My whole point in bringing up the Notre Dame/Purdue series was to identify intra-state non-conference games against BCS opponents.
The SEC has 4 big games intra-state rivalries with BCS opponents that are non conference games to go along with their SEC schedule.
The Big 10 [sic] has two opportunites for such rivalries that are not exploited. Penn St does not play Pitt every year and Ohio St does not play Cincinnati. I also postulated that Ohio St prefers to play non BCS in state school like Youngstown State, games which don’t get much National attention.
I just cut and pasted the conference to conference results (into excel and then gave the summary per conf), not sure how to get at conf to conf within a specific date range.
How do you think that would help a conference? Are you thinking that fewer games against other big 6 conf means higher probability of playing a bottom feeder of that conference?
Going back to the mid 90’s, Ohio State has scheduled home at home or neutral game sites with Notre Dame (played in the mid 90’s, scheduled when ND was a powerhouse), Miami, West Virginia, Missouri, UCLA, Arizona, Washington (when they were ranked), Pitt, Texas, and USC. Virginia Tech is up next, I believe.
I don’t think you could find many schools willing to schedule as many tough out of conferences opponents as OSU has in recent years. Yes they play a few cupcakes every year–everyone does–but they have stepped up to the plate as well as or better than everyone else in college football.
Yeah, you can knock a lot of teams but my Buckeyes definitely have stepped up to the plate in scheduling out of conference opponents.
The biggest problem I have with OSU’s schedule is that it ends towards the end of November. They need to push back the Michigan game to early/mid december, come up with a Big 10 championship game, or schedule a tough OOC opponent. A month and a half between games is way too much time for rust to form.
Should we do like baseball, and start a monthly (eg, “College Football September”) thread?
Just so we can all laugh & point…Lou Holtz picked ND to be in the BCS Championship Game. He did pick them to lose, however…which shows he’s clinging to a few threads of reality.
I will reluctantly concede the point that the SEC is currently the best conference, by a slight margin. They only embarrass themselves with their reluctance to play good teams on the road, though. And we should also mention: Auburn 3, So Miss 2. Just because that never gets old.
SEC schedules are much better now than they were 10 years ago. Most have at least one solid home-and-home scheduled this year and several have 2. Someone truly ignorant was giving UGA a hard time earlier in the thread despite the fact that we have @Oklahoma State (#9), Arizona State, and @Georgia Tech (#15) on the schedule this year.
In 1997, Florida State’s non-con schedule was Miami, Florida and USC.
When OSU scheduled Washington, they might have been ranked, but they were 6-6 and 4-9 in the two years that played OSU.
Missouri has only recently become a very good football team.
Ohio State does try to schedule one out of four Non-con games, but 5 of 6 their other non-con games have been against in-state cupcakes in the last two years:
2007: Youngstown, Akron, Kent
2008: Youngstown, Ohio U, (Troy St was the other game)
I admitted, in the post you quoted yourself, that OSU plays cupcakes in the non-conference every year. Everyone does so. My point is that OSU makes a habit of scheduling at least 1 very tough opponent every year, and not many teams do even that.
OSU can’t help that Washington wasn’t as solid as expected when they played them. The date you schedule a team says more about your program than their record when you finally face them.
Are you using Florida State’s one tough year as proof that they are on par with OSU’s type of scheduling?
As I said, OSU schedules as tough or tougher than any other marquee program in the nation.
FSU plays Florida and Miami OOC every year. That probably beats your 1 solid OOC team most seasons.
Just about every decent SEC school has a tough OOC opponent. Auburn plays WVU, Bama plays VT, SC plays Clemson & NCState, Georgia has 3 tough OOC teams (& GT every year), LSU is going to Washington, Tennnessee always steps up for 1 game (UCLA this year), Florida has FSU every year, etc. Even the lesser teams like Ole Miss & UK such go home and home with Memphis & Louisville every year.
Sounds good to me. As I said, OSU schedules as tough or tougher than most marquee programs. I don’t see that we are arguing here.
I would prefer OSU to keep scheduling like they did in the mid 90’s, 2 or 3 tough opponents almost every single year–but the advent of the BCS has caused them to go away from this, along with everyone else.
If FSU didn’t have so much wrapped up in playing Miami and Florida every year, I guarantee you they would jump right out of those games and into 2 cupcakes.
