… is that in some cases (rare as they are), you schedule a team 5-10 years out thinking it’ll be a cakewalk, but all of the sudden they’re a surging program. I like when this happens. On the other hand, sometimes you schedule a game thinking it’s going to be a great one, then the opposing team falls apart (see: Arkansas, 2008).

I loved our two year stint with OSU. I would love to have one marquee OOC game per season, with the rest being fluffers. In a year like this one, I think having a stronger non-conference schedule would’ve hurt our progress towards what we became entering conference play. Playing UL-Lafeyette is almost like the Orange-White game, in that it gives the fans a chance to see some early flashes of what’s to come, except it has the added benefit of being an easy win to start the season.

A large piece of this issue is the BCS taking the strength of schedule out of the equation (to a degree). It sort of comes back into the picture in terms of the overall BCS score because if the teams you beat fare well, then that reflects back as being good for you.

Many teams now do not want to have a marquee match-up game in non-conference because the (potential) loss puts a team behind the eight ball right out of the shoot.

For me it’s a tough questions. On one hand fans pay hefty sums for tickets. Would you rather pay $75 to see a butt whoopin’ against a team like Rice or see a decent, middle-tier team like say Northwestern, Virginia, NC State? (And it’s hard to say how it will pan out when the schedule is made out years in advance. Who’s to say Northwestern or Virginia will be an average or better team? Maybe they’ll be in the tank big time when the match-up comes around.)

It’s nice to see other teams on the schedule though too. Either old SWC foes or new ones like a Wyoming. I think that might be my roadtrip. Small stadium, not much to do, but who cares? Should be fun to venture to some new territory.

I think you shoot for the best scenario – schedule those average or better teams (teams that consistently are middle of the pack). Sprinkle in the occasional teams that pack a punch (more often than not) on the national level like Arkansas, Ohio State, and Oregon type teams. Then hope for the best – Texas wins and those other teams have a respectable year to boost Texas’ numbers.

Before this season, I was firmly in the camp of wanting to upgrade our non-conference schedule. I believe strongly that, without the trip to Columbus, we would have lost to USC.

But this year has me changing my mind. Some teams, like the 2005 Horns, are ready for a significant challenge off the bat. Other teams, like, I believe, this year’s Horns, need a few games to develop their identity. I think this team would not have been ready for an OSU-like challenge (or even an OU-level challenge) the second week of this season. I think it took four games for this team to get to the point where they were ready to challenge all comers.

And there’s no way to know so many years in advance what would be the best approach for a particular group of players.

And this year’s team is a perfect example of why. If there had been a truly tough non-conference game on the schedule to replace UTEP, we would have two losses right now and maybe more.

This team used those early wins to gel more completely and gain confidence. And while it’s fun to play someone like Ohio State early in a season, I would rather be assured of a 4-0 start heading into conference play.

Being a national contender every year would put a lot of pressure on the team too early in the season with a high profile non-conference game. And it’s too difficult to predict years down the road whether a team will be mature enough to handle that.

it’s always fun playing a very strong OOC opponent and winning, but the risk is not necessary. this year, this conference, is almost an nomaly… now of course this year had texas scheduled someone like cincinatti, pitt, oregon st, miami and won.. texas would have another leg up on ou/ttu. however, the chance of a loss, that early in a season, before a team might find it’s identity, it’s mojo, it’s star players… is too great to risk the rest of the season.

an entire season is at risk in this conference with a single loss, better to make it through safely and come out unscathed, than take the risk of getting a season ending loss. as far as rankings this is true, as far as winning your bowl game in the end of the season, every real season test is required so that you’re the most prepared and your defenses holes have been exploited and repaired, your offense’s scheme has been stifled and corrected

so on one hand, no you don’t want hard ooc opponents if you’re trying to get to a good bowl, but you do want hard ooc opponents if you get to a good bowl.

I would like to see a little better scheduling. But what we have is ok.

We have one ‘big’ match up every year, but these are scheduled so far in advance you don’t know for sure. How were we supposed to know Arkansas would go from playing in the SEC championship game to trying to become bowl eligable?

Also, everyone who is mad about next year’s schedule, remember that Ark backed out of the game we were supposed to play next year.

I don’t mind playing Rice two out of every four years. I think we should replace them with UoH every 2 years. As someone mentioned, having a game in Houston is huge for alums and recruiting. UTEP is fine too. However, I wish we’d schedule either an extra average BCS opponent or a bigtime non BCS team. I think it would help our recruiting and be more entertaining to add an NC State, Illinois, Louisville, or Boise St game in addition to our OSU/Ark/UCLA/Ole Miss schedule.

I like having at least 1 tough matchup, and the rest can be Rice-type opponents… We had TCU last year, Arkansas this season… Ole Miss and UCLA in the next few years. These games are scheduled so far in advance, you can never tell if that program is going to have a down year (i.e. Arkansas). OTOH, Mack pointed out that when the Ohio State games were scheduled, nobody would have expected it to be a top-5 matchup. All you can do is go for teams that are consistently ranked.

that a schedule of only cupcakes does not prepare us for conference play, particularly OU. I seem to remember some correlation between a lack of challenging OOC opponents and getting beat in the RRS.
It’s a tough call. Coming out of the tOSU game in 2005, our team had the attitude that “Hell, we went up and beat Ohio State in the Horseshoe at night. Nobody does that. We can beat anybody.” Of course, if we had lost, we probably wouldn’t be talking about the Rose Bowl for the next 40 years.
All we need is a crystal ball. Then we can schedule teams that aren’t good enough to beat us, but are good enough to post a winning record overall. Aren’t we glad we played Rice this year, and not North Texas?

I think our scheduling is fairly similar to the rest of college football. Especially when you realize our OOC schedule, this year, is tougher than OU or TTU’s. Then look at who Florida plays this week as well.

