It’s never too early to talk college football. Never. Even if the calendar say it’s barely summer, fall cannot get here fast enough. So over the next two weeks or so, Kermit the Blog will count down the 10 Easiest Schedules of the 2007 College Football season. We’re aiming for one a day (weekday… generally), but we’re lazy, so it might take longer. Thankfully we’ve got time.
Enjoy.
#1 The Entire Big East Conference
I can already here the whining. “Uh, the Big East went undefeated (5-0) in bowl games last season and was the only conference to do so.” (A far better complaint would be: “Uh, dude. You’ve got eight teams tied at first.”)
Here’s why that’s a misleading if not meaningless statistic. To get to that 5-0 mark, Big Least teams beat East Carolina, Western Michigan, Wake Forest, Kansas State, and Georgia Tech. Only one of those teams even finished the season ranked (Wake Forest #18).
And while one of those wins was in a BCS game, the Orange Bowl, that match-up pitted the Big East conference champion against a team that needed to block a 28-yard field goal on the game’s final play to beat a winless Duke at home by a single point. Plus that Orange Bowl game got like a 1 share. And most of those viewers died of boredom.
So if nobody watched it, it might not have even happened
The Big East is simply the least rigorous of all the BCS conferences. Yes, the Mountaineers are pretty good (White and Slaton are unreal, but play some defense there Rich). South Florida is on the rise a bit. And Rutgers was a great story last year, but the Scarlet Knights are going to have to do it more than once and against better schools.
But they don’t. In fact of all the Big East schedule’s theirs is probably the easiest: Buffalo, Navy, Norfolk State is their opening trio of games. They do play a Jekyll and Hyde Maryland before hosting Cincinnati then they go to Syracuse. That’s the first time they leave home. And it’s October 13 and it’s against a team that’s won exactly one conference game in two seasons.
You would think Rutgers would want to play more road games as giving local kids the chance to travel out of New Jersey would be a selling point in recruiting.
Nope, they travel all of four times. Two of those games are at Army and at Connecticut.
The bottom line is that going to Cincinnati and to South Florida on consecutive weeks isn’t in the same class as going to Baton Rouge and to Gainesville. It’s just not. In fact, only three teams in the conference (Louisville, Cincinnati, and South Florida) even play back to back conference road games. The conference schedule itself isn’t that rigorous, so teams respond how? By filling out schedules with filler?
No, this is a conference that kind of needs to prove it can go beat people in their place. It needs to schedule up. At College Park (West Virginia September 13*) is the most difficult road game for anyone in the Big East in 2007. That’s not going to impress too many folks.
Go to Austin. Go to Ann Arbor. Go to Knoxville. Even if you don’t get a return game. Go.
Instead it’s a collective schedoggle of staying at home to play Maine, Akron, Temple, Duke, Murray State, Middle Tennessee State, Norfolk State, Buffalo, Army, Southeast Missouri State, San Diego State, Miami (OH), Grambling State, Eastern Michigan, Central Florida, Florida Atlantic, Elon.
I thought that last one was a type of ski.
Really. it’s like Austin Milbarge peeking at his commanding officer’s evaluation of him and partner Emmet Fitz-Hume after the staged sneak attack.
“What’s it say?”
“Pussy.”
It might be understandable if Big East opponents were carrying swords. They’re not.
Syracuse probably should get amnesty. They have Washington, at Iowa, and Illinois. They also have a couple of patsies in Buffalo and Miami (OH), but at least they are trying. And Syracuse has been pretty dismal themselves as of late, so simply scheduling BCS schools of any ilk should get them off the hook. But they get to pay a little for the sins of their brothers (Fredo, perhaps).
Big East defenders can keep whinging and keep pointing to last year’s bowl record, but the fact of the matter is big time college football is played on Saturdays. Not Thursday nights.
The Rest of the List
Number 10
Number 9
Number 8
Number 7
Number 6
Number 5
Number 4
Number 3
Number 2
Honorable Mentions
[*Ed. Note: My bad. As has been pointed out South Florida at Auburn is a more difficult road game. Yes, I looked at all the schedules (there were only eight of them) but one game doesn't change the fact that the conference's scheduling is very underwhelming. The rest of the Bull's non-confernce schedule is Elon, UCF, Florida Atlantic and North Carolina, who beat only 2 D-I schools last year including winless Duke by 1 point.]
