Don't Bet On It!: National Game of Disinterest
by T Kyle King on Nov 6, 2009 7:53 AM EST
in Football
10 comments
This week’s SEC action has been covered and I have made a good faith effort to locate national games of nominal interest. The struggle to find qualifying contests for the latter category made the selection of this week’s national game of disinterest particularly challenging, since, frankly, all of the games being played this weekend seemed to be in contention for the honor.
In the end, though, there could be only one:
You can go on and on about the history and tradition of this rivalry all you like, but, at the end of the day, it’s still a 5-3 also-ran taking on a 5-3 also-ran.
Oklahoma comes into this game having beaten Idaho State, Tulsa, Baylor, Kansas, and Kansas State. Nebraska comes into this game having carded victories over Florida Atlantic, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Missouri, and Baylor.
The only thing this game has to offer is conclusive proof that all the folks who criticize the non-conference schedules of SEC teams have no room to talk. I’m not picking it because I don’t care which of these teams wins the Sun Belt championship.
Coming Soon: Too Much Information.
Go ‘Dawgs!
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Eh.
The only thing this game has to offer is conclusive proof that all the folks who criticize the non-conference schedules of SEC teams have no room to talk.
The Big 12 is roughly as bad as the SEC in the cupcake non-conference scheduling department. Most non-Big 12 fans who knock SEC non-conference scheduling acknowledge this.
From worst best there (among the BCS conferences) it’s
SEC/Big 12
(big gap)
Big Ten/ Big East (big gap)
ACC
(big gap)
Pac 10
by drothgery on Nov 6, 2009 10:49 AM EST reply actions 0 recs
The point is that these arguments do not work on a conference-wide basis . . .
. . . unless you’re talking about the Pac-10, which schedules tough pretty much across the board.
In the SEC, some teams schedule tough (Tennessee consistently, Auburn recently, Alabama and Georgia historically and again lately) and some don’t (Florida, Kentucky, and South Carolina, aside from their in-state rivals). Blanket statements covering entire leagues are so general as to be useless.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Nov 6, 2009 11:42 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
South Carolina aside from their in-state rivals?
And at least one other BCS school starting in 2007, with next year an exception only because ESPN poached UNC for a game with LSU. So unless by “lately” you mean “this year only,” S.C. has “lately” played about as many BCS teams as has Georgia.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
by cocknfire on Nov 6, 2009 2:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I knew I was going to hear about it for including examples in the second category
I was referring to the fact that the Gamecocks routinely make the South Carolina circuit among the Division I-AA teams in the Palmetto State.
As for comparisons to South Carolina’s scheduling practices “starting in 2007,” we may have gone 40 years without traveling outside the South, but we’ve been bringing in BCS conference opponents and notable mid-majors for quite a long while now.
I’m really not trying to make myself persona non grata with you and the rest of the Team Speed Kills crew more than I know I already am, C&F; I was just pointing out the unfairness of conference-wide generalizations. If you’re right about the Gamecocks, that actually strengthens my point that the SEC schedule-bashing is unreasonable. It was an offhand example offered in a parenthetical. I wasn’t calling you out or anything.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Nov 6, 2009 2:31 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Yep...
two 5-3 squads on very different trajectories. No one up here even seems that excited about it. It’s as if the 90 odd years from the Big 8 to the Big 12 never happened. OU routes NU in this one.
"Hollywood made a movie of my life. The film had me proposing to my wife on the football field. I would never misuse a football field that way." -Crazy Legs Hirsch
by Stuck in the Plains on Nov 6, 2009 11:42 AM EST reply actions 0 recs
My National Game of Disinterest is
The University of Georgia Vs. Tennessee Tech.
I’ll still be there, but…
by UgaBulldog14 on Nov 6, 2009 12:05 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Exactly what I was expecting . . .
and if Kyle gets run over on the streets of Jonesboro, somebody tell the gumshoes to look for schooner tracks.
by MaconDawg on Nov 6, 2009 12:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Wouldn't really call OK an also-ran
And besides, they played BYU and Miami this season…they lost them both (by a point each…instead of getting blown out the water 41-17), yes, but that shores up that nonconference schedule a bit. Especially since they play Texas, OK State, and Texas Tech every year.
by The ArchDawg on Nov 6, 2009 1:35 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
It strikes me as odd that you chose to play the “non-conference scheduling” card when discussing a team that played BYU, Miami, Tulsa (not exactly chopped liver for being someone’s third-best OOC game), and a random I-AA schlub. I’d put that OOC schedule up there with almost anyone else’s in the country, personally, although I agree with your overall point about comparing conferences when it’s really individual teams that control the OOC schedules.
It’s also interesting that Nebraska and Alabama played nearly identical OOC schedules this year—both played Virginia Tech, and then five Sun Belt schools and I-AA Chattanooga between them, including both sides of the F_U spectrum. Maybe they can play each other in the new Sun Belt championship game?
by willwc on Nov 6, 2009 5:39 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
I'll grant your point in theory . . .
. . . but the reality looked much different once we got past the name recognition factor.
In three games against legitimate competition, Brigham Young shut down the Sooners even before Sam Bradford got hurt and got blown out by a combined 92-35 margin by Florida State and Texas Christian.
Miami has a quality win over Georgia Tech, but the Hurricanes were humiliated by what has turned out to be a mediocre Virginia Tech outfit and lost at home to a middling Clemson team.
Tulsa is a 4-4 team on a three-game skid that includes losses to UTEP and Southern Methodist.
In short, I give credit to Oklahoma for trying to schedule tough, but it didn’t play out that way on the field.
Your closing comparison between Alabama and Nebraska presents a humorous suggestion that “they can play each other in the new Sun Belt championship game,” but there’s a difference: ‘Bama has beaten at least halfway-decent teams from BCS conferences, while the ’Huskers haven’t.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Nov 6, 2009 9:05 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
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