ESPN's Chris Low published this list of future SEC non-conference opponents last week, but I missed it. It's visually a little misleading because you glance based on the length of the lists. That said, here are some initial thoughts:
- Florida has done virtually nothing with the 12th game. Since 1992, Georgia and Florida used the scheduling complexities surrounding the Cocktail Party + In State Non-conference Rivalries (GT and FSU) as an excuse to avoid additional non-conference games of note. When the 12 game schedule was implemented in an experimental and later permanent fashion, Georgia embraced it with current and future games against Clemson (2 series), Colorado, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, Louisville and Oregon. Florida fans are getting one series with Miami and the games split between 2008 and 2013. Weak sauce.
- South Carolina's got a storng start on the 12 game schedule utilization by booking a series with both UNC and NC State. However, their announced OCC games other than Clemson look pretty weak starting in 2010.
- Kentucky's non-conference schedule is embarrassing. Aside from playing an imploding Louisville program, they have booked no one of note for the next decade. Their long standing series with Indiana isn't even on the books. I'm not suggesting that UK should start scheduling Ohio State, but what's wrong with booking Cincy when their campuses are only separated by 90 or so minutes? Heck, Memphis and Southern Miss would be an upgrade over Sun Belt teams and multiple Div I-AA squads like last year.
- Congrats to Ole Miss. After booking a series with both Missouri and Wake, they have games against Clemson, Texas and others on the books. Rumors out of Atlanta say that Ole Miss wants to cancel ttheir series with Tech. South of Oxford (both geographically and socioeconomically), you have Mississippi State who looks to be applying for conditional Conference USA membership with their slate of craptacular games.
- And as always no one has more sizzle in their non-conference schedule than Tennessee. They don't have the baggage of a yearly non-conference rivalry like UF, UGA, and SC so they have more flexibility. They leverage that flexibility nicely to book Oklahoma, Ohio State, Nebraska, etc type games on a regular basis.
PWD
(Image: AJ Green. By Jim Hipple)
17 comments:
Still, the "weak sauce" hasn't stopped FU from winning two MNC's in two years.
meant 4 years, sorry
I actually have had a couple casual conversations with Damon Evans and we have talked about a potential home and away with Notre Dame, as well as Michigan. How cool would that be?
I am very glad that Evans has seemed to step it up. I also heard mild rumors about potentially pushing for home and homes with ND and Mich. I had heard they had somewhat dodged trying to set anything up, but honestly I wish we had been playing them the past few years. This has definitely been one of the worst decades for ND and outside of a couple of decent years, the 2000s haven't been kind to Michigan either.
One thing that's pretty cool is Vanderbilt scheduling Wake 6 more times, 4 games vs Northwestern, and home/home series w/ UCONN and Clemson. They have a better OOC than Florida, haha.
I'd love to see a Citadel LBer break Tebow's leg.
As someone mentioned above, does it really matter about UFs OOC schedule. They lost a game in comference last year and still won their 2nd MNC out of 3 years. As a fan I love the strong OOC games, but I fear that it will come back and bite us. In fact it may already have after going out to play ASU this year and coming home to the Bama debacle. We will never know how that would have turned out if we had played a weak OOC game the week before. I would think much better.
The OOC scheduling is indeed hurting us in some way, as well as helping us. In no way should we have scheduled ASU the same year we have Bama and LSU on the schedule.
Only Florida '06 won the SEC in the last 30 years or so after playing all 5 of the other big 6 schools in the regular season.
Ole Miss just schedule a 4-game deal with Tulane. Guess they are trying to be like State!
Ole Miss-Tulane Schedule 4-Game Series
As a fan I'll take the risk of a loss to a quality BCS opponent over sitting in the stands to watch the Dawgs sleepwalk through beating Northeast Louisiana.
Ann Arbor in the fall would be worth it even if we got beat. Touchdown Jesus? Bring him on. Boulder will be a great trip. If those kinds of games keep us from an MNC, so be it. All that really matters is the SEC Championship anyway.
Thank you Damon Evans.
RidgeDawg
GeorgiaBulldog.com
The CU stadium is one of the most beautiful backdrops of any stadium I have seen or been to (went to CU-Nebraska a few years ago).
Looking forward to the Dawgs coming within 2 hours of my home!
PS: be prepared for any kind of weather in Boulder at that time of year. It has snowed heavily on the Friday after Labor Day here.
We did not lose that Bama game because we played ASU. We lost it because Bama was a better, more well prepared team. We had a bye before Tech and that sure didn't help.
Is Clemson trying to become the SEC rep from SC? Looks like they're on everybody's schedule.
FWIW, I think they should. They're more of a fit in the SEC and USC is more of an ACC fit.
Once upon a time, conference tie-ins were a matter of tradition and payout, not contract. Since the conferences have tied themselves into bowl contracts, a lot of bowl games are getting a bit repetitive. I'm glad to see us going out there and finding bowl-caliber games to schedule in the regular season against folks we won't ever get the chance to play in bowls under our current structure. If that means we might not get another chance to get snubbed for the national title and stuck playing some grass-skirt-wearing sham of a team in the Sugar Bowl, then that's fine with me.
I give Tennessee a little credit for their scheduling. But our of 4 OOC opportunities a year, they only play 1 team that has any chance of beating them (oops, UCLA and Wyoming last year. So I'm impressed with names like OU and Ohio St. on their schedule. But they still play as many cupcakes as just about anybody else.
Heath, get where you're going with complaining about "any chance of beating them", but how on Earth are you peering 10 years in to the future to guess how good/bad teams are?
Ten years ago, UCLA was one referee's call away from the national championship game, Oklahoma was coming off a 7-5 record under first year head coach Bob Stoops, and USC was struggling through yet another 6-6 season under the 'leadership' of Paul Hackett.
No one has any idea how good any of these teams are going to be in five years, let alone ten. You pick teams from major BCS conferences, get them on the calendar, and hope for the best.
Kudos to Damon Evans. Not just for the non-conference games but also for embracing night games. Fact is, those below the "gnat line" have no problem with hight games. This was often the excuse Coach Dooley gave for not playing night games. TO be fair, the speed limit was 55 back then and the lanes have multiplied.
Nothing more exciting than a night game in the Classic City.
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