[Ed. Second Note: If you need more of this. Click here.]
June 20, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I have nothing to add here other than Pitt’s schedule would better of Joe Pa wasn’t such a pain in the ass and would let the Pitt-Penn State game back on the schedule.
Great top ten list.
June 20, 2007 at 5:12 pm
As a Rutgers student who fully expected the Scarlet Knights to be #1… this is even better.
June 20, 2007 at 8:28 pm
All of Rich’s starting defenders are in jail.
June 20, 2007 at 8:33 pm
I’d really like to see Michigan play Rutgers. Bill Martin has been pushing for a home and home, where the Scarlet Knights would host it at the Meadowlands, which would appeal to the Michigan alums in the NYC area who have complained for years that they are being ignored by the away scheduling.
June 20, 2007 at 8:41 pm
As a UCF alum stuck in C-USA dribble, it’s even more painful to have to watch USF exist in this garbage conference that, for some reason, still has a BCS bid.
To everyone else, that translates into, “Who? And who?”
June 20, 2007 at 8:50 pm
I agree that the overall schedule is a bit light, for sure. But you need to point out that teams typically select opponents for scheduling years in advance…hence why Syracuse is playing Washington and Iowa. A few years ago, all those teams were pretty good, so those were supposed to be good matchups. And Rutgers stunk big time and were lucky to beat a team like Navy, which now won’t be a problem for them. The issue is that teams like Louisville and Rutgers got better faster that their scheduling would allow. I wish they could schedule like college basketball, without such a long wait to identify future opponents.
June 20, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I agree that the Big East needs to schedule tougher games in theory. However, you need to look to the future schedules to see how difficult that is. When the NCAA allowed the 12th game, the mid level schools broke contracts with Rutgers to go get a bigger pay day from BCS schools. Which left Rutgers scrambling to fill the schedule with dregs they found. Rutgers had a philosophy of renewing the service academy games, which are popular with both the Alum of Rutgers and the Military Academies, schedule a BCS schoool at the RU level, evidenced by the Maryland UNC scheduling and then signed a 8 year deal with Notre Dame playing the home game at Giants Stadium. Your real criticism is the comparison to the SEC. The Big East is no softer then the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 or Pac 10. None of those conferences have great teams past the top 3. The only conference that is clearly superior in talent is the SEC which goes 8 deep most years. Rutgers could compete with Ole Miss, MSU, Vandy, Kentucky every year and on most years could compete with the South Carolina, UGA, Bama, ARK, Ala which may be having bad years. THey will never match up against the Florida, LSU, Tenn, juggernauts.
The next point of course is why change. If West Virginia or Louisville were undefeated they would have played in the National Championship game.
June 20, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Give PSU 2 home games for Pitt’s 1 and there might be something in playing Pitt again, but no one in State College holds on to that rivalry. And since when is it JoePa’s job to strengthen the Pitt schedule?
June 20, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I thought it was interesting that Joe Pa said PSU needs 7 home games a year for the budget. Maybe if they made better bowl games they could get by with 6 games once in a while.
June 20, 2007 at 9:13 pm
And yet here you are, spending time posting about the former rivalry, all the while declaring that you no longer care about Pitt. Good to see that you are drinking the PSU Kool Aid like so many Nitters. Penn State is already close to irrelevant in the Big Ten, they might want to cling to any type of pertinence that they can muster at this point, seeing as they’ve had one good season this decade.
June 20, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Ted K., that’s a big stretch. First the Big East being as good as any other conference aside from SEC. They just aren’t, just because the Big East is top heavy (this year, some years that isn’t even the case) doesn’t mean you can compare them to other conference that is top heavy (as all basically are). The top 3 of Louisville, West Virginia, and Rutgers are not in the same leauge as teams like Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma, etc. Those three will certainly be good this year but wouldn’t be favored to win any of the league’s you mentioned, aside from Maybe the ACC.
Secondly,
Rutgers has one good year so far. This year, they can only hope they go undefeated or lose once so they get a shot a decent ooc opponent
June 20, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Imagine that! The entire BEast is considered the easiest schedule in the nation? How does that happen when there 3 teams considered possible national championship calibur teams, and 4 Heisman Candidates (WVU has 2) in the conference.
