So the question is...if UGA had to do a 2 for 1 deal with a non-conference team for scheduling purposes, who would you want Damon Evans to book?Background:
We've written several articles lately on scheduling in football. The most in-depth article talked about the complexities of scheduling non-conference home games. Particularly, "beat down" games.
With 65 BCS teams plus Notre Dame all looking for 2-4 out of conference home games per year that don't involve a return trip, the cost of booking that 11th and 12th game has skyrocketed. The elite mid-majors are now pulling 1 for 1 deals with power schools, and schools much lower on the totem poll are pulling 2 for 1 deals.
A 2 for 1 deal involves the bigger school hosting two games at home and traveling to the smaller school once. Over the past year, Georgia announced plans both plans to play Oregon State and Cincinnati in 2 for 1 arrangements. Both deals promptly fell apart.
My Top Choices for 2 for 1 deals:
- 1. Memphis: I'm pretty sure that Tennessee already books these guys in a similar rotation. Memphis is a great town to visit, it's not a bad drive, airfare from ATL is super cheap via AirTran, there's great BBQ and of course you have Elvis. We could do much worse. Plus, the Liberty Bowl is a large enough college football facility to accommodate the game.
2. UNLV: No brainer. If we made it to the stadium, it would be a miracle.
3. Tulane: Ok, this will not happen. When Tulane canceled a 2 for 1 deal with us prior to the 2002 season, they pretty much tore their britches with Georgia. I doubt we'd schedule them in hop scotch at this point. Much less football. But you can't go wrong with a trip to New Orleans.
Just screams college football doesn't it?
4. Hawaii - Realistically, few of us would make the trip, but what a trip it would be. I'd be hard pressed to miss this one. I'd rank it higher, but so few would go. Bama fans enjoyed their deal.
5. TCU: A reasonably strong team at the top end of the non-BCS world. Dallas/Ft. Worth is easy enough to get to. Plus, there's always the option of playing in the Cowboys facility if TCU's place is too small.
6. Louisiana Tech: I could live with throwing Derek Dooley, new La Tech head coach, a bone and giving him a deal like this. However, the caveat would have to be playing the game in New Orleans. La Tech would probably never agree to the deal as their campus is about 5 hours from NOLA.
7. Colorado State: I'm pretty sure that Damon mentioned something about talking with these guys around the time the 12 game schedule was released. Ft. Collins is only an hour
8. Cincy: I know they canceled once already, but I'd still be down with going up there. The town is a Delta hub so travel is easy. Plus, they were going to play us in the Bengals stadium for the return trip.
See Also:
-- Scheduling Complexities -- GSB
-- 2 for 1 Deals Discussion -- DawgRun message board
-- UGA non-conference opponent trivia - GSB
PWD
25 comments:
UGA probably would have to go for a 1 and 1 deal, but I would love to see a series with Rutgers. Another school that would make a fantastic 1 and 1 and 1 series is vs. Northwestern played their place, Sanford, and at Soldier Field.
If we're going to play a 1 for 1 game with a BCS school, I'd rather play one of the big boys rather than "nothing to gain, everything to lose" games against Rutgers or Northwestern.
I understand your point was more about where those schools are located, but I don't see any attraction other than that.
My top three:
1)Nevada
2)Fresno St.
3)New Mexico
Fresno, and maybe the others, would probably have to be 1 and 1, but I would love to see UGA visit some of these Western teams.
I can go on vacation any time I want. If UGA is going to schedule football teams, I really hope it's for the purposes of playing football, not sightseeing.
TCU or Houston would be great assuming they keep up their current talent levels, but that's a BIG assumption. If TCU's facilities couldn't hold the crowd, I'd prefer playing in Dallas at the Cotton Bowl over playing in Arlington at the new Cowboys Stadium. I personally despise stadiums that are too accommodating to people not there to watch the game and this new Cowboys stadium has "Get up and down 50 times to go to the bathroom, concession stand, stretch your legs, etc because God forbid you actually watch a few minutes of football." written all over it.
Kansas, Kansas State, or Texas A&M would be fun but I think at least A&M might want a 1 for 1. If we're going to bother with a 1 for 1 in the Big 12, we should play Texas or Oklahoma.
