Official 2014 OOC Facepalm Schedules

[Red_Alert]

I think there should be a distinction. It's one thing to say teams like Bama are weak for scheduling cupcakes, but it is quite another to say Vandy schedules cupcakes. Bama is a top 10 program and Vandy is Vandy. Does not make much sense to lump teams like Vandy and Wake with teams like Bama, OU, and OSU

Considering a school only needs 6 wins to be bowl eligible, I think it does matter. A team like Vandy is scheduling cupcakes to get 4 easy wins, therefore they'll only need 2 more in conference.

How many times have you seen "This team plays X # of teams that were bowl eligible last season" as a means of determining SOS?

Many upper echelon SEC teams schedule cupcakes and bye weeks in November to avoid late season losses which are more damaging in the polls. The cupcakes are being used more and more to manipulate the system. Conferences are also getting more creative in making sure their upper echelon teams avoid each other as much as possible leading up to their CCG's.

I wouldn't be against CFB moving to a system that removes scheduling from teams and conferences (similar to the NFL. All scheduling done outside of divisions will be done by an independent committee.

Exceptions can be made for special requests for long time rivals.
I.E. a team can request ONE game against an opponent of their choice as long as the opponent also agrees to it. Like Clemson/S. Carolina, Florida/FSU/Miami.

There must be a PROVEN historical past rivalry between the teams. This would prevent a perennial power from talking Shit State into agreeing to a game just so Shit State can line it's pockets in trade for an epic beat down.

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

"Do you have a phone number for this Shit State? I'm...just askin is all..."
-- Nick Saban

 

[Red_Alert]

"Do you have a phone number for this Shit State? I'm...just askin is all..."
-- Nick Saban

I do.

Lemme see if they have a November Saturday available and I'll get back to you.

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

ELO...

I don't know that Vandy making a bowl based on two conference wins is such a scandalous thing. There are just too many bowls these days anyway, the vast majority of which are now meaningless except to the local chamber of commerce.

Since there are no more ties, CFB is a zero-sum game. And since going to a 12-game schedule, there is a greater chance of more 6-6 teams every season. Unless you have a few BCS-level teams playing some lower-division chumps, there will never be enough plus-.500 schools to sell in a post season matchup.

The Music City bowl NEEDS Vandy to schedule those four cream puffs.

 

[trojanfan12]

Considering a school only needs 6 wins to be bowl eligible, I think it does matter. A team like Vandy is scheduling cupcakes to get 4 easy wins, therefore they'll only need 2 more in conference.

How many times have you seen "This team plays X # of teams that were bowl eligible last season" as a means of determining SOS?

Many upper echelon SEC teams schedule cupcakes and bye weeks in November to avoid late season losses which are more damaging in the polls. The cupcakes are being used more and more to manipulate the system. Conferences are also getting more creative in making sure their upper echelon teams avoid each other as much as possible leading up to their CCG's.

I wouldn't be against CFB moving to a system that removes scheduling from teams and conferences (similar to the NFL. All scheduling done outside of divisions will be done by an independent committee.

Exceptions can be made for special requests for long time rivals.
I.E. a team can request ONE game against an opponent of their choice as long as the opponent also agrees to it. Like Clemson/S. Carolina, Florida/FSU/Miami.

There must be a PROVEN historical past rivalry between the teams. This would prevent a perennial power from talking Shit State into agreeing to a game just so Shit State can line it's pockets in trade for an epic beat down.

I agree. Also, when scheduling those cupcakes, a team like Vandy can artificially inflate the SOS of the good teams in the conference. Maybe with a solid OOC schedule, Vandy is a 2-4 win team instead of a 6-7 win team. So, when they get beat by one of the better teams in their conference, that team gets credit in their SOS for beating a 6-7 win bowl eligible team, instead of for a 2-4 win team.

 

[trojanfan12]

ELO...

I don't know that Vandy making a bowl based on two conference wins is such a scandalous thing. There are just too many bowls these days anyway, the vast majority of which are now meaningless except to the local chamber of commerce.

Since there are no more ties, CFB is a zero-sum game. And since going to a 12-game schedule, there is a greater chance of more 6-6 teams every season. Unless you have a few BCS-level teams playing some lower-division chumps, there will never be enough plus-.500 schools to sell in a post season matchup.

The Music City bowl NEEDS Vandy to schedule those four cream puffs.

On one hand, you say that there are too many bowl games, but then you say some of these bowl games that there are too many of, need teams like Vandy to schedule those cupcakes? Did I miss something?