Only school I can think of that seems to have the better OOC schedule most years is USC.

Speaking of the FCS I wish we had a tie-breaking rule similar to the Big 10’s:

3) If there is still a tie for the championship, or if the tied teams did not play each other, the team that played more games against Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams shall be eliminated.

Both OU (1 game) and TTU (2 games) would have been eliminated with the three-way tie.

In theory, yes. But there are too many variables to say it’s a wise thing to do — and the potential downside is significant.

Suppose, for example, that OU and Texas played identical non-conference opponents and fared the same. But, using this year as an example, suppose OU played Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska in the North, and Texas played Colorado, K-State and I-State? Horns lose the SOS battle through no fault of theirs.

Others have pointed out the diffuculty in scheduling “tougher.” If we’d scheduled Washington, Syracuse and Notre Dame 10 years ago, folks would have called DeLoss Dodds nuts for scheduling too many heavies. Playing those teams today would produce a worse SOS then playing Arkansas, Rice, FAU and UTEP.

And if you want 3-4 non-conf. home games, and the administration and ticket-holders do, you can’t do it with SEC and Big Ten opponents who demand home-and-homes. At least Texas avoids the I-AAs (exception: Sam Houston State, the year the schedule jumped from 11 to 12 games and Dodds couldn’t find a I-A).

Until the Hogs decided to go in the tank. Let’s not confuse how the non-con turned out and how it was scheduled.

The feather in OU’s cap is Cincinnati – picked by one and all to finish at the bottom of its conference.

Mack scheduled an SEC team that had been regularly contending for the SEC championship. Prior to that we scheduled Ohio State. UTEP was the next Boise when we put them on schedule.

Non-con is not the issue – did OU have anything like this:
@ Colorado
OU
Mizzou
OK State
Tech

There is no direct correlation between a difficult non-conference schedule and success. Just look at USC the last few years. Shouldn’t their tough non-conference games have prepared them and prevented them from slipping up against inferior competition?

Yet their national championship years came in seasons where the non-conference schedule didn’t feature a marquee tough matchup.

I think scheduling one BCS school is enough.

If we beat OU on neutrel field and they keep winning doesn’t that push us up more? How can they jump us Tech barely beat us only by a dropped interception!! So what do we hope for this week a OU blowout or a OU sqweeker!!!???!!

Okay, here’s what I ask:

1. At LEAST one BCS conference school, preferably one that has a tradition of at least occasionally challenging for a conference title. Arkansas fit the bill this year, and it was just bad timing that they ended up being so-so this season.

2. At LEAST one school that is either a one that is ordinarily a BCS bottom-feeder (Duke, Illinois, or Rutgers) or an above-average “mid-major” as described as follows: a flagship university in a “mid-major” (Utah, Nevada, etc.) that has decent facilities and could potentially be challenging; a non-BCS school that is still in a talent-rich state, sports a large fan-base, and has large devotion to football (UCF, Houston, Fresno State). I thought UCF was okay for this role this year, Stanford was okay in the past, North Carolina, and Tulane have been fitting for this role in the past.

3. At LEAST one dependable patsy. You know, for beating up, gaining confidence, and working out the kinks.

1. A playoff inclusive enough that it would allow teams that lost even a couple of games to still ‘get to the dance’.
2. With the competitive incentives that builds (toughening up the team, learning to play ‘big games’, etc.), put together a real mother of a schedule.
3. Sit back and really enjoy the year.

It’s okay to watch a demolition of some sacrificial patsy, but really, unless you’re just watching it the way you’d watch a scrimmage – to see how young guys develop and such – the whole beginning of the year is execrable football for the most part. The only reason we all still think it’s “okay” is that we’re just used to it. Games like Ohio State are just so exceedingly rare, and in today’s system are probably going to become even more so.

Teams like USC will still schedule tougher games, but that’s largely because otherwise they’d be stuck with a loser Pac10 schedule. If they continue to experience inexplicable conference losses like they have that last few years, they’ll probably wise up and just schedule patsies like everybody else, then let ESPN carry their water.

Basically, unless something changes drastically in the CFB environment, teams are going to do their very best to schedule ‘sure wins’ and hope for the best. It’s really hard to get the level of consistency required for an unbeaten season with kids that young, and in any kind of tough conference. And until unbeaten non-BCS Conference teams start leapfrogging major conference once-beatens (which will probably happen… well, when dollars no longer have any meaning, or IOW – never), we, and any other real MNC contenders are probably best served by winning all our non-con games (and the best schedule would be mediocre to bad teams from major conferences, so that, like this year, we can point to our 1-0 record vs. the SEC – please ignore the details…) and hoping we navigate our conference with, at worst, only one loss, then hoping (and negotiating behind the scenes) for the best…

We DID schedule Arkansas. We couldn’t have known they’d be bad by the time they played us.

If it was the Arkansas of two years ago and we beat them in Austin, that would be considered a huge booster of our OOC schedule. But now it’s not. That’s nobody’s fault.

Everybody’s hates the BCS setup and blah blah blah …….. but if the major conference (ACC-SEC-Big X-BIG XII-PAC 10 )Teams scheduled opponents from other big conference Teams there would be many more interesting games for fans. With more head to head games between conferences there would be a better basis for judging relative strength between teams without the creaking BCS process. We have to resort to BCS BS because every major program in College football has a feeble pussy streak.

 They are afraid to take a chance with having a schedule any more difficult that they have to for the fear of losing. That is not much of a attitude of a Champion. In my mind a National Champion is the team that will take on anyone at any time and believe their skill and training is better than any one else and wants to prove it. Not weaseling backdoor into a bowl game by beating a carefully picked group of mediocre teams.