Only a total moron would make a statement as patently stupid as Precious Roy’s. Only another total moron would agree with his stupid comments.
Everyone complains about schedules, BEast schedules especially. I remember all the comments about how easy WVU’s schedule was last year. But at the end of the year they had played 8 bowl bound teams, and had one of the tougher schedules in the country. Schedules are made years in advance. The teams from established conferences like the SEC have OOC schedules that are disgusting. And I remember comments from the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Sports Editor, the same year WVU went down to Atlanta and kicked Georgia’s butt in the Sugar Bowl, that no BEast team was worthy to play the Vols. Tennessee wasn’t worthy to play in the BEast that year, and they have the gall to make statements like that. Screw all of ya.
June 20, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I wish there was a list of toughest schedules too
June 20, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I noticed you didnt mention USF. They go to Auburn this year have played at Penn State and at Miami in out of conference games.
The problem with your statement is there are not many if any of those other BCS powerhouses tripping over themselves to sign 1-1 deals with the top BE teams.
This year the Big East will probably open with 3 teams in top 25 and maybe 4 by the end of the year. Thats HALF the league, how many other leagues can say that?
The Big East is still growing but is not the paper tiger some of you think.
Rutgers driled that same KSt team that beat texas a few weeks earlier.
In past two years the BE has beaten the ACC and SEC champs.
June 20, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Not that this necessarily justifies the Big East’s OOC’s but why would any of the larger BCS schools want to schedule against the Big East? There is no upside. Let’s say Texas schedules a home and home with ‘Cuse due to the Greg Robinson connection- what is the upside? At best they beat ‘Cuse both times and everyone says it isn’t a quality win, at worst they loose one and if f’s their whole year. Wouldn’t a big BCS school pad with real patseys that they can share less revenue with and have less downside risk rather than schedule against the weakest BCS conference who pose slightly more risk and don’t provide any real upside.
So how does the Big East get anyone to schedule with them? Do you think anyone wants to schedule Rutgers now?
But yeah the Big East does suck.
June 20, 2007 at 10:37 pm
“At College Park (West Virginia September 13) is the most difficult road game for anyone in the Big East in 2007.”
It’s one thing that your overall premise is misguided. It’s another when you are flat out wrong, sloppy, or didn’t do any research. Take your pick. USF @ Auburn is completely omitted. Next time try checking out all member schedules’ before commenting on them. After all, there’s only 8 schedules to look up.
P.S.- You also write this while painfully unaware of all circumstances. Such as Georgia Tech dropping Louisville for 2007.
June 20, 2007 at 11:04 pm
ok, the big east played the most bcs non conf opponents last year, and had 2 teams who played the most bcs non conf opponents in the nation in louisville and syracuse. The schedules are made years in advance and Lousiville has had Vandy and GT back out of home and homes, while playing Miami, FSU, Kansas St., Utah all while they were winning or participating in BCS bowls. The big east cant FORCE people to schedule them.
Louisville had a SoS of 30 last year.
June 20, 2007 at 11:39 pm
The Big East blows. 225 tight ends just do not get it done anymore
June 20, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Here is what Colin Cowherd says:
http://www.archive.org/details/weakbigeast
June 20, 2007 at 11:58 pm
[...] Bobby Petrino Leaving For Atlanta Probably Isn’t Helping Matters Much Either It’s never too early to talk college football. Never. Even if the calendar say it’s barely summer, fall cannot get […] [...]
June 21, 2007 at 1:59 am
I am a Rutgers grad, and as one I am completely embarrassed by their upcoming schedule. Following the heartbreaking conclusion to the West Virginia game, me and my roommates took a look at next year’s slate of games.
Believe me, most Rutgers alums were totally pissed off at the sheer ridiculousness of their schedule. Granted, these schedules are made years in advance, but it shows where Schiano thought the program would be. In a few years, the Scarlet Knights will be traveling to South Bend and hosting the Fighting Irish at Giants Stadium.
Until then, us Rutgers fans will have to pray that the Knights go undefeated (with exception to maybe a close loss hosting the Mountaineers), b/c if they don’t I, myself, would agree that they deserve little to no recognition.
