It’s about time to be making a list of the important Out-Of-Conference games to be played this coming season.
Have any lists already been posted by the media? If so, please link to them.
Otherwise, name your own.
For an overview of the upcoming season, check out this article from April 11, 2011 by Mike Huguenin, Rivals.com College Football Editor
The National Championship (aka SEC Championship) Game. (someone had to say it)
10-4, Bubba!
Check out http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=rivals-1210668 for
Huguenin’s got the important games coming early in the season. That can’t be right, can it?
Not an OOC, but the inaugural Big Ten title game will be historic. Not thrilled with Indy for a venue, Detroit would have been a better choice.
Here are a couple of places for the entire season’s schedule:
Notre Dame vs Michigan and Michigan State should be great games. ND should be better being one more year removed from Charlie W. Michigan is going to be much better this year with RichRod gone. Brady Hoke seems to have the players bought into him already from what I hear. MSU and ND always seem to put on a good show, though it will be hard to top last year’s fake FG win for MSU.
Why is LSU playing Oregon in Texas?
It seems that the success of the big opener in Atlanta has prompted other big venues to go for a competitive slice of that pie. That’s all I can figure: MONEY!
FWIW, Auburn’s only significant OOC game is an 11:00 AM dofunny with Clemson. Could be a good game, but early games have been a thorn in AU’s side for years.
These were OOC games. The SEC/ACC are typically the only conferences that play many of their OOC games after Oct 1. And those games are against each other. And the ACC usually sucks. There is FSU/UF, GT/UGA and Clemson/USC on the last regular season weekend.
Here’s the 2011 SEC Schedule.
Ole Miss opens at home against BYU. That may be a long afternoon for the Hoddy Toddy crowd.
Penn State could have sold 250,000 tickets to the Alabama game. At least.
were you counting Bama fans? if not, then it would have likely been 400,000.
I can’t access the sites while at work, but surely the Pac12 teams have some really good games. Every year, they’re playing good teams outside their region. The Pac10 (now 12) teams generally aren’t anywhere near good enough for a MNC, but it’s by far my favorite conference to watch for pure entertainment.
I really think a contributing reason why the SEC does so well is there scheduling. And I am not talking about Cupcakes, ALL conferences schedule cupcakes. The SEC starts with 2 conference games in the 2nd week, 3 conference games in the third week, and 4 conference games in the 4th week. the SEC can schedule their cupcake homecoming games in October/November as a breather week, a week to heal and gives their 2nd and 3rd strings a chance to play in mid-season.
Florida has a brutal 3 week stretch in October, Bama at home, @LSU and @AUB although I don’t expect Auburn to be very good this year. But that is one recent Nat’l Champ playing three recent Nat’l champs in a row.
I am looking for UGA to have two games in a row in Atlanta. One at Grant Field and then the Ga Dome in the SEC Championship. I think they might be getting the three weakest sisters of the Western Division. @OleMiss, and home against Auburn, and MSU (Sorry Oak). If they beat Spurrier in week 2 (at Home) , they should have it relatively easy until Florida and then Auburn.
I dunno that MSU counts as a weak sister anymore. They beat the snot out of Michigan in the Gator Bowl last year, 52-14. Bulldog Nation is more optimistic than they’ve been in a long time…
Michigan wasn’t Michigan last year. The players quit on RichRod and he quit on them. Everybody knew that he was on the way out and nobody busted a nut for him in the last several games.
I do see some merit in the SEC scheduling model- get some conference games out of the way early, sprinkle in the patsies later. The Big Ten doesn’t do itself any favors by putting all the OOC games at the start of the year, after playing Wisconsin and Nebraska back to back it might be a good thing to take a week off, rest your starters, and beat the snot out of Eastern Michigan.
Sorry Oak, but one season does not make a trend. “Bulldog Nation” won 4 and 5 games in 2008 and 2009. I am not saying that they won’t do well this season, but as former resident of Mississippi, I have seen the Rebel and Bulldog Bandwagon lose a wheel too many times in the last 30 yrs.
I’m not sure who gets it as the “home” game, but it allows one of the teams to schedule one more home game on their schedule, and has the added bonus of recruiting in a huge football state without having to play a team from that state.
So have I, but this is July, and we’re still a contender. Maybe not so much in Mid-October. We’ll see. But I love my Bully-dogs, win, lose, or draw.