Let’s look at the non-conference games in the SEC and Big Ten. First the Superest Ever Conference.
The Good
Georgia @ Oklahoma State
Arizona State @ Georgia
Georgia @ Georgia Tech
Kentucky @ Miami (OH)
Louisville @ Kentucky
South Carolina @ North Carolina State
South Carolina @ Clemson
UCLA @ Tennessee
Vanderbilt @ Rice
Georgia Tech @ Vanderbilt
Virginia Tech @ Alabama
West Virginia @ Auburn
LSU @ Washington
Mississippi @ Memphis
Alabama Birmingham @ Mississippi
Georgia Tech @ Mississippi State
Houston @ Mississippi State
Florida State @ Florida
Vanderbilt @ Army
Arkansas v Texas A&M
The Bad
Tennessee Tech @ Georgia
Troy @ Florida
Florida International @ Florida
Louisiana Monroe @ Kentucky
Florida Atlantic @ South Carolina
Western Kentucky @ Tennessee
Ohio @ Tennessee
Memphis @ Tennessee
Western Carolina @ Vanderbilt
Florida International @ Alabama
North Texas @ Alabama
Louisiana Tech @ Auburn
Ball State @ Auburn
Louisiana Lafayette @ LSU
Tulane @ LSU
Louisiana Tech @ LSU
Mississippi State @ Middle Tennessee State
Eastern Michigan @ Arkansas
Troy @ Arkansas
The Ugly
Charleston Southern @ Florida
Chattanooga @ Alabama
Eastern Kentucky @ Kentucky
South Carolina State @ South Carolina
Furman @ Auburn
Southeastern Louisiana @ Mississippi
Northern Arizona @ Mississippi
Jackson State @ Mississippi State
Missouri State @ Arkansas
Now for the much-maligned Big Ten:
The Good
Illinois v Missouri
Illinois @ Cincinnati
Indiana @ Akron
Indiana @ Virginia
Iowa @ Iowa State
Arizona @ Iowa
Notre Dame @ Michigan
Michigan State @ Notre Dame
Minnesota @ Syracuse
Air Force @ Minnesota
California @ Minnesota
Northwestern @ Syracuse
USC @ Ohio State
Ohio State @ Toledo
Syracuse @ Penn State
Purdue @ Oregon
Notre Dame @ Purdue
Wisconsin @ Hawaii
The Bad
Fresno State @ Illinois
Western Michigan @ Indiana
Western Michigan @ Michigan
Eastern Michigan @ Michigan
Central Michigan @ Michigan State
Western Michigan @ Michigan State
Eastern Michigan @ Northwestern
Miami (OH) @ Northwestern
Navy @ Ohio State
New Mexico State @ Ohio State
Akron @ Penn State
Temple @ Penn State
Toledo @ Purdue
Northern Illinois @ Purdue
Northern Illinois @ Wisconsin
Fresno State @ Wisconsin
The Ugly
Illinois State @ Illinois
Eastern Kentucky @ Indiana
Northern Iowa @ Iowa
Arkansas State @ Iowa
Delaware State @ Michigan
Montana State @ Michigan State
South Dakota State @ Minnesota
Eastern Illinois @ Penn State
Towson @ Northwestern
Wofford @ Wisconsin
To be honest, I don’t see a lot of difference. Some good games and some stinkers and some in between. Three Big Ten teams play Notre Dame, although not good recently are a perennial power. Ohio State has USC coming in. Some good ones are sprinkled in the SEC- Georgia-Oklahoma State, UCLA-Tennessee, and Arkansas-Texas A&M are good matchups. Some of the stinkers are real stinkers- Charleston Southern @ Florida and Wofford @ Wisconsin stand out. I think if you did this for every conference, you’d find much the same story except for the Pac 10, which seems to do better than most in avoiding stinkers.
FTR, Miami is no longer a non-conference game for the Seminoles.
But Florida is, and they play them every year, every year.
As someone pointed out up thread, UGA is playing three major universities in non-con games this year. (two fo them on the road)
My alma mater, Georgia Tech, is playing 3 SEC schools for non-con games.
Two yrs ago, USC had three non-con games, Notre Dame, Arkansas and Virginia.
Most marquis schools play one difficult non-con game, so OSU playing USC or Texas or Va Tech is not all that remarkable. it is when schools play two or three major schools OOC is a schedule worth bragging about.
