
    5. Florida (1, 1): Florida Atlantic, Alabama-Birmingham, Furman, Florida State. Unlike the Florida-Florida State game. This is pretty much a bare minimum schedule right here.
    6. Auburn (0.75, 1): Utah State, @Clemson, Florida Atlantic, Samford. Again, see the above, re: optional OOC games versus rivalry games.
    7. South Carolina (0.75, 1): N-East Carolina, Navy, Citadel, Clemson. East Carolina keeps fooling me. They should just join the Big East already.
    8. Mississippi (0.5, 1): Brigham Young, Southern Illinois, @Fresno State, Louisiana Tech. This is almost kind of a real schedule for Ole Miss. BYU and a road game to a west coast school? Almost downright unheard of.
    9. Tennessee (0.5, 1): Montana, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Middle Tennessee State. Not much to see here, moving on.
    10. Vanderbilt (0.5, 1): Elon, Connecticut, Army, @Wake Forest. Well, even Vandy has to start from somewhere, and at least they’ve got a schedule that they should at least break even with.
    11. Kentucky (0.25, 1): N-Western Kentucky, Central Michigan, Louisville, Jacksonville State. Note that the Louisville game is a rivalry game. Are these guys even trying? Note that the Western Kentucky game is at a neutral site: Nashville. I’m not sure who thought it’d be great for two Kentucky schools to play a game in Tennessee. For a long time I’ve joked that Memphis is actually the capital of Mississippi – maybe Nashville serves a similar role for their neighbors to the north?
    12. Mississippi State (0, 1): @Memphis, Louisiana Tech, @Alabama-Birmingham, Tennessee-Martin. I wonder someone hoodwinked the Bulldogs into thinking Alabama still plays a couple of home games at Legion Field every year and didn’t realize they were going to play UAB until the schedule for this year had to be published.

    Next up, some final thoughts.