June 21, 2007 at 3:25 am
Since you like to bash BE out of conference schedules thought you might compare them to the mighty Big12 power
Texas: Arkansas St,TCU,UCF,Rice
Thats a tough one right there
June 21, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I love how one game against Auburn is supposed to legitamize 8 teams’ crappy schedules.
June 21, 2007 at 1:50 pm
WVU has upcoming series with Florida State, Michigan State and Auburn. You can only play the teams that will play you.
Rivals.com has WVU as the 21st toughest schedule. Seven teams who played in bowl games last year. No one has ever said that playing in the BE is like the SEC. But the BE has 4 Top-25 quality teams, more than any conference other than the SEC, and is only getting better. Get used to it.
June 21, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Here’s why ‘number of bowl teams played’ is kind of bogus, especially with regard to BE teams.
It’s an 8 team conference. So you play 7 conference games. That leaves you FIVE non-conference games (as opposed to say the Pac 10 with only three). So the BE is generally scheduling total weaklings for four if not all five of those.
With five non-conference doormats on the schedule you need all of ONE conference win to make it to bowl eligibility. So if you are in the Big East and your name is not Syracuse, you’ve got a great shot at being bowl eligible just for suiting up. Wouldn’t surprise me if six of these eight teams went to bowls. That means that a BE team already has 5 bowl teams on its schedule. Doesn’t mean they are any good.
Also happy for who you got upcoming. Doesn’t change whose on the schedule this year.
June 21, 2007 at 2:25 pm
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June 21, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Colin Cowherd is a moron. Anything he says is pretty much automatically the opposite of the truth.
June 21, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Why is there so much hate toward the Big East. The conference teams played who was placed in front of them for last years bowl games and won them and we get grief about it. Schedule are made in advance years in advance.. No one is taking into account that the defections from Miami, Boston College and Virgina Tech left Scheduling voids for 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008. Teams had to reshuffle their schedules.. You can only play the teams that will schedule you. All the Big East has to doing is keep winning and that will shut people up or make them hate the Big East more.. I say screw all of you all. Just keep winning Big East, keep winning..
June 21, 2007 at 7:05 pm
If the Big East teams were qualifying for bowl berths that they did not earn, one would expect them to lose their bowl games. That obviously hasn’t happened.
If the bowl opponents weren’t up to snuff, then perhaps the bowl slots need to be assigned in a more rational way (instead of contractual ties to various over-rated conferences).
If teams consistently lose their bowl games, that would be indicative of them being over-rated. (Who might that be? – oh yeah Notre Dame)
June 21, 2007 at 8:42 pm
What’s really boring is when dipshits prattle on about this subject without actual facts. What, pray tell, are facts? How about actual strength of schedule rankings? RPI’s?
Kind of funny about the bowl opponents too. Big East one and two beat the ACC one and two yet that doesn’t matter. Rutgers blows out a Kansas State team that beat Texas but that doesn’t matter because they weren’t ranked. Yet does anyone want to bet that they would have been if they’d beaten Rutgers? South Florida crushed East Carolina, but that’s irrelevant too. Nevermind the fact that ECU beat two ACC teams including Virginia… a team that sucked last year but still managed to finish .500 in the ACC. And then the 5th place team (IN AN 8 TEAM CONFERENCE) beat lowly Western Michigan in their bowl. A joke team that still managed to also beat Virginia and lost by a touchdown at Florida State.
So please, use facts or shut up.
June 21, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Okay, here are some facts.
Lets look at the strongest non-conference opponents in the Big East teams’ schedule this year. As a proxy, I’ll use the teams from BCS conferences. Here are the Big East’s BCS opponents this year: Oregon State, Duke, Virginia (x2), Kentucky, NC State, Michigan State, Maryland (x2), Auburn, North Carolina, Washington, Iowa, Illinois, and Mississippi State.
Those teams combined to go 65-88 in 2006 for a winning percentage of .425. Additionally only four of the teams had winning records (one was at .500).
Compare that to, say, the SEC. I’m picking the SEC for no reason other than it seems to be the popular held conception that it is the strongest of the BCS conferences.
The SEC teams’ BCS opponents this year are FSU (x2), Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, California, Clemson, North Carolina, Louisville, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Kansas State, South Florida, Missouri, West Virginia. Those teams combined to go 105-51 last year for a winning percentage of .673. Only one of those teams had a losing record last year (two were at .500).
