ND Alternatives?

I say Michigan signs a contract with the ACC in which Michigan gets to pick one team per year to come play at the Big House....say...ND for example.

I want us to schedule ACC schools just to troll the Irish.

Serioulsy, neither school will ever find a long term rivilary like Michigan - Notre Dame (all the more reason why ND sucks).  So, just look at the last 25 years or so of rankings, and find those programs that are consistiently there.  Then schedule them to home and homes.  That will give us a revolving schedule with the likes of Georgia, Flordia, USC, FSU, Va Tech, etc.   If a given program will not agree to a home and home, then move on to those who will.  Add a mid-level program and one MAC-snack per year, and the 9 game conference schedule will take you from there. 

 

I would love a deal with the Pac-12. Wanna get a shot at Oregon. Although the trips out West haven't been kind in the past I think we can handle it.



/ Fuck ND

How about Iowa State, they are from a BCS conference, have their good years, but never really great, so not really a threat. Plus I live a 1/2 hour from Ames, so that would be great for me.

What makes a good rivalry?  Geographic proximity?  History?  Similar schools?  Recruiting foes? Parity?  

Colorado is VERY(!) down now, but long term, this is a program that is ripe for some success.  The campus and stadium is set one of the most beautiful places in the country, if not the world.  Michigan fans who made the trip in '96 know this to be true.  Their fans are generally amicable, much like our fan base.  Colorado's academics are solid, if not elite when it comes to public education.  The demographics of the Rocky Mountain region are growing exponentially.  High school football/recruiting is begiining to take hold.  The future is bright in Colorado.  

 

This is a school, assuming their new AD and coach can get things together, that will return to legitimacy in about 5-10 years, right when any new rivalry would take hold.

 

We are not geographically proximate to Boulder, but between our vast alumni base, and the relative ease of a 2 1/2 hour flight, I do not see this is as a deal-breaker.  Plus, if you haven't been to Colorado in early-September, you're seriously missing out.

 

We do have some history (please excuse me while I lay in the fetal position in the closet).  Their most beloved coach - their Schembechler, if you will - is Bill McCartney, who has deep ties to our program, having been an assistant from '74-'81. 

Michigan-Notre Dame was a natural and familiar non-conference rivalry between two programs that are at the very top in terms of history and tradition.  I don't think UM will be able to replace ND with another program that touches on all the facets I described above.

So the next best thing is to find a major program willing to be involved in a long-term series much like UM and ND had in place since 1978.  Barring that, the other option is to play a series of high profile opponents with the hope and expectation that those types of programs are going to be Top 10 or Top 15 early in the season.

There's a finite number of candidates to begin with and if the ACC/SEC adopt a nine-game conference schedule, it'll become even more problematic.   Then, of course, there are schools that have major non-conference instate rivalries (Florida/Florida State, Georgia/Georgia Tech, Clemson/South Carolina) and out of state rivalries (USC/Stanford v. Notre Dame) that simply may not be available (although I believe Stanford is contract to play ND though 2019, so they may be available in the 2020s).

ACC:  The one program that has name recognition, but is currently going through rough times, is Miami-Fl.  How the Hurricans will look in 2017 (where Michigan has an open scheduling slot) or in the early 2020s (after the Va Tech games in 2020/1) is anyone's guess.  But that's part of the deal--the better programs are generally the ones that are highly rated early in the season, but it doesn't happen all the time.  Clemson might also be worth considering as well.

Big XII:  The two obvious candidates here are Texas and Oklahoma.  Neither one are immediately available per their published future schedules, but might be on a future schedule in the 2020s.  WIthout a conference championship game, UT and OU are looking at having pretty good non-conference schedules.  Both will or are playing Notre Dame, so traveling northward for a game in September isn't going to faze them.

SEC:  If you remove UF, UGa and USoCarolina from the list (see above), then the programs left are Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Tennessee and Texas A&M.  ATM have recently expanded Kyle Field and their publicly published schedule doesn't show any games for 2017 yet, so they'd get my vote.  

