Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman - Michigan #1 Rated Nonconference Schedule
Barry Tramel is a highly respected sports journalist for The Oklahoman, and I always enjoy reading his articles. In today's paper, Tramel rates from 1-68 the top nonconference schedules among the teams in the 6 major conferences.
Schools of note:
MSU #4 (rest of B10 #28+)
USC #11
Oklahoma #27 (#1 B12 school)
Florida #32 (#2 SEC school - Missouri 1st at #14)
Ohio St. #46
One thing that first entered my mind was the fact that the B12 and SEC non-conference schedules are absolutely terrible (as well as most of the B10). Alabama has Michigan and nobody else. LSU's biggest game is Washington.
I know the SEC for the most part deserves its reputation as the best overall football conference based off of their bowl records and national championships (minus last year's mess), but it's sad that the top conferences have such a difficult time facing tougher competition out of their conference just to lower the risk of an early season loss and fail to be penalized for it (in terms of post-regular season rankings). I think this could be an argument for why the current system actually hurts college football in that it encourges poor non-conference scheduling.
Tramel compares this season to 1983, and it's easy to note that the strength of schedules have drastically weakened over the years. Imagine if Michigan's schedule was the norm instead of the outlier.
I realize Michigan doesn't usually have this tough of a schedule, but I hope this becomes closer to the norm than where it currently sits. I think the PAC12 scheduling contract will definitely help and may push the other conferences to follow suit.
Either way, I'm excited for this season and for the lack of cupcake games.
I dunno, I think getting close to a million bucks per game, is worth a lot more for a school than the football team's pride
Let's say you're any MAC team. You can either play a Big Ten team, have a 90% chance or so of losing, and get a big pay day out of it (with very little travel expense) or you can play a team from another non-BCS FBS conference, get about as much for the pay out as your spent to get there (since most all of those types of teams are a decent distance away) and still have no better than a 50/50 shot at a victory.
In the first scenario you know you'll take home a big pay check, and you might even pull of a program-defining victory. In the second scenario you have a solid chance of getting the same L on the schedule, but without making much money at all. This is why teams don't do what you're suggesting.
I share your desire to have tougher schedules becoming closer to the norm but I don't think this is possible. It seems the only way that BCS conference teams are going to have tougher schedules are through these SEC/Big12 and Big10/Pac-12 matchups. There's little incentive for SEC teams to schedule more difficult opponents when they're making the championship game every season and there's little incentive for UM to schedule more difficult opponents when they'll have a Pac-12 team and ND (for however long that'll last).
It's an unfortunate reality. I'd love to limit BCS schools to 1 "warm-up" game against an EMU-type team and make them play other BCS schools for the rest of their nonconference schedules. But not many teams in title contention will want to risk 2 or 3 losses when there's little incentive to do so. Teams like Boise St. have had to play BCS schools to cover up their weak conference schedule but most BCS teams will be in the MNC if they go undefeated in conference.
They drive me crazy. Over the past four years they played five BCS opponents in the non-conference, the sames as we have. They also played five games vs the MAC. They decided the best way to get into a BCS bowl is to schedule one marquee game to start the year and then whine and politic the rest of the season.
Maybe Boise St. wasn't the best example. But I was using them as an example of a team who plays BCS schools in order to improve their SoS. They HAD to play a BCS team in order to show that they were worthy of a BCS bowl. I mainly used them as an example to contrast to many big time schools like those in the SEC who don't need those nonconference games as a way to improve their schedule more.
It seems to me as of the last few years with the rise of Boise St. they atleast seem to be willing to play anyone at any place. No one wants to schedule them. I can't blame them for that.
I wsh our schedule wasn't so tough this year. Why put your team at a disadvantage when everyone else is playing cupcakes.
I still enjoy having ND on the schedule every year. We've been getting a lot of credit for beating them early in the year, when they still have their artificially high ranking.
but I think it only really matters if you're contending for a national title. In the '12 team's case, the Alabama game is really a no-lose situation (unless we get blown off the field, which I don't think will happen).
Even if we go 2-2 in the non-conference schedule, I think it makes the team better and will help acheive a realistic goal for this season - a Big 10 championship.
A couple years from now, if things are going as planned and Michigan is a perennial national-title contender, I agree with you. But for now, it's about elevating the program overall and the non-conference schedule is going to serve as fantastic preparation, win or lose.