I’m no SEC flag-waver, but even I was surprised at how gaudy those numbers were.
You could argue that there are three Big East teams propping up those SEC numbers, but that runs the other way. To wit: if you pull Auburn from the Big East’s list, they lose about 15% of their wins (if you go the other way, the SEC’s opponent winning percentage is still almost .630)
Granted last year’s performance is no guarantee of this year’s. But it does provide a decent baseline for indicating talent level.
Seriously, Big East people. This isn’t personal. Your schedules are easier. You should be happy about that. It gives one of your teams an excellent chance to run the table and show it “belongs” by winning the BCS title game. As I said in the Texas post, the BCS rewards wins not nads.
Also, and this applies mostly to people from West Virginia, if you want to send me email, that’s fine. But if you are going to bother please try an argument a little more nuanced than either, “You hate us, you’re an idiot,” or, “Your blog name is stupid, you’re an idiot.”
June 21, 2007 at 9:36 pm
This was a comment left at my site:
Does anyone really think that WVU beating UGA has perpetuated this “Big East is good” talk? We’re talking about of bunch of folks that burn couches to celebrate a victory and they play John Denver while doing it. There’s only a few analysts that think the Big East is worth an Atari 8600 and that’s Mark May, and, uh, no one else.
You think they would be beating their chests either way?
Let’s review the Big East’s stellar 2006/2007 5 and 0 bowl record:
_ UL beats Wake Forest in the most unattractive BCS bowl games to date. The worst Orange Bowl for as long anyone can remember. When Orange Bowl officials found out who they got for their premier game, a collective, “awww, shiiiaaatttt…” leaked from the board room.
- The cute Rutgers story of the year put them in the Texas Bowl against Big 12 (7-6) powerhouse, Kansas State. Rutgers, the Big East runner-up, wins 37 – 10. Aww. It’s their 1st ever bowl win in 137 seasons played. How cute.
- WVU, the big east #3, sneaks into the Gator Bowl and “destroys” GT 38-35. Ironically, that’s the same score they “destroyed” UGA with. “Destroy” is taught in WV public schools as a term to describe winning by any margin. WVU fans will not say that South Florida “destroyed” the mountaineers 24-19 in Morgantown, but, whatever.
- Now here’s where the big games start. Big East #4, South Florida, faces the juggernaut East Carolina from C-USA. This was a game for the ages with South Florida winning the Papa John’s Bowl 24-7. Papa John’s gave both conferences $100,000 worth of liquid garlic butter and those mini end tables used to keep the pizza box from being brushed into the cheese.
- Cincinnati (8-5), Big East #5, played the scrappy Western Michigan Broncos in Toronto in the International Bowl. I actually watched this whole game. I don’t know why, other than I must have been sick and the batteries on the remote must have been dead. Ironically, this was a good game. Kinda like how you can go to a high school football game and see a good game. Cincinnati came out to a 24-0 lead and eventually won the contest 27-24. Now that’s football.
So, the Big East’s 2006/7 bowl opponents were Wake Forest, GT, Kansas State, East Carolina, and Western Michigan. Wake Forest is the only team in the bunch to finish ranked in the top 30 with an 18 in the AP poll and 17 in the Coaches poll.
Why say all of that? I don’t know, really. Big East fans will never agree that their conference is inferior, so not only do I waste time watching Cincinnati in the International Bowl, but I wasted time reasearching Big East Bowl games to author a reply post on loserwithsocks.
You know how they have classifications in high school football? A, AA, AAA, AAAA, AAAAA? The Big East is AA. Every year a AA team will beat a AAAA or AAAAA team in football. They cheer and get all happy and say they can compete, but everyone knows they don’t have the depth or the ability to compete with the big boys every week. One game here and there? Sure, but WVU or UL isn’t escaping the SEC schedule with less than 3 losses during their best year.
I used to like WVU, but it’s tough to give them kudos now
June 21, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Projections are NOT facts Bob. It’s more than a little ridiculous to combine this year’s schedules with last year’s opponent records to make an argument. For starters, it takes a full season for any meaningful computation of strength of schedule and RPI and last year’s Big East results laid waste to similar criticisms.
