Throwing Carolina Blue Mud
by KevinHD on Jun 1, 2009 7:41 PM EDT
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PrintAnd let's see those cell phone pictures.
In news that wasn't news that shouldn't have been printed:
"We have sent letters to Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Oklahoma," [North Carolina Head Coach Butch] Davis said. "We've tried to reach out and get a future home-and-home series."
Which led me to be somewhat confused by the terminology "decent competition" as applied to a potential home and home with North Carolina.
In what way? You know how many times UNC has had more than six wins in the last decade? Twice. The last time they won the ACC? 29 years ago. Their all-time record against CUSA? 4-3.
So what's with this:
[T]his is a win-win situation for both schools....[G]etting a quality BCS conference team on the schedule can't hurt.
Why is this a win-win? Is it because Penn State would get a potential win against a football team that has zero name-brand, give up a valuable road game, and play in front of a baby-blue out?
Thomas goes on to say that Penn State "isn’t going to schedule USC or Florida, we all understand that" and that "they need a quality school from a quality BCS conference."
Two problems:
- Penn State scheduled Miami and Nebraska in their absolute prime and have Alabama next year. How can you say they just aren't scheduling Florida but play Alabama in like 15 months? How are those two teams on different tiers when you consider how far out these things are scheduled?
- UNC, as stated above, is simply not a quality school in a football sense. Not even close.
Davis' move is hardly a decent offer, definitely not a win-win, and a lot like our basketball team offering home and homes with Duke, Kansas and, um, North Carolina and pretending it's a worthwhile offer.
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I think UNC is getting a bum rap here
Recruiting team rankings per scout: UNC (PSU):
2006: 25 (6)
2007: 14 (19)
2008: 30 (41)
2009: 6 (11)
My point is, this is a team with a new HC which has been recruiting better than we have — they’re an eastern team and they have a huge desire to improve their football program. Basketball programs, while very popluar, don’t make universities any money. So schools like Duke and UNC are working their asses off to bring their football up to par. This is in stark contrast to programs like
While they shouldn’t be the marque OOC game of the season, it’s not a bad option especially when we need to STOP scheduling D1-AA teams. Not only could we play an ACC team, we would have the opportunity to improve our recruiting in the south east, you know, where the SPEEEEEEEEEEEED is. I wouldn’t call it a win-win, but it’s not Akron, Buffalo, Coastal Carolina, etc either.
"We hugged as grown men do. It was a great moment. Then, it was business as usual." -- LJ Sr.
While they shouldn’t be the marque OOC game of the season, it’s not a bad option especially when we need to STOP scheduling D1-AA teams.
I don’t see this happening.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 1, 2009 9:44 PM EDT up reply actions
In the words of the great philosopher Roger Waters:
Money, it’s a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, 4-star daydream [or recruit]
Think I’ll buy me a football* team.
*Technically a soccer reference, but it fits nicely in this context as well.
Agreed
I neither see that happening nor do I think it’s a big deal. I’m a firm believer that the quality of an OOC schedule is determined by the good teams on the schedule, not the bad one. If you schedule Oklahoma and USC for 2 of the games, then it won’t matter if the other two are Delaware St and Coastal Carolina — you’d have an awesome OOC schedule. Patsies are patsies and there’s no difference between 1-AA schools or some lousy MAC or Sunbelt school. And the 1-AA schools come cheaper, which helps the bottom line.
The big thing for PSU to do is to start playing two decent schools a year — hopefully, one elite BCS team and one mediocre BCS team (or good non-BCS team like TCU). If we play 2 BCS conference teams a year OOC, it won’t matter who the patsies are.
But that's the issue here
Carolina isn’t going to replace Akron. They’re going to be the “marquee” OOC opponent. Which is balls.
Yadda you are not normal, yadda yadda
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 1, 2009 10:01 PM EDT up reply actions
Wait, does that mean I can use my iPhone to comment now?
"Never. We would never shoot nuclear weapons at Decepticons." -- Gen. Jack Jacobs
by Run Up The Score on Jun 1, 2009 10:25 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, if they're our marquee non-con opponent
It’s big, old, swingin’ dusty balls.
"Never. We would never shoot nuclear weapons at Decepticons." -- Gen. Jack Jacobs
by Run Up The Score on Jun 1, 2009 10:26 PM EDT up reply actions
Are they any different
than having UVA as our marguee OOC? I would say UNC is a few steps up.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
Agreed
I’m not exactly satisfied with Virginia being our “marquee” matchup after the Alabama series, or with Rutgers being the marquee further down the road. If we play both Rutgers and North Carolina in OOC in the same year though, that makes it a little better. Heck, I wouldn’t mind playing both Alabama and North Carolina in the same year. Bring it on! We shouldn’t be afraid to go out and schedule BCS conference teams or good mid-majors, or at least not afraid to have more than one per year on the docket.
Let's Go State!
by Gopher Broke on Jun 2, 2009 12:21 PM EDT up reply actions
And that is what frustrates me
We’re back with the big boys now. It’s time we start we scheduling “marquee” teams like it. Either one “marquee” game, two or three smaller games that make for a decent schedule, or both elements.
And Temple.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 1, 2009 10:03 PM EDT up reply actions
lol, I was confused for the longest time
I was like, how do they calculate the ranking per each scout on the team? Does UNC have less scouts than us? Then I realized you meant per, as in according to Scout
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 2, 2009 1:36 PM EDT up reply actions
If they wanted it that bad
They needed to set it up before this season was finalized. I’m not opposed to it, but realistically, I’d be looking for 2 things before we went home-and-home with UNC
1.) Sustained success and
2.) Butch Davis sticking around
Agreed, they could
rapidly become a Syracuse.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
In reality, it could be worse.