I'd also give BYU a 2 for 1 but I think they'd be a bit too uppity to take it. I'd love to be the team that gives BYU its yearly reminder that they're not nearly as good as they think they are.
I'd also like to wait until Cal has a bad year or two so they might be more apt to agree to a 2 for 1. Right now I don't think they'd go for it.
One correction: Colorado State is an hour north of Denver, not south.
And I'd like to play them too. For selfish reasons, I'd like to see the Cincy game get back on the schedule due to living 2 hours from there. And Fort Collins is a nice little town (though my recollection is that the football stadium is off-campus). TCU is about the only other one I'd be interested in playing.
I tend to opt for good match ups (with the potential to lose) that I would like to see rather than places I would like to go.
1. Texas (and Austin is a great town)
2. Michigan (yay, Kyle! Gotta visit the Big House)
3. Virginia Tech (rematch appeal and trip to Blacksburg)
4. Virginia
5. TCU (if we can get this in Cowboys stadium to get more tickets)
1. Virginia. My folks both went there, and they might even pop for tickets if we could get them to go. Plus Charlottesville is a great town.
2. Southern Miss. Call me crazy, but USM and West Virginia are the only two teams Georgia has played but never beaten since I started at Georgia in '95, and the OCD side of me still thinks we need to redress that.
3. Wyoming. Just so I could say we'd kicked the ever-living crap out of Dick Cheney's alma mater.
Obviously they'd never agree to a 2-for-1, but I'd love to see us try to get a 1-for-1 with Notre Dame sometime real soon. A rematch of the '81 Sugar, plus we'd have a chance to humiliate a third member of the Clausen family.
Heck, if we're looking for vacation trips, how about:
University of Maine
University of Vermont
San Diego State
Maybe New Mexico State (hot, but good day trips)
Do they play football at U of Peurto Rico?
Okay, some 2-1 with non-BCS conference schools that would intrest me:
CUSA
Tulsa
Houston
Memphis
Marshall
Rice
MAC
Nobody - Only home, beatdown games
Mountain West
TCU
Utah
BYU
Colorado St
Sunbelt
Again, only beatdown games
WAC
Boise St
Fresno St
Hawaii
Schools from BCS conferences that I would prefer a 2-1 but would accept a 1-1 (not the biggies):
Kansas St
Okl. St
Iowa
Iowa St
Wisconsin
Missouri
Mich. St.
Purdue
Louisville
Pitt
Rutgers
Syracuse
Cal
Stanford
Oregon St
Arizona St
Fort Collins is a little more than an hour NORTH of Denver.
thanks for the fix. yes. It's north of denver.
I'd be up for scheduling Utah or BYU for the same reasons you propse TCU- top level non BCS programs that yes, need reminding of their place in the college football universe from time to time. Plus, I grew up out there, so I'd have no trouble getting tickets or a place to stay.
Since I live here, ANYONE in Cali, or even anyone out West for that matter.
Fresno would be great, but as a program they might be above doing 2 for 1s. 2 for 1s might be any WAC team and most of the Mountain West.
Anyhow, here's hoping Damon keeps looking Westward as he has been {ASU '08, Colorado '10, Oregon '14, etc}.
Oh, man, I can't believe I left Central Florida off the list. Schedule a 2-for-1 with the Golden Knights and see how many more times we can wipe the smirk off George O'Leary's face.
In my ideal scenario, Georgia is leading UCF 48-0 late in the fourth, and we drive down deep into their territory with less than a minute to go. We run down the clock to just a couple seconds left, then kick a f***-you field goal just to be jerks . . . on third down, of course.
I knew I forgot 2, but Doug got them for me:
So. Miss
UCF
Also, I'd like to see either Ole Miss or Miss St. finally drop their nuts and play So. Miss.
Assuming for the moment that these games would be played in the 'nice weather' portion of the season (Sept to early Oct), here's a few places I wouldn't mind planning a road-trip around. In no particular order:
1 - Illinois - but only if we play the game in Chicago. Although, Champaign is only about an hour's drive from Chi-town, and from what I hear, is a pretty decent place to party. Illinois is also one of the perennial little11 bottom feeders, and would probably take the 2 for 1.
2 - Boston College - Boston is a hell of a good town to visit, and being a mid-pack ACC team most years, would likely welcome the revenue.