Second, please be smart enough not to grab a sampling of OOC games from a 12 team conference vs. an 8 team one.
And third, if you are going to engage in the first two silly exercises don’t give a list of 13 SEC opponents that includes 3 Big East teams , 4 teams who lost to Big East teams last year and 2 others who lost to teams that Big East teams obliterated.
June 21, 2007 at 10:59 pm
@The Appalachian Man
You have to be shitting me, 3 NC contenders from the BE? Who ever comes out of the BE will have to be undefeated to play in the NC game where they will be destroyed by whoever they play.
Utah/Pitt ’05 Fiesta Bowl bitches!
June 21, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Barnacle:
That’s quite a quandry you’ve made for yourself. The only acceptable ‘facts’ are RPI and SoS, but those don’t mean anything until the end of the season anyway.
Hope you get yourself a time machine to work that one out. Also hope you get a dictionary so you can look up ‘facts.’
June 22, 2007 at 12:07 am
Sorry dude but it isn’t a quandry at all. Nor do I need to look look up ‘facts’ in a dictionary.
While I’m amused by your condescension you can’t be terribly bright if you fail to note that I ripped apart his argument on his terms anyway after my initial comment..
June 22, 2007 at 12:28 am
I’ll clarify this another way. Take this year’s Rutgers schedule based on last year’s RPI’s.
5 Louisville
10 West Virginia
31 South Florida
43 Cincinnati
45 Pittsburgh
66 Syracuse
73 Connecticut
Note that the Big East only has 7 conference games as opposed to 8 and did not have any joke RPI teams like Duke, Illinois, Colorado, Stanford. etc.
122 Army
We’ll call Army our 8th conference game for the hell of it. The pinata other conferences have the benefit of playing during the year.
That leaves 4 games…
38 Maryland
47 Navy
150 Buffalo
1-AA Norfolk
Two good teams and two sacrificial lambs. Not much different than any other program and probably better than many.
I don’t believe it means a damn thing to project your opponents previous years performance onto the next year, but if someone wants to call such things ‘facts” then there you have it.
June 22, 2007 at 9:48 am
“a team that needed to block a 28-yard field goal on the game’s final play to beat a winless Duke at home by a single point.”
Love how you describe the 2006 ACC champion.
June 22, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Just some thoughts on this…
As a Pitt fan and Big East supporter, I do think some credence needs to be paid to one other thing. Not looking for excuses here, but this is the last year that many Big East teams still had to deal with the aftereffects of the ACC/Big East mess from a few years ago. Pitt had the Michigan State, Virginia and Navy games scheduled four years ago because they were citing those games in 2003 when they ran “future opponent” promos at Heinz Field. The shakeuo of the conferences and the inclusion of the 12th game forced them to deal with things in much the same way that Ted K describes in comment #7. Pitt also was scheduled to open with Bowling Green this year, but BG backed out prior to last year and Pitt had to scramble to add Eastern Michigan. Bowling Green was nothing to thump one’s chest about, but it’s one of the better MAC programs and a significant step up from Eastern Michigan. But given the time crunch, it’s a miracle they were able to add a D-IA opponent at all. As Ted K says, this stuff happens and they’re left with the dregs.
They’re also hurt, to some degree, by having only seven in-conference games. And there are only so many good opponents to go around. This just came to light this week, but it appears there’s some dispute within Pitt’s athletic dept. as to how to handle five OOC games. Wannstedt would prefer to play two of those games against BCS conference teams and the other three against non-BCS conf. teams. Athletic dir. Jeff Long would prefer it the other way around (I tend to side with AD Long here).
But if you look at the schedules some Big Ten teams play, Wannstedt may not be off much. These Big East schools aren’t the only ones scheduling three patsies a year, either. Penn State plays Florida International and Buffalo at home this year, and goes to Temple. They hosted Akron, Youngstown State and Temple last year. Four of Wisconsin’s wins last year came against Bowling Green, Western Illinois, San Diego State, and Buffalo. Notre Dame closes with Navy, Air Force, and Duke at home and Stanford on the road.
And sure, Penn State has to deal with Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin. But last year was that any different than South Florida having to play Louisville, Rutgers and WVU (three schools that all finished in the top fifteen)?
