Hey, now! You’re forgetting my Michigan State Spartans at 9-4 in 2008!
Purely an oversight. Go Sparty.
Thanks. Though one of those losses was in the Bay area last year. A winnable game against a decent Cal team.
I was there. You guys never had a prayer. 
Florida is an excellent example from your perspective, to be sure. That being said, they & the SEC in general aren’t scheduling any more cupcakes than any other conference. That is my point - not that their OOC scheduling is tougher.
That is wrong in three ways.
(1) 3 + 3 = 6 and they play 12 games. That is a guaranteed .500 record, but not a winning record.
(2) ACC had 10 out of 12 bowl eligible teams last year and would have had 11 if Virginia had beaten Va Tech in the last regular season game. (there was a lot of parity in the ACC last year)
(3) And just because there might be 3 non-bowl eligible teams in your conference, does not mean that your team will play them all. The three major 12 team conferences (Big XII, SEC, ACC) all play 8 conference games so there are three teams within the conference that a team will not play. It would be an anomaly in the schedule to play all three teams.
You can go to a bowl game with a 6-6 record.
And that “anomaly” is exactly what happened to Florida this year. Thanks to the split conference, they get 3 sub-500 teams, and miss Ole Miss and Bama. No wonder they’re a unanimous pick to go to the BCSNCG – their second string could go 11-1.
But conference scheduling is what it is; no one can blame a team for how their conference schedule works out (although I will take this opportunity to trumpet the Pac-10’s round robin. Everybody plays everybody, so this conversation does not happen.)
But you can fault a team for their OOC schedule.
Yes, A 6-6 record is bowl eligible but it is not a winning record.
The SEC Champioship game may take care of that: Chances are if Florida runs the table, they will either play Bama, or Ole Miss in the SEC championship game or play LSU a second time.
You need to trumpet the Big East conference as well they play a round robin too.
As I indicated in above post, Florida’s OOC is somewhat hampered by the fact they play a home/home series with FSU every year. And they play Miami in a home and home fairly often.
Teams that have natural rivalries with in-state OOC opponents do not have as many opportunties to play a national game.
OK…here’s Florida’s OOC road games from 1946 - 2004, not counting Miami.
The amazing thing is that for most of these years, Florida played 8 or 9 homes games.
Note: Georgia Tech was in the SEC from 1933 to 1973, so they don’t count as an OOC road game.
1946: North Carolina
1947: NC State
1948: Furman
1949: Tulsa
1950: none
1951: Loyola-Marymount
1952: none
1953: Rice
1954: Rice
1955: none
1956: none
1957: none
1958: UCLA (whoa!)
1959: Rice
1960: none
1961: Rice
1962: none
1963: none
1964: Florida State
1965: Northwestern
1966: Florida State, NC State
1967: none
1968: Florida State, North Carolina
1969: none
1970: Florida State
1971: none
1972: Florida State
1973: none
1974: Florida State
1975: NC State
1976: Florida State
1977: Rice
1978: Georgia Tech, Florida State
1979: Houston
1980: Georgia Tech, Florida State
1981: none
1982: Tulane
1983: USC (whoa!)
1984: Florida State
1985: none
1986: Florida State
1987: none
1988: Florida State
1989: Memphis
1990: Florida State
1991: Syracuse
1992: Florida State
1993: none
1994: Florida State
1995: none
1996: Florida State
1997: none
1998: Florida State
1999: none
2000: Florida State
2001: none
2002: Florida State
2003: none
2004: Florida State
So in 59 years, they’ve ventured out of state 22 times. They’ve ventured out of the South 6 times (and that’s counting Tulsa).
FTR, Ga Tech became Independent in 1964.
what happened in years 2005-2008?
And why did you leave out Miami? There are 22 road games with Miami.
Most of those years they played 8 or 9 home games? Are you counting the neutral field of Jacksonville Gator Bowl (vs UGA) a home game? I can assure you, it is not a home game.
Since 1990, UF played at the most 7 games in Gainesville
Michigan, on the other hand, has played as many as 8 games in Ann Arbor.
My encyclopedia stops at 2004.
I left out Miami because the author of the original article blasting Florida also left out Miami, and came up with 10 road games. I wanted to see if that was right, and it wasn’t.
The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party may not be a home game for Florida, but it’s not a home game for Georgia, either.
And just for comparison purposes: in the same time span Cal went out of state OOC 64 times. (yes, Cal has an additional opportunity because they don’t have a traditional OOC rival. But that’s precisely the point. Florida has wrapped themselves in a very comfortable cocoon of Florida State, Miami, and one visitor.)
This may sound strange, but does anyone have a recording of the Ga Tech - Clemson game? Me and my roommate got hit by the game winning field goal, and I was hoping someone had a screencap, maybe from the ESPN HD coverage.
Yeah, and as Michigan fan it makes me sad. Due to the economy the football team has pretty much been told they are going to fund the entire athletic department. They were looking for an opener next year for the stadium grand reopening. The school budget is based on an 8 home game season now. They were trying to find a top opponent who wouldn’t require a return game. They screwed around so long negotiating they ended up with UConn. Technically a big six school, but a weak ass one, and they still have to play the return game.
I think the original article excluded FSU, not Miami.
West Coast teams are going to have to go out of their 500 mile radius simply because there are not as many teams out West as there are in the East. There are 11 BCS schools in west of the Kansas/Colorado Border. Colorado + the PAC10. I figure that there are 18 BCS schools within 500 miles of Atlanta (GT, UGA, UF, FSU, Aub, Bama, Miss St, Ole Miss, Vandy, TN, UK, Va Tech, Wake, Duke, UNC, NC State, Clemson, USCarolina. Virginia might be within 500 miles and LSU is definitely within 600 miles.
Ohhh yeah, suck it ND bitches The game that wasn’t against USC that you thought you could never lose. 
Go Blue, Haill the the victors baby, I said HAIL!
A Little bit drunk, and between parties, I will return with more incredible insights later.
Will Charlie Weis get fired before the end of the season?
I thought he did a terrible job in this game. Clausen was spot on with passes and Weis keeps calling low percentage bombs down the sidelines.
Time management on Notre Dame last possession was terrible (next to last if you want to get technical).
Damn. My Spartans will not make the title game this year. They’re from the caste in which they’d have to be 12-0 to get in, and then only if fairer-haired teams have at least 2 losses. At least they lost to an NFL quarterback.
Kudos to Michigan for knocking off the Irish. Also to Houston for beating Okie State. Still pulling for Big Ten to go 10-1 again.
The ND linebackers were calling UM stupid for starting a freshman QB. Who’s the stupid one now? Forcier had his way with them.
A lot of the lesser opponents Michigan schedules make more a lot of money playing in the bighouse., more than they would if Mich. played them away.
Mussberger is doing the USC v Ohio State game. He could make a meth freak nod off.