Here’s a handy reference for Week 1 that may be useful for picking the games to follow:
http://www.mattsarzsports.com/2011/Week1Text.aspx
It would appear that ABC and ESPN had a pissing contest that neither of them won:
Oregon vs. LSU
(at Arlington, TX) ABC HD Sep 3 2011 8:00PM
Boise St. vs. Georgia
(at Atlanta, GA) ESPN HD Sep 3 2011 8:00PM
Aren’t ABC/ESPN part of the same Disney family? Obviously, the LSU/Oregon is the headline game of the week. I am betting ESPN will be in Arlington for GameDay. The B-Game is Boise/UGA.
Does CBS still have the SEC game of the week? I don’t see any game in Zeldar’s TV link
That’s what’s so amazing about the ESPN/ABC thing!
As for CBS, Southeastern Conference (bottom of page) shows several SEC games not yet scheduled for TV. Maybe CBS is waiting for some sign that one is a better draw then the others? Beats me.
More details on CBS at http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/tv-programming/cbs-sports-puts-out-their-2011-sec-college-football-schedule.html
Wow. An SEC team is playing a competitive team outside of the South. That happens about once a decade or two.
::sigh:: I guess Lamar Mundane :rolleyes: wants to go through this argument once again, after I quashed it last year. IIRC, Last year he crowing about Wisconsin going to play at schools like UNLV and Fresno St. Big 10 schools like Wisconsin and Minnesota have to leave the region to play a non-conference BCS school. Iowa St is the closest BCS OOC school. Big Whoop.
FTR. Tennessee went to UCLA in 2008. UGA went to Ariz St in 2008 and Oklahoma St in 2009. LSU has gone to Arizona and Seattle to play games in the last few years. Auburn has gone to West Virgina. Yes, SEC teams play most of their OOC games in the region, mainly because there is a big overlapping BCS conference in the region. It is called the ACC.
The fact that the SEC doesn’t can hurt their recruiting. I live in Missouri and one of the “cons” of not joining the Big 10 was that they feared losing their big recruiting base in Texas. Kids know that Missouri is going to make at least one trip a year back to Texas while playing in the Big 12 (or whatever it is called). If they had joined the Big 10, Missouri would have lost a big chunk of their recruiting area. IMO, SEC teams are at a competitive disadvantage of recruits from Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, etc.
Oh yeah, that’s true. This is the time when I wish I still had my Penn State student season ticket…
I still might go just to walk down College Avenue, which will be nuts.
Florida is the only team that most definitely doesn’t leave the SE region for non-conference games, which of course means they don’t leave the region. Sure, they play FSU every year out of conference, but that sort of rivalry doesn’t stop South Carolina & Clemson, UGA & GT, Michigan (and MSU, and USC) & ND (bad example) from having 2 tough non-conference games every year. I think pretty much every other SEC team has left the region for a non-conference game against another BCS conference team, and surely some of them will line up 2 tough non-conference games every now and then. Florida is the exception, but they’re punks.
/Go Canes!
I don’t think South Carolina has left SEC/Carolina region since they joined the SEC in the regular season. Again, they play BCS opponents that are just a couple hundred miles away. Clemson, TarHeels, NC St Wolfpack.
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Here’s a list built in January to compare with Huguenin’s. It’s from Top 10 OOC Games for the 2011 College Football Season | More Sports
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I would have thought that by now there would be plenty of similar lists out. I must not be searching properly. Have you seen others?
This might be an easier task if we limit our lists to those OOC games for our favorite conferences, instead of the entire Division I field. Just a thought.
Zeldar, CFB just doesn’t have that many marquee OOC games. Most the top teams typically only schedule 1 top tier OOC team, and they are scheduled way ahead of time. And it could be a victim of timing. When the teams agreed to play each other, both teams might have been a perennial contender for a National title (eg: Notre Dame, Florida State, Miami) and are no longer a serious threat.
I don’t think anyone would think Florida State would be struggling to go to bowl games after the years they had in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. But that is exactly what has happened and many people are dismissing the Gator’s OOC schedule because FSU is down.
Precious few of those are OOC games!
And it you read the actual article(s) there’s much that has changed since January, so even this list probably needs revising.
Still, it’s a way to kill time until kickoff!
Here’s an interesting article for SEC fans:
http://www.southernpigskin.com/SEC/view/sec-out-of-conference
SEC Out of Conference
By Jeremy Hillman
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And this is the SEC OOC Schedule (courtesy of Yahoo! Sports) that you may want to work with and see how many (if any) are “must see” games.
