Non-conference SOS will matter a lot in Playoff

[nelsonmuntz]

At least according to Swarbrick:

"Much like the NCAA basketball tournament's selection committee, Swarbrick expected the football one to value a team's strength of schedule, especially its nonconference one.

"One of the things we like so much about that is as much as this happened in basketball in the past decade, the selection committee will send a real message about strength of schedule," Swarbrick said. "If you choose not to challenge yourself, especially in the pre-conference games, it's going to impact your rating. That's another way we think we're contributing to the vibrancy of the regular season through this process.""

http://espn.go.com/chicago/ncf/stor...all-playoff-selection-process-look-every-team

You are going to see a MAJOR shift in how teams schedule because of the playoff, because sandbagging with non-conference scheduling won't just hurt one team with this system, it will punish the entire conference.

 

[UConnDan97]

At least according to Swarbrick:

"Much like the NCAA basketball tournament's selection committee, Swarbrick expected the football one to value a team's strength of schedule, especially its nonconference one.

"One of the things we like so much about that is as much as this happened in basketball in the past decade, the selection committee will send a real message about strength of schedule," Swarbrick said. "If you choose not to challenge yourself, especially in the pre-conference games, it's going to impact your rating. That's another way we think we're contributing to the vibrancy of the regular season through this process.""

http://espn.go.com/chicago/ncf/stor...all-playoff-selection-process-look-every-team

You are going to see a MAJOR shift in how teams schedule because of the playoff, because sandbagging with non-conference scheduling won't just hurt one team with this system, it will punish the entire conference.

So the question I have is whether the Big10 will wish to shift their MAC-heavy non-conference schedules in favor of a NBE-heavy schedule? If so, we could really have some chances to prove our worth, and maybe change some people's minds. I still think that many of these teams will still try to lean on their 2 or 3 quality in-conference wins and continue to schedule the cupcakes in their respective OOC's, but I hope that I'm wrong...

 

[Dann]

this is why GS left for the nfl. the old rutgers would hate this...

 

[Dann]

schools i would love to play fball series with and even other sports.
-psu
-tosu
-mich x
-uga
-uva x
-md x
-unc x
-ncst x
-usce
-fsu
-bama
-uk
-wvu
-tenn x
-ind x
-iowa
-ill
-wisc
-minn
-texas
-lsu

 

[junglehusky]

Well as I've said elsewhere the party line from the SEC that's coming through the media is that everyone except for the SEC (but especially the ACC / BE) needs to improve their OOC scheduling. They have a hall pass, or something. Expect to hear that reinforced to the point where it becomes conventional wisdom, so that the committees go into the first meetings partially brainwashed.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

IMO, the SEC has been the best conference in football 2 of the last 5 years, 2009 (barely) and 2010 (runaway leader). The Big 12 was the best league last year, with something like 4 non-conference losses in total, and the SEC was maybe 4th best in 2008, about .500 against the BCS + MWC. In 2007, all the top 4-5 leagues were about the same.

The biggest challenge for the SEC will be its lack of road games. It consistently plays fewer road games than any other league. All the perception bias in the world can not compensate for the fact that the SEC generally plays less than 1 game per team against major conference competition, virtually never plays top mid-majors, and loads up on FCS, Sun Belt and MAC home games.

 

[UCFBfan]

I had started a thread on the football board about this topic of OOC schedule. I really think that after 2014, the first year of the playoff system, you'll see teams looking to schedule higher ranked opponents. Not saying the 'ranked' in my previous sentence means in the Top 25 but higher than the lowly MAC teams the big boys currently feast on. I think you'll see something similar to the basketball RPI where the committee gives feedback to teams and one thing may be tha instead of playing Akron, Eastern Michigan, and Wyoming, you should be scheduling an ACC, NBE, and maybe a power conference team. I think this will be imperative for the Pac-12 as they are a weak conference as a whole and you might see the B1G face this a few years.

The problem here is that football schedules are set for years ahead of time. I'll be very curious to see if this trend changes and teams start scheduling year to year based on opponent performance. Scheduling Boise 6 years from now might look great to a power school but in 3 years Boise may have fallen off the map and they are stuck with a dud game. (Just using Boise as an example and don't think they will fall off the map!)

It will be really interesting to see how this committee really works and whether or not OOC schedules change and we see more big teams playing the likes of Louisville, Cincy, RU, UConn instead of New Mexico, NM St, San Jose St, and Idaho.

 

[UCFBfan]

schools i would love to play fball series with and even other sports.
-psu
-tosu
-mich x
-uga
-uva x
-md x
-unc x
-ncst x
-usce
-fsu
-bama
-uk
-wvu
-tenn x
-ind x
-iowa
-ill
-wisc
-minn
-texas
-lsu

I'd love to see us play PSU. Got family in State College and grew up going to PSU games. Would be an awesome environment to see our team play in. Would be different then when I went to the Michigan game. Beaver Stadium is built to be more enclosed and the sound gets trapped inside. I felt that the Big House wasn't that loud because it was a bowl and the sound just went up and away.

