Why should power conference teams schedule tough? - RaychelSnr's Blog

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RaychelSnr's Blog

Why should power conference teams schedule tough? Stuck

Posted on June 20, 2012 at 11:21 AM.

(6)

Let me be the first to say, I favor great sectional matchups like Alabama/Michigan and Oklahoma/Notre Dame which will be coming to a TV Screen near you this fall. They're great early season reminders of why college football is so great.

But I understand why most teams opt to play East Handkerchief State U instead.

Wins.

And why not? As an SEC school, why should you play Penn State, Texas, or Oregon when you can play McNeese State, South Alabama, and Georgia Southern?

Why risk a loss when you know going 12-0 or 11-1 will result in you going to the National Championship almost always anyways?

This might be an even greater problem and an unforeseen consequence of a playoff. Some have said playoffs will result in tougher non-conference schedules but IMO, depending on the format chosen, it could give teams more incentive to do away with tough OOC games.

Why?

Because it's a proven mathematical fact that if you double the amount of spots of Championship contestants to four from two, there's more incentive to have a better looking record come selection time and to eliminate the blemishes

The only way to avoid that fate of crap college football Septembers is to take the top rated conference champions as the selection mode for an eventual four team playoff, then OOC games will be a little less important to the whole process and teams will have more incentive to schedule a bit tougher.

But to people complaining about teams scheduling soft currently, my question is: Why shouldn't they? Yeah, it sucks for fans -- but the logic is incredibly solid on just scheduling wins and chancing it by rolling through your conference, especially if you are from one of those three letter conferences that start with an S and end with a C.

While I give it up to teams like Oklahoma, Michigan, Alabama, Florida State, etc. who schedule big time non-conference matchups on regular occasion, they're the exception and not the rule, which is both a shame and understandable all at the same time.

What do you think? Is scheduling weaker non-conference opponents a better idea than scheduling a power team or two?

Comments

# 1 Jakeboutte @ Jun 20

Schedule weak! I have been telling U Dub this for years now!

# 2 Jadakiss88 @ Jun 20

If you have trouble with teams in your own conference it definetly doesn't benefit you to play tough non-conference games. Bama and LSU meet every season so with those to teams being at the top in the College Football world it only makes sense to schedule weaker Non-Conference games.

For instance, USC scheduled OSU a few years back to play back to back years both those years USC beat OSU but lost one CONFERENCE game which killed their chances of playing in the title game. If you can't get over the hump of your conference schedule then playing a tough OOC schedule really doesn't make sense.

# 3 Layoneil @ Jun 20

they shouldn't. the system is flawed. that's why the system should be tweaked. given the first 10 games being equal, 2 wins over unranked teams should be worth less than 1-1 split vs ranked teams.

you want to mathematically make it a better deal for the school to lose to a good opponent.

# 4 N51_rob @ Jun 20

Why should they schedule tough? As we see time and again, if your team isn't in the national championship game, the bowls don't matter. So I would have rather seen Alabama play Utah in the regular season than in a 2009 Sugar Bowl that Alabama had no interest in.

# 5 dwidep @ Jun 21

I really do think that wins against FCS teams should not count towards your 6 for bowl eligibility. I understand that they don't do this because it brings in so much revenue to the smaller schools but I absolutely hate it when teams play cupcake schools. It's almost like having another bye week (unless your Michigan, Va Tech, or Ole Miss).

I think we all understand why they do it, but it sucks at the same time

# 6 cgalligan @ Jun 22

Don't forget Ohio State

They schedule big time non conf Opponents yearly. Texas, and Miami recently and in the future we've got Cal, Va Tech, Cincinnati, Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Granted we have our fair share of Cupcakes too, like Kent St and Bowling Green lol.