SEC OOC 2011
EAST
Florida
Sat, Sep 3 Florida Atlantic
Sat, Sep 10 UAB
Sat, Nov 19 Furman
Sat, Nov 26 Florida State
Georgia
Sat, Sep 3 Boise State
Sat, Sep 17 Coastal Carolina
Sat, Nov 5 New Mexico State
Sat, Nov 26 at Georgia Tech
Kentucky
Thu, Sep 1 at Western Kentucky
Sat, Sep 10 Central Michigan
Sat, Sep 17 Louisville
Sat, Oct 22 Jacksonville State
South Carolina
Sat, Sep 3 at East Carolina
Sat, Sep 17 Navy
Sat, Nov 19 Citadel
Sat, Nov 26 Clemson
Tennessee
Sat, Sep 3 Montana
Sat, Sep 10 Cincinnati
Sat, Oct 1 Buffalo
Sat, Nov 5 Middle Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Sat, Sep 3 Elon
Sat, Sep 10 Connecticut
Sat, Oct 22 Army
Sat, Nov 26 at Wake Forest
WEST
Alabama
Sat, Sep 3 Kent State
Sat, Sep 10 at Penn State
Sat, Sep 17 North Texas
Sat, Nov 19 Georgia Southern
Arkansas
Sat, Sep 3 Missouri State
Sat, Sep 10 at New Mexico
Sat, Sep 17 Troy
Sat, Oct 1 at Texas A&M
Auburn
Sat, Sep 3 Utah State
Sat, Sep 17 at Clemson
Sat, Sep 24 Florida Atlantic
Sat, Nov 19 Samford
LSU
Sat, Sep 3 at Oregon
Sat, Sep 10 Northwestern State
Sat, Sep 24 at West Virginia
Sat, Nov 12 Western Kentucky
Mississippi
Sat, Sep 3 Brigham Young
Sat, Sep 10 Southern Illinois
Sat, Oct 1 at Fresno State
Sat, Nov 12 Louisiana Tech
Mississippi State
Thu, Sep 1 at Memphis
Sat, Sep 24 Louisiana Tech
Sat, Oct 8 at UAB
Sat, Nov 5 Tennessee-Martin
Not too impressive: I took the time to develop a NFM ranking of OOC strength.
4 = against a perennial top ~10 football team
3 = against any BCS school or one that plays like a BCS school. (eg BYU)
2 = Non BCS Div I-A school
1 = Div I-AA School
Florida 8
UGA 9
UK 8
USC 8
UT 8
Vandy 9
Bama 9
ARK 8
AUB 8
LSU 10
Miss 8
MSU 7
To be sure I interpret the NFM measure (notfrommensa?) properly, is it for the upcoming season and the opponents being played? A “perfect” score would then be 16 with all four OOC opponents being “against a perennial top ~10 football team” teams? and the lowest possible would be 4? Or would it be even less?
On the basis of your scoring system, who do you suppose in the FBS has the best score this season? Wild guess?
For schools that have 8 conference games, yes 16 perfect score in the NFM scale. Not going to happen. PAC-12 schools play 9 conference games so the best that they can do is 12 points.
Upon further review, I probably should have made it a 5 point schedule, adding a level to between 3 and 4 for really good BCS schools that are in the top 25 semi-regularly. That would pick up schools like FSU, West Virginia, Tex A/M, and Clemson to differentiate them from the Dukes, Iowa States and the Indianas of the BCS conferences.
So going with that scale, 20 points would be the max and I would be shocked if any conference school would be over 13 points. with the new and improved NFM scale, the SEC would look something like:
Florida 9 (elevated FSU from a 3 to a 4)
UGA 11 (elevated BYU and GT from a 3 to a 4). GT is my alma mater and it is my scale!
UK 8
USC 9 (elevated Clemson from a 3 to a 4)
UT 8
Vandy 9
Bama 10 (elevated PSU from a 4 to a 5)
ARK 9 (elevated Tex A/M from a 3 to a 4)
AUB 9 (elevated Clemson from a 3 to a 4)
LSU 11 (elevated Oregon from a 4 to a 5)
Miss 8
MSU 7
The 5-scale is my personal preference over the 4-scale, for the reasons you state.
Do you have a feel for which team or which conference has better NFM scores yet?
If I took the time to analyze all the conferences, PAC12 conference would probably have the highest avg per team. (but they have only 3 OOC games, if 2011 is like recent years). IMO, Big 12 would probably have the lowest average. Big 10 would probably be rated very close to the SEC, depending a little on whether Notre Dame is level 3 or level 4 opponent. Recent history would say that ND should be a category 3. ACC might rank the highest as they typically schedule more OOC BCS teams per school than any other conference.
According to the colley matrix, in 2010 ACC played 19 OOC against BCS (including ND) teams. 1.58 BCS team/school. SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and PAC 10 are noticeably lower than that. PAC10 was handicapped by 3 OOC games and the Big East has more, but they have 5 OOC games.
I only counted regular season scheduled games, not bowl games. The colley matrix included bowl games.
These two games should definitely be on the list. The situation at ND is a big unknown. Can a coaching change turn it around? They have always had the recruits but most of the blue chip recruits that put them at the top of the recruiting lists have been huge disappointments. It’s a program that survives on smoke and mirrors.
UM had talent that was totally misused and abused under RichRod. Can a new coach mine the available talent? NCAA sanctions will have an effect but to what degree?
MSU overachieved due to great coaching but then got exposed by Alabama in the bowl game due to not being able to play with them at the same level with them in the non-skilled positions. The line play was a total mismatch.
The point being that those games will tell us a lot about the true status of all three programs. It’s not so much about who wins or who loses but may say a lot about what their true direction is.
Are any of the three programs on the road to competing for a NC or is the system so rigged in favor of the SEC that it is all a farce?
(It’s probably all a farce.)