P12:  There are perhaps three Pac 12 teams available outside of Stanford and USC.  Washington, Oregon and UCLA would all be likely candidates, although they're all programs UM has played as part of the non-conference schedule in recent years (in contrast to the ACC, SEC and B12 programs).  Getting these programs on the schedule would be roughly akin to doing what the stillborn B10-P12 scheduling agreement was supposed to do.

We'll see what happens because there are always a lot of moving parts involved.  As I mentioned above, one question that needs to get answered is how long the ACC/SEC will have eight-game conference schedules.  If the NCAA does opt to have a fourth division with the 60-plus top programs in it, how does that effect the pool of non-conference candidates?  How will strength of schedule be computed in terms of post season play?

One other option for Michigan and the Big Ten is to move a major conference game up into early September.  For the Wolverines, the likely candidates would be Penn State, Nebraska and Wisconsin.  Could you have an "Under the Lights" type game with these three programs?  I imagine the answer would be yes.

Jowlja. 

.......where the wind comes sweeping down the plain

Maybe I'm biased since I'm on the West Coast, but brainiac match-ups of teams on the upswing would be nice:
Stanford
UCLA
CAL (no past midnight shenanigans like NU)

and yes, some RR action would be fun too. I rather see rotating match ups vs a regular, three rivals is 2 too many.

Ohio has a very attractive set of non conf teams over the next decade inclusive of Oregon Texas TCU VaTech and Oklahoma.  We will follow in that path once we get through the next 6 years when most everyone is already scheduled.  The two teams with openings long term that would be perfect fits are Georgia (who already has a 'rivalry' game with GA Tech and never comes north of Kentucky), and Tennessee.  The latter has some games over the next 4-5 years but the schedule opens up nicely - two great traditions, some history with Woodson v Manning, great stadiums, everything ... assuming Tennessee gets back to what it was 10 years ago.  A lot of teams are already booked between now and 2020.  Everyone wants Texas, they are scheduled out to early 2020s, everyone wants Oklahoma, they are scheduled out to early 2020s.  Everyone wants Stanford, they already come out to the Midwest to play STanford so you need to convince them to come out every year (ND in even years and UM in off years) - upward battle.  Stanford already has Northwestern scheduled in the out years.    LSU would be awesome but I dont see that happening under Les Miles.  etc.  Florida has Florida State as their traditional out of conference. Miami is already scheduled out quite a while inclusive of MSU.

The truth is creating a long term rivalry is near impossible and frankly I'd rather see variety.   In a perfect world over a decade you play ND 4x with 2 home and homes and use those other 6 slots for 3 home and homes with Oklahoma or Texas (2 games), a top end SEC team (2 games), and a top end Pac 10 team preferably in California (UCLA even works, if not STanford or USC).  That gets you exposure nationally and you still can keep your LONG term ND rivalry from completely stagnating.

SEC team, big stadium, AWESOME tailgate.

Stanford makes sense.  Both schools respected academically, and Stanford has trouble filling their stadium even now and I'm sure scheduling Michigan would put butts back in it.  Plus it's a straightforward win 7 out of 10 times.

 

Boise State has made it very clear that they are looking for big schools to add to their schedule.  They've added squads like Florida State and have not been bashful about traveling to the East Coast and the South (stomped the Dwags in Atlanta and have another meeting with Ole Miss set up there for 2015 I believe).  They have Virginia and Oklahoma State on the schedule.  The one thing about this that could make Boise hesitate would be that it seems like they already have an agreement with State for more games down the road, so they probably wouldn't want to be traveling to Michigan twice.  Other thing too is that their schedule is pretty much chock full through about 2017, so it would have to wait.

 

I'm all for snapping up an SEC team but it's very difficult to get them to leave their nest to play a team in the Midwest or out west with a pulse.  Tennessee is an exception, as is LSU of late, but I can only imagine how crazy AA would be if a Georgia, Florida, or LSU was coming to town.

 

*removed comment due to misplacement*