VT Nonconference schedule
I would love to see PSU play a schedule like this. It can be done, and should.
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Note that he commented that USC plays "lacrosse power" Notre Dame.
If you get points for playing lacrosse powers, at least we play Syracuse!
The joke would be funny
if Notre Dame was even upper tier as a lacrosse team…they are a lot more like Purdue football than anything approaching a ‘powerhouse’.
Did I miss something?
They play Marshall, Nebraska, Alabama and East Carolina.
Randy Moss graduated from Marshall sometime ago, they aren’t that good. It’s a slighly sexier suicide game.
Nebraska, We’re playing them in two years.
Alabama, is a one and done neutral site game. It is similar to playing…I don’t USC, or Nebraska, or Georgia Tech, or Arizona in a preseason “classic” game which we’ve done countless, no wait….six times. If Alabama wanted to play us in a game like this I suspect we’d be game. That and we play them next year.
East Carolina = Syracuse. No wait, not even. East Carolina = Temple. It’s just that East Carolina got good. You really think Virginia Tech is excited about playing them in Charlotte? Nope, they’re not. Contractual obligations can be sticky though, so they are stuck.
Sometimes schedules just sort of come together in an unanticipated way. Sort of like how Syracuse is awful, but should have been at least 6-8 win team.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
Wong.
East Carolina has won 17 games over the past two years, including wins against VT, Boise State, and WVA. I suspect VT is not excited about playing ECU in Charlotte because ECU beat VT last year.
The point is that they are playing 4 D1 teams in the same year. Not spread out over 4 years. PSU might play Marshall and one of those remaining teams in the same year. They wouldn’t play any 3 of those teams and no way they would schedule 4.
I think of VaTech as somewhat of a sister school to PSU (large school, rural area, a large regional/non alum fan base, relies on football revenue as it isn’t competitive in basketball). They can find a way to provide their fans with compelling games and still pay the bills.
by InScoresOfOtherGames on May 26, 2009 4:56 PM EDT up reply actions
East Carolina*
You need an asterisk next to those ECU wins. They seemed impressive at the time because VT and WVU were both riding on preseason rankings, and they both ended up sucking pretty bad (not that the BigEast and ACC have teams that don’t suck). For a while ECU was ranked ahead of us, and starting to get BCS talk, only to go on to lose to horrible teams in their own conference, which says something about the talent of the VT and WVU teams they actually beat.
So perhaps we should compare C-USA teams to MAC teams
In the past two years, East Carolina lost 4 games in the C-USA, and 10 games overall.
Only two schools from the MAC appear to be better than EC in that same two year span: Ball State (2 MAC losses, 8 overall losses) and Central Michigan (3 MAC losses, 11 overall losses). Note that Bowling Green and Western Michigan (6 MAC losses, 11 overall losses) are comparable if not better. Note that we haven’t played any of these teams since 2005, and that our second MAC team this year, Akron, hasn’t had a winning season since 2005.
Before taking $2M+ to appear in this game, Tech had Cincinnati on their schedule. That means that VT scheduled my ideal schedule; a power program from a BCS conference; a mid-level program from a BCS conference; and two teams from the top and the bottom of a mid-major conference. (I don’t mind scheduling a I-AA team if we don’t have two MAC teams that same year.)
If I were the cynical sort
I would say this Alabama game could be a clever way to duck what could be a pretty decent Cincinnati team. If I were the cynical sort.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
Since you are the cynical sort
and a lawyer to boot please explain. Are you saying that losing to Cincinnati would be damaging so you drop them for Alabama so your loss doesn’t look so bad?
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
That's exactly what I'm saying.
There is no upside in beating Cincinnati, they’re Cincinnati, contrasted with Alabama (and Two Million Dollars), that’s an easy call.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
I don't recall being excited about
East Carolina when we played them. It can’t be ignored that with the exception of Marshall, we have a history of playing each and every one of the teams your citing too.
Also your making the assumption that they went out and scheduld ECU after last season, except they didn’t. More than likely they scheduled them years ago, when they sucked, and it’s simply a quirk of fate that they happen to be good now.
I believe that VP&SU’s deal with ECU is two or three games in Blacksburg and one ECU “home” game in Charlotte, i.e. the exact same deal we have with Temple (except technically, we play at Temple). Penn State playing in Philly is good for Penn State, it’s exposure in a major media market, and Tech was trying to do the same thing. Ohio State is doing it with one of the Ohio schools in Cleveland this year as well. It’s good business, not a “take on all comers attitude”.
If Penn State were offered the opportunity to play Texas in New York City in the kickoff classic or some other such game, we’d go play it. You know how I know, they have a long history of playing in that type of game, they just don’t come along every year.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
Nebraska, "We’re playing them in two years."
I thought that was a several years old rumor that never came to pass. Have there been any new rumors?
Nebraska
Yeah, there’s no indication that we are playing Nebraska in the future. That rumored deal seems to have fallen through (also the series was planned for 2014-15, not “in two years”).
That could be true
So what?