It seems to me that if there are too many bowl games (and there are) then some of those bowls need to go away. Often times, the colleges take a loss on those games anyway.

We should be getting rid of bowl games, not encouraging bad teams to schedule cupcakes so that they can be bowl eligible and keep some bowl alive that should have gone away years ago.

 

[Codaxx]

I agree. Also, when scheduling those cupcakes, a team like Vandy can artificially inflate the SOS of the good teams in the conference. Maybe with a solid OOC schedule, Vandy is a 2-4 win team instead of a 6-7 win team. So, when they get beat by one of the better teams in their conference, that team gets credit in their SOS for beating a 6-7 win bowl eligible team, instead of for a 2-4 win team.

All these things assume Vandy beating a cupcake is helpful to the SOS, which it really is not. Loss to Ohio State boost you SOS more than a win over Liberty. Secondly, it assumes Vandy can schefule 4 easy wins. History of Vandy tells us that is a bit of a stretch

 

[trojanfan12]

All these things assume Vandy beating a cupcake is helpful to the SOS, which it really is not. Loss to Ohio State boost you SOS more than a win over Liberty. Secondly, it assumes Vandy can schefule 4 easy wins. History of Vandy tells us that is a bit of a stretch

On the first point, I'm not convinced that they look at who Vandy's SOS when it comes to figuring out, for example, Bama's SOS. I could be totally wrong, but it looks to me like a win over Liberty might not help Vandy's SOS, but 'Bama may still get credit for beating a bowl eligible 6-7 win team in their SOS.

On the second point: True!!

 

[Codaxx]

On the first point, I'm not convinced that they look at who Vandy's SOS when it comes to figuring out, for example, Bama's SOS. I could be totally wrong, but it looks to me like a win over Liberty might not help Vandy's SOS, but 'Bama may still get credit for beating a bowl eligible 6-7 win team in their SOS.

On the second point: True!!

SOS is based on numbers it is not affected by opinion. Whether or not voters and commitees are influenced to overlook SOS numbers is another story

 

[Red_Alert]

SOS is based on numbers it is not affected by opinion. Whether or not voters and commitees are influenced to overlook SOS numbers is another story

That's my point.

You often see people (media/bloggers) refer to the strength of a team as in "They beat X # of bowl teams last year. It's meaningless if 4 of those bowl teams wins were against bottom tier mid-majors, an FCS, and the other 2 were against fellow conference bottom feeders.

I'm not pointing fingers because Nebraska is just as guilty as anybody else when it comes to chest pounding # of bowl teams they beat the previous year. I've gotten into squabbles on the Nebraska forum with fellow fans about it, who think at least 9 wins (every year) somehow compares Pelini to Osborne. I've been their biggest critic (at least as a fan) in regards to their # of wins against 8 win teams (or less) as compared to their # of wins against teams with 9 wins (or more). There is a distinctive line there and it's deceiving if you look at the season as a whole. I did the analysis over a 6 year period (Bo's era) and it shows he's been a very average coach thus far.

I haven't taken the time to look at other teams in the same way, but I'm guessing there are others similar.

 

[TexasExes98]

I'd say any bcs win beats any rivalry win.

Depends on the rivalry. This is TEX/OU, not some POS rivalry. You're fucking pissed that Case McCoy pissed all over your team and your secondary and trying to save face by acknowledging OU's fluke win over Bama was so much better than the Sooners getting the shit kicked out of them by Texas.....

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

On one hand, you say that there are too many bowl games, but then you say some of these bowl games that there are too many of, need teams like Vandy to schedule those cupcakes? Did I miss something?

It seems to me that if there are too many bowl games (and there are) then some of those bowls need to go away. Often times, the colleges take a loss on those games anyway.

We should be getting rid of bowl games, not encouraging bad teams to schedule cupcakes so that they can be bowl eligible and keep some bowl alive that should have gone away years ago.

Nope, you didn't miss anything. I think both of those statements are true: there are too many bowl games, and because there are too many, the bowls need teams with slightly inflated records so they can sell a halfway decent matchup. The bowls aren't about good football, they're about tourism dollars.

I agree that we should see some attrition with regards to mediocre bowls, but that won't happen. The host cities like all that holiday money that comes with the game.

 

[romeo212000]

Depends on the rivalry. This is TEX/OU, not some POS rivalry. You're fucking pissed that Case McCoy pissed all over your team and your secondary and trying to save face by acknowledging OU's fluke win over Bama was so much better than the Sooners getting the shit kicked out of them by Texas.....

Translation: I'm mad my short horns got their shit pushed in by Oregon while Oklahoma got a stellar win over bama. It's not fair.

