Category Archives: OOC schedules

Rating the 2008 Non-Conference Slate, Part 2: Big East

The Land of 5 Out-of-Conference games is next up. (Amazingly, despite having to schedule 5 OOC teams, none of them has 2 DI-AA teams. Huh.)

  1. Syracuse (2.25 legit, 1 DI-AA): @Northwestern, Akron, Penn State, @Notre Dame, Northeastern. Leaders by half a point, but in a way this schedule really isn’t even that legit since they’re probably being scheduled as a BCS patsy for at least two of these teams. They will probably be favored against Akron and Northeastern, though. Not sure about Northeastern’s similarly named Chicago counterpart, though.
  2. West Virginia (1.75, 1): Villanova, @Auburn, @Marshall, @Colorado, @East Carolina. Their game down at Auburn is probably one of my most looked-to intersectional matchups of the year. Kudos to both parties for scheduling it. That said, non-kudos to WVU for managing to only get 1 OOC home game.
  3. Cincinnati (1.5, 1): Eastern Kentucky, @Oklahoma, Miami (OH), @Akron, @Marshall, @Hawaii. Another good set of intersection matchups here for Cincy, though @Hawaii is obviously a shameless grab at a 13th game.
  4. Pittsburgh (1.5, 0): Bowling Green, Iowa, Buffalo, @Navy, @Notre Dame. Not much to write home about here, other than that none of these teams are in DI-AA! Though Buffalo should count towards that.
  5. Louisville (1.5, 1): Kentucky, Kansas State, Tennessee Tech, Memphis, Middle Tennessee State. After the disaster that was last season for the Cardinals, this schedule is actually pretty tough. Lucky for them, it’s all home games, and it’s hard to say if Kentucky or Kansas State will be improved from last year.
  6. Connecticut (1.5, 1): Hofstra, @Temple, Virginia, Baylor, @North Carolina. Two ACC teams, but otherwise not much to write home about. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the Huskies went 2-0 against them,
  7. South Florida (1.5, 1): Tennessee-Martin, @Central Florida, Kansas, @Florida International, @North Carolina State. It’s hard to say how good Kansas will be this year, but that’s the only interesting part of this schedule.
  8. Rutgers (1, 1): Fresno State, North Carolina, @Navy, Morgan State, Army. The last minute addition of Fresno State made this schedule not completely a joke. That said, it’s still pretty pathetic, especially since this is a program trying to “prove” itself.

Anyway, next up on our exciting journey is everyone’s favorite conference that’s not too good with counting, the Big Ten. See you then.

Rating the 2008 Non-Conference Slate, Part 1: ACC

Now that most of the dust seems to be settled for out-of-conference scheduling, let’s get this over with. First off, the ACC!

  1. Miami (2 legit, 1 DI-AA): Charleston Southern, @Florida, @Texas A&M, Central Florida. The Hurricanes meet the Gators for the first time since the 2004 Peach Bowl. They also go on the road to College Station. I realize that this is numerically inferior to UNC’s schedule, but I just cannot in good conscience put that schedule ahead of this one. Miami is, for starters, a better team than UNC still and is not being booked by other conferences as a patsy. Additionally, UF and TAMU are on the road, which is good for some bonus points. And both schools are probably better than UConn or Notre Dame.
  2. North Carolina (2.5, 1): McNeese State, @Rutgers, Connecticut, Notre Dame. Two Big East teams and Notre Dame add up to one of the toughest schedules in the ACC. I realize this is numerically ahead of Miami, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger on giving them the number one spot. I’m prepared to eat crow on this, though. Also, who expects UConn or Notre Dame to be any good? That said, they do get props for playing 3 BCS teams, even if two of them are from the Big East.
  3. Virginia (1.75, 1): Southern Cal, Richmond, @Connecticut, East Carolina. There are 4 teams with a 1.75 rating, but only one of them plays a single DI-AA team, so UVA gets the nod. Also, this USC is probably the single toughest opponent any ACC team will play this year. Unfortunately for the Cavs, though, they’d probably lose regardless of the difficulty of their schedule.
  4. Clemson (1.75, 2): N-Alabama, Citadel, South Carolina State, South Carolina. While Georgia Tech also plays 2 SEC teams, I’d say they average out to about the same strength. Mississippi State is probably worse than both Bama and South Carolina, but Georgia is probably better than both. Also, the Alabama game is going to be played in the Georgia Dome to open the season, so that should make for some good TV, if nothing else.
  5. Georgia Tech (1.75, 2): Jacksonville State, Mississippi State, Gardner-Webb, @Georgia. Thanks to Army pulling out of a home game for them, GT was forced to schedule Gardner-Webb. Still a tough schedule overall (well, relative to the ACC, anyway) with two SEC teams. I’m not sold on Miss State, but a lot of people seem to be very sold in UGA.
  6. Florida State (1.75, 2): Western Carolina, Tennessee-Chattanooga, N-Colorado, Florida. I’m not sold on the “neutrality” of Jacksonville, FL, but I put the N there anyway. If I’m not sold on Miss State, I’m definitely not sold on Colorado.
  7. North Carolina State (1.5, 1): @South Carolina, William & Mary, East Carolina, South Florida. The meat here is definitely with the Fightin’ Visors, but don’t count out the Pirates or Bulls.
  8. Wake Forest (1.25, 0): @Baylor, Mississippi, Navy, Vanderbilt. Not really that great of a schedule, but kudos for being the only ACC team to not play a DI-AA team this year (much less 2).
  9. Boston College (1.25, 1): @Kent State, Central Florida, Rhode Island, Notre Dame. I’m not sure if the Kent game is actually away or neutral, not that it really matters. BC lost pretty much all of their offense from last year so it remains to be seen how many of these teams they’ll actually be able to beat.
  10. Maryland (1, 1): Delaware, @Middle Tennessee State, California, Eastern Michigan. Cal is pretty much all you need to know about this schedule, the rest is cannon fodder. Regardless of how good Maryland is going to be this year (and they shouldn’t be terrible), they should be 3-1 at worst against this OOC schedule.
  11. Virginia Tech (1, 1.5): East Carolina, Furman, @Nebraska, Western Kentucky. The highlight here is obviously at Nebraska, not that it troubled USC much last year. In case you’re wondering about the “1.5” in the DI-AA column, Western Kentucky is a “transitional” D-I member. Next year they will be a full DI-A member in the Sun Belt.
  12. Duke (0.75, 1): James Madison, Northwestern, Navy, @Vanderbilt. Duke finally schedules down to their level. Northwestern probably wants revenge for last year, and frankly I can’t see any reason Duke will win any of these games except for maybe the one against JMU.

