Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/osu-football-scheduling-be-interesting-dont-overdo-it/
Nebraska, Arizona State, Oregon State, yep.
Last year’s nonconference teams records 16-20
Thanks to McNeese State’s 7-5.
Good article. I agree with the points that were made. Oklahoma State has done a good job with scheduling in football. They do what’s best for this program. It doesn’t make sense for Oklahoma State to schedule the same way OU or Ohio State schedules games. We have to run the table to make the CFP, they don’t. Although OU might be in a position where they have to run the table also because they keep getting embarrassed in the CFP.
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Oregon and Arkansas are on the schedule too… so a bit of a stretch and perhaps not so much of a stretch.
I’d love to see some more Home and Home’s with teams from other conferences that are “road-trip-able” like the Nebraska / ASU games…
Give me Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, Iowa, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Colorado, Air Force, etc.
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Completely agree with the home and home approach. I am not a fan of the neutral site games. Make the elite SEC teams leave their protective bubble. When is the last time Bama played a non-conference game farther away from home than Atlanta or Dallas? (Hint, it has been a minute.)
The big missing point here is that these things get put on contract 6-10 years in advance. For all we know those Arkansas games coming up could be against an SEC scrub or an SEC power. It’s awfully hard to know that far in advance if an Oregon St game will be uninteresting or overdoing it…
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Also, if you can’t beat the teams that are on your schedule, the odds of you either a making it to the playoffs or actually having success in the playoffs both go down dramatically.
Oregon wasn’t good enough to beat Auburn, it didn’t make the playoffs either, and if Oregon had made the playoffs the major benefit was that they would receive a big fat check, publicity, Etc.
However, they probably wouldn’t have been good enough in the playoff. Now if they had beat Auburn, they would have been good enough to be in the playoff anyway so becomes a moot point!
Basically, if you’re good enough to be in the playoffs, you will probably beat that team on your schedule that is the Marquee opponent.
If not you won’t.
Schedule it anyway! It’s a lot more fun for the fans!
Just don’t be overtly dumb about scheduling.
2009 OSU was a prime example. Home & home with Georgia. If that team hadn’t laid in absolute egg against Houston, then had not lost Dez and Kendall later in the year, it could have been a BCS contender.
Probably my absolute favorite memory in person at Boone Pickens Stadium. (Before you come at me…full disclosure, I wasn’t able to attend 2011 Bedlam because of a death in the family.)
Chances are that the Georgia series could not be scheduled now. They probably scheduled us thinking we were a P5 name they could beat twice. Same with UCLA. But then we split with both of them… not what they were counting on. A win against us was not worth a loss. However - I greatly preferred the home and home with Georgia and UCLA compared to the neutral site Florida State game or the neutral site Mississippi State game.
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We’re just scheduling to pad the wins cause Gundy isn’t going undefeated in conference.
Nebraska, Oregon, Boise…great games. Really enjoying the trips to those places too. Oregon State could have been good if they were any good, but the trip up there was awesome.
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