Since Notre Dame isn't in a conference, their nonconference schedule can't be ranked ... but their overall schedule looks even tougher than ours this year.
They definitely have a touhger schedule than MIchigan. We don't have to play ourselves =] I'd be surprised if they do much better than .500 this year. I think ours is pretty comperable, though.
Several publications/sites have ranked ND's SOS as the #1 toughest in the country.
I don't see it. Let's compare their schedule to a typical SEC schedule. Let's say that SEC team has 3 easy games. ND has Navy, Wake Forest, and BC. Let's say that SEC team plays Vandy/UK or Ole Miss/Miss St. ND has Purdue and BYU (who isn't that good anymore, remember). Keep in mind that BC is the only road game I've listed for ND so far. The rest of ND's schedule is comprised of above average (Pitt, Miami, Stanford probably) to elite teams. But that's the case for any team in the SEC right now. Florida plays the SEC plus Florida State. Alabama plays the SEC plus us. Both Auburn and South Carolina play the SEC plus Clemson.
Yes, ND's schedule is finally difficult. But is it that much harder than ours? They have SC and Oklahoma, we have Alabama and Ohio State. MSU is a wash, so is Purdue. They have Navy, we have Air Force. They have Stanford and Miami, we have Nebraska and Iowa. They have one more home game than we have. And this is with an easier than normal Big Ten schedule for us. If we had Wisconsin instead of Purdue or Illinois, ours would be ever harder.
So ND finally has a schedule comparable to other top teams. This makes up for the last 10 years where their schedule every year was Michigan, USC, and the Big East and academies.
Next thing you know we'll be playing App State again.
What?!? we have never played them...I do not recall us ever playing them (nudge nudge, wink wink)
ugh, I can't believe they scheduled them again in 2014.
...out-of-Conference, and in-Conference. Too bad almost all of them are being played somewhere other than Michigan Stadium.
I don't mind playing one MAC team a year, I think that is decent and generates local interest as the MAC and Big10 share pretty much the same geographic footprint. I am not a big fan of scheduling FCS teams, I would prefer we don't do that...again. As long as Michigan has ND and Pac-12 team in the NC schedule, it should remain a challenge and put Michigan toward the top of the Schedule list most years.
Part of the landscape that has changed since the mid-80's is that the little schools make soooo much money for playing one of the big boys. Two games a year can keep their athletic dept in the black. It won't go away simply because the finacial incentive to play is there.
I seriously would not give two shits if we dropped ND from the schedule. I know it won't happen, but it would be nice to have more room to play real BCS opponents and not have the same fake BCS opponent eating up a spot on the schedule every single year.
Playing EMU a few times a decade isn't bad since it drums up nice local support for both squads. Especially now that Ron English is the Coach at EMU I'd love for Michigan to dominate the B1G and Eastern to dominate the MAC.
What will fix this problem?
Well it won't be a fix from "within." As sagely pointed out, little schools need these infusions of cash -- to buy helmets, pay for roadtrips to other schools on their schedule etc. Big schools like UM are HOOKED on the revenue. DB has 6-9 home games a year (usually 7-8) and from that makes, what, 99.9998% of the athletic dept budget? I overstate, but the point is, each home game is WAY more important for the budget, compared to non-economic factors like if the fans are excited to watch a game on TV.
Plus, look at Stanford and Oregon last year. Oregon whupped Stanford, in Palo Alto. But Oregon scheduled LSU OOC and got clobbered; whereas Stanford had 4 creampuffs. Voila, Stanford ends up above Oregon in the BCS, and if they were using the BCS to choose the top 4, it would have been Stanford over Oregon. Lesson learned?
Only way I see this changing is -- a committee seleting 8-16 teams for the national championship makes it abundantly clear, that you have to schedule tough. That MIGHT influence enough teams to change. (If they are only selecting top 4, there is little incentive to look for really hard OOC games -- too little likelihood it will make a difference.) Plus, the revenue from the TV deals for a playoff need to be shared w/ little guys, so they don't all need the revenue games from the big teams.
Short of that... stop complaining.
Oregon also lost to USC and finished the regular season 10-2. Stanford was 11-1.
I never thought I'd say this but I'm actually kind've jealous of MSU. A matchup with Oregon would be awesome to see. I know they got us the last time but I hope we can setup something with them or USC, a real powerhouse in the Pac.