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Next up: the Big East!

Rating the Non-Conference Slate 2008: Prologue

It’s almost that time again. I’d start, but the Big East and some other teams haven’t released their schedules yet so we can’t finish the rankings.

You may recall the series I did last year, where the rankings were almost completely arbitrary. This year, A5 and I went through and assigned each BCS team a ranking on a scale of 0.25-1, where 0.25 was the least desirable and 1 the most desirable. “Desirability”, of course, is still subjective, but generally our criteria were “would I look forward to playing this team?”, “how consistent has this team been in the past 5-6 years?”, and “how good was this team last year?” This means the rankings have a good mix of last year’s flashes in the pan (Mississippi State) and traditional powers that had bad years (Notre Dame).

Since we’ve already ranked all the teams, I can tell you which teams got 1’s and where each conference stands. So first, the teams: Boston College, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Nebraska, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Penn State, Notre Dame, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Southern Cal, Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.

The conferences ranked as such:

  1. SEC (0.854 average)
  2. Big 12 (0.75)
  3. ACC (0.729)
  4. Big Ten (0.727)
  5. Pac-10 (0.725)
  6. Big East (0.656)

Is there some bias here? A little. But the main thing hurting the Pac-10 is that the bottom of the Pac-10 is pretty terrible: Washington State, Washington, Stanford, and Arizona got 0.5 or less, and so with 10 teams this affects their average a lot.

Anyway, once we have complete schedules we’ll start the whole series. Until next time!

Rating the Non-Conference Slate, Part 6: SEC

We haven’t exactly been saving the best for last here at asimsports. In fact, I’ve just been going in alphabetical order, or if you really want to use a big word to use at cocktail parties, lexicographical order.

So, here we go with the Southeastern Conference:

  1. Georgia (2 legit, 1 DI-AA): Oklahoma State, Western Carolina, Troy, @Georgia Tech. It pains me to say a team that has not traveled outside of the South for a non-conference game since 1965 when they visited Ann Arbor has the toughest OOC schedule in the SEC, but here it is. They are one of only 3 SEC teams to even play 2 BCS opponents of any sort, much less two legit BCS teams. Next year, however, UGA will actually be going to Arizona State with the return trip to Stillwater in 2009.
  2. South Carolina (2, 1): UL-Lafayette, South Carolina State, @North Carolina, Clemson. Actually going to UNC is a nice touch here – too bad UNC kinda sucks.
  3. Auburn (1, 1): Kansas State, South Florida, New Mexico State, Tennessee Tech. If you recall my statement from earlier about 3 SEC teams playing 2 BCS opponents, you’ll know it’s all downhill from here. There’s some marquee matchups below, sure, but still. Also, I was going to make fun of USF here, but then I remembered they’re probably better than Kansas State. Alas.
  4. Tennessee (1, 0): @California, Southern Miss, Arkansas State, UL-Lafayette. Zounds! A SEC team traveling not only out of the South, but clear across the damn country! Unbelievable! Of course, it rapidly goes off a cliff after Souther Miss with two Sun Belt teams, but hey.
  5. Louisiana State (1, 0): Virginia Tech, Middle Tennessee State, @Tulane, Louisiana Tech. Perhaps the best OOC matchup for the entire SEC is LSU-VT. Absolutely nothing after that, though. Also, “at” Tulane? I’m sure the Green Wave will be the ones filling the Superdome to capacity. Yeah.
  6. Alabama (1, 1): Western Carolina, Florida State, Houston, UL-Monroe. The FSU game is actually going to be in Jacksonville, a move I wholly commend. I’m all for neutral site marquee matchups and I hope that series continues.
  7. Mississippi State (1, 1): @Tulane, Jacksonville State, Alabama-Birmingham, @West Virginia. @WVU isn’t bad, but is overshadowed by the better and more interesting matchups above. Also, Miss State is really bad and probably got scheduled as a BCS conference patsy.
  8. Mississippi (1, 1): @Memphis, Missouri, Louisiana Tech, Northwestern State. You know, I (and some other Tennesseans I know) consider Memphis part of Mississippi anyway, so is that really much of a road game? Between that and Mizzou is a nice attempt to make this look like a real schedule, but I know better. Also, 2 Louisiana schools and the UL-UM pick’em isn’t one of them? Shocking.
  9. Florida (1, 1,): Western Kentucky, Troy, Florida Atlantic, Florida State. Shame on you, UF. 2 Sun Belt teams, a DI-AA team that is moving to DI-A in football in 2009 because of Title IX. (You read that correctly.) If you didn’t have to play FSU every year, who would you play as the 4th team? (I firmly believe UM, FSU, and UF should all have to play each other.)
  10. Vanderbilt (1, 1): Richmond, Eastern Michigan, Miami (OH), Wake Forest. The Vandy of the ACC meets the Wake Forest of the SEC! Exciting! At least they’re not being scheduled as a BCS patsy this year.
  11. Kentucky (1,1): Eastern Kentucky, Kent State, Louisville, Florida Atlantic. Once again, if they didn’t have to play Louisville….
  12. Arkansas (0, 1): Troy, North Texas, Tennessee-Chattanooga, Florida International. 3 Sun Belt teams and a DI-AA Team. This may the worst schedule in major college football. I’m pretty sure there’s a Houston Nutt cellphone joke to be worked in somewhere, but I just can’t muster the spirit for it.

Well, that was depressing. Conclusions in the near future.

Rating the Non-Conference Slate, Part 5: Pac-10

It’s time, kids, for the round-up of the wondrous conference with only 3 OOC games.

So, without further delay, I give you my completely subjective and arbitrary rankings of the Pacific 10’s out of conference schedules:

  1. Southern Cal (2 legit, 0 DI-AA): Idaho, @Nebraska, @Notre Dame. Even if USC kills Nebraska, the Pac-10’s crown jewel has 2 non-conference road games against marquee teams.
  2. Washington (2, 0): @Syracuse, Boise State, Ohio State. Home game with OSU is huge, and they also go across the country to the Carrier Dome. Boise State isn’t terrible either.
  3. Oregon (1, 0): Houston, @Michigan, Fresno State. Once again, another team wishes Fresno didn’t suck last year. Houston didn’t, which helps, but the biggest thing here is the away game in Ann Arbor.
  4. Washington State (1, 0): @Wisconsin, San Diego State, Idaho. SDSU is at a “neutral” site (Seattle), and the Idaho game is once again in Pullman, shockingly! (Not.) @Wisconsin is the beef here.
  5. California (1, 0): Tennessee, @Colorado State, Louisiana Tech. Rematch of last year’s debacle in Knoxville, and they also play a Mountain West team on the road for some reason. A solid 5 spot for the Bears.
  6. UCLA (1, 0): BYU, @Utah, Notre Dame. ND also has lots of games against Pac-10 teams for whatever reason. UCLA also hits the Utah circuit but resisted the temptation to schedule Utah State.
  7. Stanford (1, 0): San Jose State, Texas Christian, Notre Dame. Notre Dame again. SJSU makes the 30 minute drive up the 101 to Palo Alto. TCU isn’t terrible, but this lacks the meat of the WSU, Cal, and UCLA schedules.
  8. Arizona State (0, 0): San Jose State, Colorado, San Diego State. ASU shouldn’t need to use their fine ladies to distract these three teams. The key word there is “shouldn’t”.
  9. Oregon State (0, 1): Utah, @Cincinnati, Idaho State. One of only two Pac-10 teams to schedule a DI-AA team. Not exactly inspiring DI-A choices, either. Could switch places easily with ASU due to having to go on the road, though.
  10. Arizona (0, 1): @BYU, Northern Arizona, New Mexico. Ugh. @BYU is decent, but canceled out by being one of only 2 Pac-10 teams to schedule a DI-AA team.

So, yeah, I goofed in my original writeup that only 1 Pac-10 team scheduled a DI-AA team: I forgot to count Idaho State as DI-AA. My bad. Anyway, within a few days the last remaining conference should be posted, the SEC. And I’ll follow that up with a summary and my final thoughts. Until then…