Excellent post Sean. Kevin White definitely deserves asshat of the week following his Stanford remark. Are the grumblings of ND nation falling on deaf ears, or will White take notice and change his scheduling philosophies is what I want to know? Does or will Weis have any say?
This fire is really catching. I'm interested to see what develops here.
Asshat, indeed.
Please elaborate on why scheduling a BCS patsy is more respectable than another patsy? Are you assuming that the BCS patsy will be better in 4 or 5 years when the game actually occurs, or is this an attempt to cover up the fact that we're scheduling a few patsies? In my opinion, if Illinois is just as bad as SDS, then the pollsters and computers are going to treat us the same in regards to the difficulty of that game.
Derek, there are plenty of non-BCS patsies that would give us every bit as much of a game as some BCS patsies. The difference lies in the perception by those in charge of the polls.
For example, Michigan and OSU will benefit from a tremendously weak Big Ten, while we will be the ones ridiculed for playing Navy... despite the fact that Navy would be the 5th best team in the Big Ten.
Or look at it this way:
When was the last time you heard the media complain about West Virginia's big east schedule? The only thing I ever hear is "their schedule is favorable for a title run."
Boise State, on the other hand, always gets comments to the tune of "I just don't know if they deserve to go to the championship, even if they're undefeated."
What's the difference? Boise State isn't in a BCS conference. Is their schedule actually any easier than WVU's? Not by much... if at all.
In mentioning WVU's schedule, Sean hit on one of the many huge problems with allowing pollsters to (partially) determine who plays for the MNC. As we see year after year, it is much easier for a team who begins the season highly ranked to finish highly ranked, even with a loss. Contrast with a team who starts ranked 20-25, which has a much harder time moving up even if undefeated, and drops precipitously if they lose.
My point is, as Sean mentions, pollsters will actually *give WVU a higher ranking to begin the season based upon its joke schedule.* Not because they've shown on the field that they're deserving of the ranking, but because the voters' expectation is that WVU will walk through their cavalcade of cupcakes unscathed. In a sense, it's double-counting -- WVU is rewarded for scheduling games they're supposed to win, then rewarded again for winning them.
And, as Sean astutely points out, it probably has a great deal to do with conference affiliation. Bozo St. and WVU/Louisville 2006 are prime examples. Voters cast a gimlet eye on Bozo St., but got all wet over the "powerhouses" of the Big East.
One other thing, just to bolster Sean's response to Derek. I like the idea of playing weak teams from BCS conferences over teams like SDSU because it might limit some of the bullshit from those clowns at the WWL (who inarguably influence the voting to a great extent) who criticize ND's late season schedule and talk about how tough the Big 1?, PAC 10 and SEC are from top to bottom. If ND played Minnesota, Arizona or Arizona St. (which, coincidently, it will in a few years) and, say, Kentucky instead of Air Force, Nevada and Duke, it would be much harder for the WWL to skewer the Irish's schedule without having to admit that the top schools from those large conferences have at least a few in-conference gimmes (in addition to their early money games with Buffalo, Florida International, Middle Tennessee St., et al.).
As a side note, SDSU and Nevada were trade off games from when BYU was still in the WAC and we wanted to move the BYU game to 1st in the season so we had a "warm up" game before UM. Then we lost to BYU. Sweet.
Actually, I think playing BCS teams vs. non-BCS teams wouldn't matter. People look at WVU and say, "well the Big East might be weak but you have to play who is in your conference." The problem for us is that everyone has the perception that since we schedule our own games and are not bound by a conference we don't have to "play who is in front of us"...like Cinci. I don't want us to join a conference. I love being independent, but as long as we are I think we have to realize that without capitulating to Mark May's request that we schedule 11 top 10 teams people are going to harp on the Navy's and Duke's. Sucks, but just the way it is.
I'm not a K White fan since his BS contract deal...renegotiate that. Who we play is up to those guys upstairs and as fans we can only howl and like we did over Ty get rid of him. The Trustees, etc run the show but they sure better listen to their fan base.
Wow, I can't believe I forgot the asshat award song. It's up there now.
Mark may just predicted us to start 1-7 or 2-6.
