Michigan Football announces 4 non-conference games for 2021-2023
January 11th, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
This tryhard attitude is why we finished 10-3 instead of 11-2 with an ass kicking victory in week 1 over an SEC team.
Instead, we paid Arkansas a shitload of money to not play them and then scheduled ND according to THEIR conditions of getting a home game after they got the last one in the series, then promptly lost the game.
Oh, and scheduled them next year in the middle of B1G season in 2019. All to resume a "rivalry" that is going to go dormant for nearly a decade because both teams have booked schedules through 2027.
January 11th, 2019 at 2:57 PM ^
...and then scheduled ND according to THEIR conditions...
UM wants seven home games per season. UM needed whoever replaced Arkansas to play in Ann Arbor in 2019.
Now, whether or not UM needed to schedule a team of ND's caliber is debatable. But stop this idiotic narrative that UM ever would've agreed to play ND H/A as opposed to the current A/H setup. That was never going to happen.
January 11th, 2019 at 3:19 PM ^
We literally had 6 home games last year.
Had ND been at home in 2018, who knows. Maybe that's a win. Oh well.
Sure hope it goes better next season.
January 11th, 2019 at 3:49 PM ^
Yeah, but they also got UF in Dallas. Which, IIRC, netted them a bigger profit than a home game.
January 11th, 2019 at 12:04 PM ^
This is what everyone wants and then when game day rolls around they bitch because the game is not worth going to. Fans only bitch about playing the big boys if you lose to them, they brag about them being on the schedule when you beat them.
Take basketball for example, no one is bragging about us beating Norfolk State but I hear about Villanova, North Carolina Etc.
We also attack the SEC for their cake schedules and rightfully so. I'm not saying you have to play Notre Dame Oklahoma and LSU in our nonconference schedule but I would rather see one of them then Ball State, Miami of Ohio or Eastern Michigan
January 11th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
No one cares when a traditional power plays a bodybag game -- and all four of these games are body bag games.
Are you and your friends going to reminisce about the 49-3 blowout of Bowling Green? Does Gameday show up for any of these games? This is barely going to make the highlights on SportsCenter. Because NO ONE CARES.
When people stop caring about going to games, the whole thing starts falling apart.
And it seems that all that matters to the people on this board is making the playoff. That is an incredibly short sighted view of the college football world.
January 11th, 2019 at 2:13 PM ^
Not in this day and age it isn't.
January 11th, 2019 at 12:48 PM ^
Those names don't really move the excitement needle, but easier SoS is the easier path to the CFP and that's what I want more than interesting non-conference opponents
January 11th, 2019 at 1:14 PM ^
January 11th, 2019 at 1:20 PM ^
If the goal is to play creampuffs for non conference, why not schedule the absolute worst teams in college football if it doesnt matter? Play the most horrible teams rather than just pretty horrible teams.
January 11th, 2019 at 1:45 PM ^
So in other words schedule like the SEC
January 11th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
I'm bored already.
We cancelled interesting home and home matchups and scheduled this garbage, all for the sake of trying to make a low-probability 4-team playoff. Combined with less-than-exciting games like Rutgers and Maryland, the regular season is almost completely sacrificed for a shot of making a playoff. While smart people can disagree on this, it's not a great tradeoff to me. I realize Michigan is responding to incentives so it's not totally on our AD, but these games reiterate the long, slow slide of college football into the land of unwatchable and i-don't-care.
For the past 15 years I have made Michigan football games an absolute priority, scheduling everything around them. I just had my first child so my priorities in life are starting to shift. I can now say with virtual certainty that I won't even bother recording these games. We'll be on the golf course.
January 11th, 2019 at 1:30 PM ^
Bowling Green is a trap game before MN - be careful, they are building something special.
January 11th, 2019 at 2:49 PM ^
Just looked at OSU's OOC schedule for next 5 years: next (this) year it's Florida Atlantic (suck it, Lane), Cincinnati (#23 in final AP, and Luke Fickell is their HC), and Miami of Ohio, all at home with a trip to Piscataway sandwiched b/w the 2 in-state games. In 20/21, we have a home-and-home with Oregon and then 22/23, a home-and-home with Notre Dame. So next year the only tough game should be Cincy, and that's at home although hardly a hike for Bearcat fans. I think it's helped us when we've had one solid OOC and 2 that we're supposed to win. We made it to the CFP the year we beat OU in Norman, even though we lost at University Park to eventual BIG champ Penn State: that quality road win got us in--but then we got pounded by Clemson, so it could easily have been argued (and was, in many places) that PSU should have gone to CFP. Then again, they got beat by USC in the Rose Bowl.
The actuarial and bureaucratic hoops to be jumped through remind me of those logic questions on the old GRE's, where Timmy has to sit next to a left-hander at lunch but it can't be someone with a peanut allergy, while Tanya cannot sit next to James unless he's wearing sneakers and has at least one member of the vegetable family in his lunch-box. Throw in the fact that these things get scheduled years in advance such that we can't always know how good a given team will actually be, and it's real damn hard to ensure that your slate puts you in the best position for a particular goal, whether that's BIG/CFP or genuinely interesting OOC games.
January 11th, 2019 at 3:15 PM ^
These bodybag games are must-haves. Michigan has home and homes with Power 5 teams coming up.
The only thing is that UCLA is a shitty Power 5 school and I honestly don't think Chip Kelly will be there by the time we play them in 2022.
January 11th, 2019 at 3:08 PM ^
Northern Illinois is the wrong cupcake to schedule. We probably won't lose, but they are by far the strongest MAC team in the last decade. I predict an uncomfortably close game that everyone freaks out about; luckily, we get Rutgers the next week.
January 11th, 2019 at 3:11 PM ^
You actually like "bodybag" games, WD?
HELL NO, at least schedule someone with a pulse from a power 5 conference, such as Wake Forest or Kansas or Texas Tech.
WMU is the only one of these teams that should ever be on our home schedule.
January 11th, 2019 at 3:23 PM ^
Kansas has a pulse?
January 11th, 2019 at 5:56 PM ^
OK. Kansas State, then.
But other than WMU, EMU, and CMU, why anyone else in the MAC? DO. NOT. WANT.
And give us Colorado instead if CSU.
If our AD is going to continue upping ticket prices and seat license fees every other year like the trend seems to be, then at least give us a semi-interesting non-conference schedule rather than teams that belong to conferences with absolutely no shot at playoff contention regardless of how big they someday make the playoff field.
January 11th, 2019 at 3:35 PM ^
Husky high-five!!!
January 11th, 2019 at 4:32 PM ^
2022 Alma Mater CSU!!! Fort Collins is no Ann Arbor but it's super cool town for any UM folks looking for cool places to check out outside of Michigan.
January 11th, 2019 at 9:19 PM ^
Riveting