One more from iBlogforCookies

This one hits at an important point---schedule tough games!  Particularly, road games.

We'll repost the entire entry here because it's brief enough to allow as much, and because we can't figure out how to link to the specific entry (try here, look for July 1, 2005, and scan for "On The Road Again")-

In the past 15 years, the following national champions have had no challenging non-conference road games:

In 2003, LSU had a non-conference road game @ (2-9) Arizona.
In 2002, OSU had no non-conference road games.
In 2000, Oklahoma had no non-conference road games.
In 1994, Nebraska had no non-conference road games.
In 1992, Alabama had a non-conference road game @ Tulane (why?)

The following national champs did have challenging non-conference neutral site or road games:

In 2004, USC had a neutral site game in Maryland against Va Tech.
In 2003, USC had a non-conference road game @ Auburn.
In 2001, Miami had non-conference road games @ Penn State and @ Florida State.
In 1999, Florida State had a non-coference road game @ Florida
In 1998, Tennessee had a non-conference road game @ Syracuse
In 1997, Nebraska had a non-conference road game @ Washington
In 1996, Florida had a non-conference road game @ FSU (they lost)
In 1995, Nebraska had a non-conference road game @ MSU
In 1993, Florida State had non-conference road games @ Notre Dame (they lost) and @ Florida.
In 1991, Washington had a non-conference road with @ Nebraska
In 1991, Miami had several non-conference road games, including @ Florida State
In 1990, Colorado had a neutral site non-conference game with Tennessee and non-conference road games with Illinois and Texas.

There is a point here.

It is "stop bitching that challenging September road games make winning the national title impossible." The top teams go on the road and win on the road and prove they are tough.

Right on.

Comments

[Lipitor]

Agree.

And in addition, this does not concern you but I would really love to see college football fans who talk about "easy/hard" scheduling take more factors into consideration before they credit/discredit that university's scheduling. For instance, your run-of-the-mill uneducated LSU fan would discredit USC with scheduling @ Auburn in 2003 because Auburn turned out to be a disappointment. However, we must take things such as WHEN the matchup scheduled, rather than just HOW that team fared during the year. When we are just analyzing strength of schedule for quantitative purposes, the WHEN doesn't matter one bit, all that matters is how the teams fared, BUT when analyzing the "ballsiness" of the university, then you must take in other factors- something i'm afraid many people don't do.

For example, I'd like to know, in 2003 when LSU played Arizona, was that game scheduled in the late 90's when U of A was respectable?

At this day in age I'd also steer clear from critcizing teams about scheduling non-conference games vs. major conference teams that are subpar (eg LSU vs. eventual last place pac 10 team Arizona). Just the fact they are playing a major conference team to me, is respectible enough considering parity has made it so there really is no 100% certainty that a team will be horrible one year.

Those are just a couple scheduling thoughts off the top of my head, although fairly off subject, just wanted to get them out there.

Lipitor
(aka Atorvastatin Calcium)

[Resource Admin]

Excellent reply!

It's really hard to argue with people about the when's, because 99% of us have no clue when that schedule was made, and often the deal itself was cemented a year or two earlier before it was announced.

I wish there was more known about the when's of scheduling, would help the fans and media idiots out quite a bit.

The thing to me that I look for, is, is someone scheduling a legitemate power somewhere, and if not, are they taking a consistent, name team or contender, or smaller conference power. People who have Colorado State on their schedules right now (USC and Minnesota last year, among others) basically placed them on their schedule when CSU was winning all kinds of MWC titles. That takes some effort.

Or how about, who is putting Boise State on their schedules now, with ETA of the game 2007-2010ish? They should get praise.

Or of course, whoever put USC on their 2010 schedule, or LSU, or Michigan, or... you get the drift.