 

[trojanfan12]

Nope, you didn't miss anything. I think both of those statements are true: there are too many bowl games, and because there are too many, the bowls need teams with slightly inflated records so they can sell a halfway decent matchup. The bowls aren't about good football, they're about tourism dollars.

I agree that we should see some attrition with regards to mediocre bowls, but that won't happen. The host cities like all that holiday money that comes with the game.

Yep. I agree with all of that.

 

[Gator]

Many upper echelon SEC teams schedule cupcakes and bye weeks in November to avoid late season losses which are more damaging in the polls. The cupcakes are being used more and more to manipulate the system.

By that logic you could argue that many upper echelon BiG teams schedule cupcakes early on to inflate their rankings so that when they lose later they won't fall as far.

Conferences are also getting more creative in making sure their upper echelon teams avoid each other as much as possible leading up to their CCG's.

Sort of like the BigTen?

Over the BCS era (1998-2013)

Number of team season for each conference (sum of each team's years in conf)
PAC 166 TmYrs
ACC 175 TmYrs
BigTen 179 TmYrs
Big XII 186 TmYrs
SEC 196 TmYrs

Number of times a teams with 5 or more IN-conf wins played another teams with 5 or more IN-conf wins IN THE REGULAR SEASON.
BigTen 108 Games
ACC 113 Games
PAC 119 Games
Big XII 126 Games
SEC 130 Games

The number of Games / TmYr
BigTen 0.603352 Games / TmYr
ACC 0.645714 Games / TmYr
SEC 0.6632666 Games / TmYr
Big XII 0.677419 Games / TmYr
PAC 0.716867 Games / TmYr

 

[smilesid]

To be fair, every major conference has lists like that. Midmajors mostly have major conference teams (especially those with big stadiums) and FCS schools on their OOC.

True, but the SEC has more. Year after year, SEC schools play MORE FCS teams, more low end FBS teams, and more home games than the other major conferences. It's really not even all that close.

If Trojan Fan is right in his analysis, this year the SEC has 42 or 43 easy games to 8 or 9 tough ones. And those games are mostly at home or in friendly "neutral" sites. The other factor is that SEC schools almost never leave the South for meaningful OOC games.

My point is always, we can give a pass for one cupcake match, but when a school, like Alabama for example, does 3 of these glorified scrimmage contests every single year, that is playing the system.

 

[smilesid]

SOS is based on numbers it is not affected by opinion. Whether or not voters and commitees are influenced to overlook SOS numbers is another story

Actually, SOS, while based on numbers, is based on soft ones.

1. Which formula are you going to use? I know of at least a dozen, all factoring different numbers differently. The BCS even had a completely different artificial SOS and folks like Sagarin even publicly admitted that the BCS formula was deeply flawed and ran a different one in addition to the BCS one.
2. All SOS does is measure the records of the teams played, not taking numerous factors like home or on the road, losing by 1 in overtime or losing by 40 with the 3rd team playing the entire second half.
3. Much of it is based on factors entirely outside of a team's control. For example, if a team knocks out a star player in a tight win, and that team then goes on to lose the rest of their games, the winning team gets penalized.
4. SOS doesn't answer the real question, how good is the team? It only answers how good are the other teams.

 

[Olyduck]

how can it not be influenced by numbers.
if you had the option to set your teams schedule which set would you pick?
Oregon, LSU, Oklahoma State, Nebraska
Fresno State, East Carolina, Ball State, Louisiana Lafayette

Which 4 would you rather your team play? based on SOS W/L record they are the same. but I bet your biasedness would tell you the second set would be easier to play than the first.

 

[TexasExes98]

Yes, but winning a bcs game over the right team has the ability to majorly effect recruiting. Just ask Joe Mixon after the sugar bowl. Oklahoma had one of their best recruiting classes in the last few years due to that win.

Winning a BCS game might have marginal meaning in recruiting. According to Rivals, OU pulled in the #15 recruiting class in 2014 and after their fluke win over Bama, OU's current 2015 class is ranked an amazing #45 right now. I think recruits are more concerned with OU getting their shit pushed in by Baylor and Texas, more than a fluke win over Bama.

 

[romeo212000]

Winning a BCS game might have marginal meaning in recruiting. According to Rivals, OU pulled in the #15 recruiting class in 2014 and after their fluke win over Bama, OU's current 2015 class is ranked an amazing #45 right now. I think recruits are more concerned with OU getting their shit pushed in by Baylor and Texas, more than a fluke win over Bama.

You are such a tool. Just have a normal conversation without being an obnoxious homer for once.