It's gonna be a good season.
The part about this whole scheduling bit that rubs me the wrong way is all of the supposed agreements we are tied into. 3 Big East teams, 3 Big 10 teams, USC and Navy (and apparently Stanford) all wrapped into this idiotic 7-4-1 framework leaves no room for the variation we should enjoy as an independent school.
Starting the season 2-6 is well within the realm of possibility. I'm honestly surprised that Mark May didn't predict us to go 0-8. Maybe he's trying to avoid a third straight year of getting verbally owned by Lou after his wildly inaccurate predictions flop.
I have at least a couple other reasons for not liking Kevin White. First, anyone remember the several-year contract extension we granted Bob Davie before his fiasco in the Fiesta Bowl in 2000?
And then we have the hiring of George O' Leary and ND's failure to check his resume. I can think of others, but you get the point.
In terms of scheduling i don't mind the patsies. I think everyone has made good points about how we need cupcakes. But the point of cupcakes is that we get the rest before our big games! We can sit our starters after the half and we can give our guys who are injured time to rest without having to fear losing a game. With the schedule the way it always is, we can't do that. All of our big games are front loaded, and we always have our worst teams last, give or take one game. This also hurts us, because if we want to make a last minute run at the title game late in the season pollsters are never going to bump us up, because we "only beat army." I say schedule the patsies, but c'mon, let's spread em out.
I can't believe you're not teeing up Mike Vick.
It's not mike vick's fault he's been indicted for dog fighting. It's the contract Joey Harrington has with the devil to be a starting NFL QB. The first casualty was Culpepper, now it's Vick. Harrington won't stop until he's crapped out at every QB spot in the NFL! Hide the Browns! Hide Brady!
I applauded the return of Mark May when I saw his prediction today, because I just love his predictions. Mark May: Asshat. Mike Vick: Asshat.
The only chance I had to see Notre Dame play was in Dublin so I like the idea of a neutral site but they should be against better opponents. Yet....I would still go see them against a bad team.
What is the big difference between scheduling the best I-AA teams (Youngstown State, App St.) and the absolute worst I-A teams (Duke, Buffalo)? It just seems trivial to me to differentiate, we schedule Duke for the same reason other school schedule I-AA (or is it I-FCS?) teams. To warm up and get an easy win.
Of course there's a gray area at the bottom of DI / top of DII. Would Duke even beat Appalachian State? I have no idea. The point is, the division barrier is a tangible, concrete limit, below which respectable teams should not be dipping into. The same can't be said for the ever-fluctuating bottom-dwellers of DI.
In other words, we can debate whether or not Syracuse or Duke should just give up and drop into DII, but no one could possibly make the claim that Youngstown State or Appalachian State are ready to play with the big boys.
I'd say that's fair. You also have to throw in the fact that most teams can't possibly predict how good a team will be when they schedule them since schedules are made so far in advance. But if it's a D-IFCS team, you know they're not going to be any good. One example is OSU scheduled Cal for 2012-2013. Which would be a pretty formidable matchup had it happened in the last couple years. But in all likelihood the Bears won't be a powerful team and won't put up much of a challenge to Ohio State. However, you do have to give OSU some credit, they've got USC scheduled for 08 and 09, and we know they're going to be pretty good. Miami for 2010-2011, Cal 2012-2013, Va Tech 2014-2015 and Oklahoma 2016-2017. It might be only one big name non-conference game, but when you're a national title contender it takes some balls to put USC no your schedule.
"Having more home games is nice and all, but I think home-field advantage is vastly overrated."
...except in the bank account Sean. Unfortunately, its not all about winning football games, and that extra game means an additional day to fill the stadium, not to mention an additional game for NBC to pay to broadcast.
As much as I hate to admit it, I'm sure that played in to the decision to go to the 7-4-1 format as much as anything else. Someone's gotta pay for Charlie's contract...
Sounds like he's right. Looks like it will be an 0-8 start at best. And it would probably be wise not to poke fun at division II schools, considering ND got crushed by Michigan who was beaten by a DII school. Comparing the scores, AppState would have put up 70+ on the Irish. Ouch.
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