We played them a few years ago, and we were in negotiations to play them again. The point being that we’re not afraid to play them. Frankly, the last time we scheduled them they weren’t Nebraska so much as they were “Unstoppable force, never going to lose again Super Nebraska”, it takes no balls to schedule them now anyway. It was like putting a home and home with Florida on the schedule when that one got done in the mid 1990’s though. We play Alabama next year, after they crapped out on us a few years ago.
My big picture point is that every time a “we don’t play anybody” post comes up, the posters inevitably miss the point that half the time we play the teams they are talking about. We can’t play everybody every year. You play the Nebraskas, Alabamas and Notre Dames once or twice a decade these days unless they are in your league. Keep in mind, VP&SU doesn’t play Ohio State (or Michigan) in their league either, and they miss Florida State most years. most years they are getting no games no marquee games in their league.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
I like your use of the
school’s proper name initials. Nice little curveball.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
I hate to say it
Especially since 75% of the people I work with are VT alums, but…they have a pretty good OOC schedule this year. It’s something I would like to see Penn State do every 2 or three years.
It really is poor timing for them to have such an iron-clad, totally-defensible schedule at the exact same time we have the worst schedule we’ve had probably in decades. The amount of crap I’m catching in May alone is making it hard for me to keep up the fight in the office. I can only say “but Syracuse was respectable when we scheduled them!” so many times.
Luring recruits with my new "Posting HD" scheme since '08.
Three words
Kevin Newsome. Bitches.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on May 26, 2009 11:18 PM EDT up reply actions
I don't really see VT's schedule as a "we went out and got the toughest teams we could" kind of schedule
like Jesse points out, Marshall isn’t a perennial power (they had a few good years under Moss and Leftwich, respectively), and ECU is in the opposite fluke situation that Syracuse is in (generally a bad team, but is on a peak right now, opposed to a generally decent team that is in a ditch right now).
Alabama and Nebraska stand out very well, though, but I don’t necessarly think we should be schedule 2 powerhouses every year. Every once in a while that would be ok, but I think the formula of national powerhouse + 2 other “generic” BCS teams + 1 MAC (contractually obligated between Big 10 and MAC) would be ideal. Heck, I’d even settle for 1 “generic” BCS team, and 1 good mid-major.
People are talking like VT went out of their way to schedule this “monster OOC schedule”, but they’re in a situation like USC is where their conference opponents most years aren’t anything special, and heck, most recent years VT has also had a 1-AA school on their schedule, 1 “powerhouse” and 1-2 “mediocre-decent teams”. Doesn’t sound too different than our usual schedules, except for last year and this year where Syracuse shit the bed on us (and even last year we at least took the intiative to go out and get OrSt, and this year we tried to get another school to no avail).
by The JuggerNitt on May 27, 2009 10:35 AM EDT reply actions
The formula
1 National power
1 Eastern “rival”
1 MAC team
Temple
I really think that’s pretty good.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on May 27, 2009 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions
well, Temple IS a MAC team
so I don’t see why we need to schedule a second one, but otherwise, yeah
by The JuggerNitt on May 27, 2009 12:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Here's the deal
Va. Tech seems to like to make a splash pretty regularly in non-con. games, LSU in 2007, and USC in 2004 especially. But if you look at their schedule there are a fair amount of sacrifical lambs on there too; Furman and Western Kentucky last year, Ohio and William & Mary in 2007, Northeastern and Kent in 2006, Ohio in 2005, Western Michigan and Florida A&M in 2004 and UCF and James Madison in 2003.
The FCS teams are in itallics, and Penn State has barely played that many in the last 50 years, so don’t try band sell me that they are “providing their fans with compelling games” thing. USC, like Alabama this season, is a game they picked up just before the season started, that’s not really “scheduling” per se. It’s adding to a schedule, and like I’ve said previously, Penn State has done that many times in the past.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
VT pretty much
invented the powderpuff OCC schedule. Sometimes as Jesse pointed out, scheduling not one but two 1AA opponents. 2009 looks like a refreshing change.
I agree that we can’t control a team’s point on the success curve when we schedule them. However, when you pick up a team, like Alabama, just before the season you can control to some extent that you are getting a quality opponent. That’s why I/we loved the Pigskin & Kickoff Classics.
A 1AA game is nothing more than a money game and doesn’t have any chance of being anything else. I think we all wish these type of games would just go away.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
How "balanced" should an OOC schedule be?
Since starting ACC play in 2004, Virginia Tech has tended to schedule the same way Penn State tends to schedule: 1 BCS opponent, 2 mid-major teams, and 1 I-AA team. Only in 2005 and this year have they scheduled 2 BCS teams and 2 mid-major teams.
(Like us, they have not finalized a schedule with more than one I-AA team.)
For the next three years (12 OOC games), VT has scheduled 1 I-AA team, 7 mid-major teams, and 3 BCS teams. On the one hand, there’s no BIG GAMES planned; on the other hand, they play one I-AA opponent over four seasons.
As much as I hate playing only one BCS OOC opponent, would it be better if we scheduled three mid-major teams rather than two MAC teams and a I-AA team?
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