Rivals.com takes a shot at Florida’s 2008 schedule
Rivals.com cites the Gator’s game against Citadel as the 11th biggest mismatch of the coming season.
Only 11th?
Listen, I have been critical of Florida’s scheduling of patsy teams in the past. If the sole reason for adding an extra home game in the fall was to schedule teams like Western Carolina, the big NCAA schools should be ashamed.
However, articles like this continue to promote a serious misconception about the non-conference scheduling of teams like Florida. As any SEC fan is aware, with a mandatory 8 game conference slate, SEC schools get to schedule either 3 or 4 “other” games each year.
Florida has 4 non-conference opponents in 2008. Besides Citadel (Nov. 22), we face
Hawaii – August 30
Miami – Sept 6
Florida State – Nov 29
Florida has, despite the occasional patsy, had one of the consistently hardest schedules in the nation for years. Here’s betting that – even with Citadel – 2008 will rank among the toughest.
(BTW – I don’t recall much teeth gnashing at Wisconsin playing Citadel last year, a game the Badgers won by the relatively narrow margin of 45-31)
Mentioned in Austin Murphy's book 
8 comments:
Meh. Personally, I think when we schedule bad opponents, we need to schedule bad opponents where there's at least a "hook" to interest the fans.
I think a great example of that was our game against UCF in 2006. We could have sleep walked to a win, yet because the bad team was from "down the road," the atmosphere was fantastic.
Yea, I've skipped the 1-AA game the last two years and I might skip this one too. I hate when we schedule teams like this. Its not an actual game. Its not interesting.
I hate scheduling 1AA-FBS-EIEIO teams. There is no upside possible, even when the lower division team is a good one. If you lose, you lost the the JV, and if you won, you just beat up on a patsy who came for the paycheck.
The big-name teams, if they must schedule a patsy, should at least schedule 1A teams. I would much rather see Duke or Northwestern on the schedule than Citadel or Ga Southern or even Appy state.
Werent you guys gonna do "the recruiting Poachers?" I've been waiting a month for that.
P.S. I appreciate everything and dont mean to complain
Agree gator boy and mouse, we haven't played outside the state OOC in close to 20 years. It would be fun to see the Gators out west, I know it's hard for the SEC to win on the road (0-4 this decade out west) but we'd get more press coverage and recognition cause of it. Always bugged me why the SEC has seven of the eight least traveled teams in the nation, there's no upside to scheduling these patsy teams.
Jimmy J:
The two reasons the SEC has some of the least travelled teams:
SEC Football is big money. The programs schedule as many home games as possible so they have more tickets to sell, and even patsy 1-AA teams sell out.
SEC football is hard. The "easiest" schedule in the SEC is often on par with the hardest schedule of the mid-level BCS conferences, and above the hardest of the worst (See: The ACC last year). So a lot of ADs look at the bottom line, and think that the top programs in other conferences get a much easier ride even scheduling non-patsies, why should they make their job that much harder? If you're going to be on top of the Strength of Schedule anyway, might as well schedule a patsy that's going to play a home game, bring in money, and help get one more win. Hell, look at Auburn in 2004... undefeated, and they didn't even get a shot at the MNC. And that was with a schedule significantly harder than Oklahoma's, and at least as hard, if not harder than USC's.
Of course, the money one's probably a good enough reason to most ADs, but the second one isn't exactly helping the cause.
So it all comes down to money? Your right even a lot of bowls get played on SEC turf now but not so in a playoff system. Just was thinkin' teams like Auburn might not get overlooked if they proved they could win on the road OOC, look at their 2008 schedule not much improvement over 2004, to get recognition you have to schedule some games on the west coast for the damn media to take notice. I remember back in '91 the Gators gettin" thumped up in Syracuse 38-21 never returned or ventured that far since. Been a long time.
Anon 1
2014? just heard the news, this sucks, forget about any playoff before then, by 2014 might not give a rats ass about college football and whether they have a plus-one playoff or not. Speaking of Auburn, Tommy Tuberville said "our conference is so tough a playoff was the only chance for us (SEC) to make it", this decision may lead to top SEC teams scheduling more major PAC-10, Big-12 or Big-TEN teams on the road OOC instead of these patsy teams, but then again last time Auburn tried that 2001 -2003 they got hammered by Syracuse and USC twice, maybe the reason the undefeated 2004 team got overlooked. At least until 2014 I'd expect this "least traveled conference" to start traveling and schedule teams on the West Coast and up North OOC to have a chance at a MNC game. Georgia can't afford to turn down those offers to play in venues like Columbus anymore if they expect to be considered for the top BCS game. Scheduling the Sun Devils for a home and home is a start.
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