3 - San Diego State - Who DOESN'T want to go to San Diego to hang out on the beach for a weekend, while also watching the Dawgs eat a mid-major team's lunch?
Seriously, let's get on that SDSU 2 for 1...
Just returned from San Diego. Definitely a great town. UCSD is right on the water just nort of La Jolla, but I don't think they play football, or not big boy football. Don't know where SDST plays.
Marshall Faulk went to SDSU. He was a pretty big boy. The Aztecs are alright.
About the Hawaii trip, watch out for the locals at the stadium. They don't like the white man, espicially the one from the south. Lots of preconcieved notions there. I was stationed over there for 3 years with a 'bama friend of mine. We went to see 'bama play the warriors and things got ugly in several places where the bama seats met the hawaii seats.
I didn't have any problems as I knew what to expect after living on the island for a while, but it was as bad Baton Rouge except that the many of the angry islanders are freakin' huge.
I used to go to the Air Force Academy before transfering to UGA and I would love to see us play them. They have a pretty good program (almost beat the vols last year)Colorado Springs is a great place to visite.
I would also like to see us play a big time 1 for 1 matchup with a top big 10 or big 12 school. Either OSU, Mich, OU, Texas, or Texas A&M. What about PSU. I would love to go see a game in Happy Valley.
Service Academies. We could play Air Force in Mile High, Army in the Meadowlands and Navy in Baltimore at the Ravens park.
Also basketball schools. Do a 2 for 1 with Duke or Indiana where we play 2 football games in Sanford and 1 football game there and we do the same thing for basketball a 2 for 1 where we get the 1 home game.
I'm with you dsoule, I'd love to see UGA schedule a 2 for 1 with a service academy. Any of the 3 would be fine. I've not been to AFA. But I've been to West Point and Annapolis. Both are beautiful campuses. You'd enjoy taking your families to both places. Might just make an impression on your kids.
I also love San Diego. And though the Aztecs aren't that good right now. They have certainly given teams like Miami, Iowa, and Penn St. a run for their money a few times. I would prefer this to a series with Hawaii.
For recruiting purposes, I'd love a 2 for 1 with TCU, SMU, Rice, or Houston. TCU and Houston would be very competitive in the right year.
I wouldn't mind giving one to Southern Miss just because they've travelled around so much. It was a big deal for them when Nebraska came. Memphis might make more sense for recruiting than USM. But honestly, I'm not a gambler, and I see all of Memphis I want to see when we play Ole Miss.
I don't even want to go there with teams like Tulane, UCF, and Cincinnati since they all broke contracts with us recently. So I definitely don't feel like giving them the favor of a home game.
I wouldn't mind giving Rutgers a 1 and 1. After all, we got Moreno from NJ. Lots of talent up there that is normally scooped up by Penn St. Wouldn't hurt to play those guys at the Meadowlands.
How about Cambridge?
I am very happy about ASU, Colorado and Oregon. I think we need to visit Penn St., Pitt and WVU for some payback. Memphis or UNLV would be fun. Does Amsterdam have a team???
Would love to see us play Nebraska or Miami too.
The Naval Academy and Air Force Academy are nice, but if we are going to play a service academy 2 for 1, it should be Army. West Point is absolutely awesome, particularly in the Fall. It is only 45 min from Manhattan but it might as well be on a different planet. Michie Stadium is small but very beautiful and the leaves along the Hudson are incredible. We would most likely kill them, but one thing about the Army team. They will hit and they will not quit. Get their early for the Cadet Parade on the Plain. Walk the grounds and feel the history. Lee, Grant, Ike, Patton, Bradley, Schwarzkopf. The football tradition is old, but it is there too. Earl Blake, Doc Blanchard, Earl Davis, Pete Dawkins. Wonderful place and amazing Corps of Cadets.
I almost pitced Navy as a spot, but this is the deal- the stadium is tiny! (Unless they have improved it) and so I was thinking we would be better off moving the game to Baltimore to Ravens Stadium. Baltimore isn't a bad trip, especially if you can take some time to catch a game at Camden and enjoy the waterfront, but you would miss "The Yard" (the NA campus) and downtown Annapolis which is also really nice.
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