I don’t argue that the Big East teams need to play better schedules. Respect has to be earned and the only way to do that is to schedule bigger-name opponents. Big East fans were hoping to be able to do that last year during bowl season, and I can tell you every Big East fan was extremely disheartened to see the way some of the bowl matchups ended up.
I know Pitt is bringing Notre Dame, Iowa, Miami and VT back onto its schedule in coming years. Who knows where those programs will be when those games come around, but the name recognition is there. They just agreed to cancel a home-and-home with Clemson that would’ve been played in 2010-11, but AD Long has said they’ll replace that with a series against a team from a BCS conference. Who that team will be remains to be seen.
June 23, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Guess what? Your insignificant blog does not amount to squat. And I love some of the cute opinions left here by Haters. Tell your opinion to the SEC, whom WVU is 4-0 against since 2000. Tell your valued opinion to The Sporting News, the AJC, CFN.com, Athlon’s, or Street & Smith.
They will laugh in your face. Everyone of those publications have the Big East ranked HIGHER than the Big 12, ACC, Mountain West, WAC, C-USA, or the MAC in terms of strength.
Look at Syracuse’s UPCOMING opponents and tell me that is a weak schedule. Look at Louisville’s UPCOMING opponents and tell me that is a weak schedule.
Look at WVU’s UPCOMING opponents (at AUBURN next year, then Michigan State, then FSU in 2009).
Louisville asked EVERY TEAM in the SEC for a neutral site game in Nashville. Every single SEC team said “no”. I wonder why?
I love it when homers start to quake in their Crocs at the sight of another school, or conference, starting to horn in their turf.
The fact is this: Many so-called “analysts” gave the Big East up for dead after the raid by the ACC. Then, lo and behold, the Big East rose up and emabarrassed the ACC. Colin Cowherd? Please, he’s Jim Rome Lite: same bad taste, half the intelligence. He knows two things about college football: jack and squat, and jack has already left town.
Your opinion is a like a cell phone: everyone has one, and lot of people find it annoying.
June 24, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Kermit the blog? Wow, this site reeks of professionalism. What’s the credibility of a site named after a muppet?
As for the clown linking what Colin Cowherd mentioned, please explain to me why that joker isn’t even on the air in 4 out of 5 of the ESPN owned affiliates (Chicago, Dallas, NYC and Pittsburgh)?
Answer: He’s bushleague.
Here’s a link to a site that seems to know a bit more about football.
http://muppets.go.com/main.html
June 25, 2007 at 3:36 pm
If teams would give a home and home the big east would have no problem playing better teams. But no one is willing to do that. Just playing an away game with no return home game doesnt work because the team looses out on to much money. Especially for louisville who needs it for the remodeling of papa john’s cardinal stadium
June 27, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Yes, the BE should wise up and play a schedule like the SEC teams do with 8/9 home games and a whole lot of bellyaching about how tough it is the couple of times they do actually hit the road.
October 26, 2007 at 6:30 pm
how can you attack the big east’s automatic bcs bid when the big east conference champ has won their respective bcs game the last two years (against the acc champ* and against the sec champ).
*sure the acc team “needed to block a 28-yard field goal on the game’s final play to beat a winless Duke at home by a single point,” but guess what they obviously did more than that b/cuz they won the f’n conference (i admit the acc is a sh*t conference, but hey i don’t hear you attacking the acc’s automatic bcs bid).
……………………..
also gotta love south florida stomping auburn in their own house (a team that beat florida on the road and almost beat lsu on the road).
also gotta love cinci dismantling oregon state who kicked cal’s ass.
you ignore some pretty significant facts kermit.
looking forward to the 2008 big east champ dismantling another conference champ in the bcs bowl game AGAIN
October 26, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Glad people are still finding these, but folks might want to check the dates on the posts before getting mouthy.
Also, I’m not sure that either an OT win or a win on a mental error by an inexperienced QB counts (respectively) as a “stomping” or an “ass kicking.”
December 8, 2007 at 12:16 am
Does Petrino have a great DC at Atlanta ? Jamaal Anderson and Chris Houston was the draft destination for these former Razorbacks and now I’m hearing his name floating amongst the Razorback faithful as a possible replacement for Coach Houston Nutt.