Gotta ask, what is USCE? I've been racking my brain on that one.....

I'd also add Florida and Oregon to that list if we're going with the keep dreaming trend!

 

[phillionaire]

I'd love to see us play PSU. Got family in State College and grew up going to PSU games. Would be an awesome environment to see our team play in. Would be different then when I went to the Michigan game. Beaver Stadium is built to be more enclosed and the sound gets trapped inside. I felt that the Big House wasn't that loud because it was a bowl and the sound just went up and away.

Gotta ask, what is USCE? I've been racking my brain on that one.....

I'd also add Florida and Oregon to that list if we're going with the keep dreaming trend!

USCe= South Carolina

 

[huskypantz]

I don't see anything about playing non-conference road games. I hope they put additional weight on neutral site/road games - otherwise it's still going to be tough to get 1-1's. I'll also be curious to see how Notre Dame's schedule strength is accounted for if there is different weight on conference vs nonconference games.

On my "wish list" for future games:
ACC - Maryland, Syracuse, BC, UVA, VT, UNC, GT, Miami
B1G - PSU, Minn, UW, Northwestern
Notre Dame

I want to see us continue to establish relationships with ACC and B1G schools on the football front (shoot, schedule men's and women's bball games with them while you're at it if it makes them happy). Playing games in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis make for fun road trips but we need to keeping playing the local schools as well. I would like to see BC/Cuse on the schedule almost every year, along with 1-2 other BCS schools. The scheduling formula should be 8 conf, 2 BCS, 1 MAC, 1 FCS. I would want the MAC school to be UMass in most years and hopefully we get to play in Gillette for the "road" game (which is closer to Storrs than Amherst).

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Bobby Knight was probably the first coach to really master scheduling in the RPI era. Long after decent recruits got sick of playing for him, he was getting mediocre Indiana teams into the NCAA tournament by brilliant scheduling. Knight was the first coach to start loading up on MVC, MAC and top Horizon (or whatever it was called back then) teams. He realized that playing a bunch of top mid-majors gave him a huge RPI advantage over some other program that would play 2-3 major conference opponents and schedule low-majors for the rest. Even a loss in one of these games didn't really hurt him that badly.

He would also try to sneak in road games against these teams because he realized that R/N was such a big factor, and teams were getting punished for not playing road games. I recall Boeheim having 2 20 win teams not make the tournament because he was loading up with home games against NEC and Patriot League opponents.

I think the football equivalent will be the Sun Belt and FCS. The Sun Belt is going to be terrible going forward, and I expect programs to be reluctant to schedule Sun Belt opponents unless they draw 80k+ and the financial benefits of a home game are too overwhelming. FCS games will be playoff bid poison, and I expect to see conferences put pressure on their lesser programs to not schedule those teams because it hurts the overall league computer ranking. For a school like Purdue or Minnesota, the incentive to just get to 6 or 7 wins will not be enough to compensate for the damage to the Big 10 of Purdue and Minnesota having bad OOC schedules. Why try to sneak Purdue or Minnesota into a low payout bowl that will lose money for the school, when they want to guarantee they get at least one program into the playoff, since that could be worth $50MM+ to the league? The conference's incentives will be to generate as many quality OOC wins as possible, so it will want Purdue and Minnesota to play as tough a schedule as they can reasonably handle.

 

[HuskyHawk]

This is all welll and good, if you believe that the goal of these programs is to win a championship. I don't think it generally is. I think in most cases, they want to get to a big bowl game for the payout, and maximize home gate receipts. I think they may roll the dice and if none of the top 10 schedule tough teams, who is going to the playoff in their place? We'll see how it plays out. If a VT can play a tough schedule and knock an Oregon, Ohio State, Bama or OU out of the playoff, then it may change things.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

This is all welll and good, if you believe that the goal of these programs is to win a championship. I don't think it generally is. I think in most cases, they want to get to a big bowl game for the payout, and maximize home gate receipts. I think they may roll the dice and if none of the top 10 schedule tough teams, who is going to the playoff in their place? We'll see how it plays out. If a VT can play a tough schedule and knock an Oregon, Ohio State, Bama or OU out of the playoff, then it may change things.

Look at this another way. If Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois and Northwestern play too many FCS opponents, and the resulting hit to their RPI-equivalent costs Michigan or Ohio State a playoff bid, that is $50MM out of the Big 10's pocket. If, on the other hand, you can replace 5 FCS teams with 5 high MAC's or CUSA's such as Toledo or ECU, there will be pressure from the conference to do so.

 

[Dann]

thats why instead of fcs games we should play umass every year and then a 2nd mac or army type if needed to fill a slot.

 

[UCFBfan]

USCe= South Carolina

What's the 'e' for? USC East?

 

[businesslawyer]

What's the 'e' for? USC East?

yes

 

[whaler11]

Waylon why will the Sun Belt be so bad going forward? I like them over the MAC in the long run, just for the recruiting advantages. The Colonial wasn't much worse recently but they have been decimated.