In that “six years from now” kind of way, I’d put them on Rutgers’ level — not great, but it won’t get you laughed out of the national championship conversation at the end of the season. Butch Davis is recruiting his ass off, and they’re quickly getting better.
"Never. We would never shoot nuclear weapons at Decepticons." -- Gen. Jack Jacobs
by Run Up The Score on Jun 1, 2009 9:10 PM EDT reply actions
National title
I think that’s more of a function of conference strength. Texas tech played no one last year but it didn’t matter
But if you're conference is down
having a decent OOC schedule SHOULD help. Although, look at last year, when we trashed OSU-West and were still getting discussed as possibly being passed over by a 1 loss SEC or Big 12 team. OSU-West was a good win, but the other 3 teams were trash, so it didn’t do anything to make up for the Big 10 is weak belief. So having UNC is okay, but we need someone else there to prevent even the hint of that discussion.
by Screen Name 20 on Jun 2, 2009 7:44 AM EDT up reply actions
OSU-west was not considered to be good when we played them
Even though they’re a consistent 8+ win bowl caliber team, they weren’t given much respect last year. How highly a team is rated when you play them is the most important thing. The pollsters never seem to go back and reevaluate their rankings. If Syracuse somehow turns things around and goes like 10-2, we still wouldn’t be given credit because they were considered to be bad when we played them.
That’s one more reason to hate the BCS. The polls are run either by idiots or people who have an obvious conflict of interest. (I do not intend to malign all of the voters in the AP or Harris polls, as I’m sure there are some who put a lot of thought into their ballots. But their signal gets swamped by the noise.) Using just the computers (after allowing them to use all the data available regarding the game, including margin of victory, and throwing out Billingsley) would likely produce better results. Most of the really stupid things in the computer rankings (with the exception of Billingsley, whose formula is a hodgepodge of ad hoc rules designed to mimic the human polls, when we wouldn’t bother with computers if the human voters knew what they were doing) result from them being forced to treat LSU’s narrow escape from Troy and Oklahoma State’s demolition of that same Troy team as equivalent.
I wish I knew how to link to a direct comment in these posts
so that I could link to my rant of the pre-season rankings in here:
http://www.blackshoediaries.com/2009/5/29/892560/athlon-pre-season-all-america-big11#
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 2, 2009 1:44 PM EDT up reply actions
Click on the text in bold
And you will be taken to direct link to this post. Ta da.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 2, 2009 1:54 PM EDT up reply actions
Er, the time stamp rather
Sorry
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 2, 2009 1:55 PM EDT up reply actions
Ah, I never even noticed that the timestamp was clickable
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 2, 2009 1:57 PM EDT up reply actions
You hit the nail on the head
Preseason polls wouldn’t be a problem if not for poll inertia and voter laziness (refusal to re-evaluate whether a “good win” was in fact good or not). That’s one thing I like about the Blogpoll – most people actually seem to take the time to adjust when preseason perception and midseason reality clash (Dr. Saturday, in particular, makes a point of starting from scratch each week and not even looking at his prior ballots).
It's really a combinations though
I don’t recall a year when the MSM wasn’t head-over-heals in love with the SEC, yet Auburn got shut out of the 2004 MNC partially due to a weak non-con schedule
Preseason Polls
It also didn’t help they started the season lower than USC and Oklahoma in most people’s minds.
by Screen Name 20 on Jun 2, 2009 11:16 AM EDT up reply actions
THANK YOU
I have seen so many people talk about how great a series with UNC would be because OMG BUTCH DAVIS. Maybe he’ll make them into a power by the time we would play them. Or maybe he’ll be gone and they’ll go back to being a team that passes the time until basketball season.
If our big OOC matchups in the future are Virginia, Rutgers, and North Carolina I won’t be happy. In fact, I might even use an angry face emoticon at some point.
Oh, and....
From the linked Eric Thomas post…
“The Buckeys bring Miami, Va. Tech, Navy, California, Oklahoma and Tennessee in the next 10 years, starting in 2010.”
Really? Navy is in that sentence?
Bless you
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 1, 2009 9:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Could use a few more pics from that game
Perfect remedy for a bad day!!!
"The sea was angry that day, my friends." G. Costanza
I can't believe I'm admitting this
but I actually watched this game (I believe the end of it was after one of ours), at least the last half of it anyway. It gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling, so I couldn’t turn it off.
I watched it too
I believe it was after the Indiana game.
by Screen Name 20 on Jun 2, 2009 7:49 AM EDT up reply actions
I saw the end
I was in Annapolis of all places. There was cheering, but overall, they acted like they had been there before.
Even though they had not. I kind of respected it — a better reaction than storming Beaver Canyon after winning a game in October.
Blogging about D.C. Baseball since April '04. Penn State alum. Also partial to the Washington Capitals, New York Yankees and Yale football.
by WFY on Jun 2, 2009 9:37 AM EDT up reply actions
Hey now
Beating Notre Dame for the first time in however long it was is one thing, especially when ND sucks so I get the lack of a huge response in Annapolis. Beating tOSU in Columbus is a whole other animal, which got a bigger (and slightly more destructive) response from us students (many of whom were not expecting a win).
well, that and code of conduct in the military academies...
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 2, 2009 5:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Well, touche
but the academies also have access to stuff our students wouldn’t even dream of. I mean they could just go nuts and take a battleship (since this is the Naval academy) for a joy ride. They have the potential to upstage the Beaver Canyon Riot. Had we had access to firepower of that magnitude, Canyon Pizza would be a smoking hole in the ground right now….along with half of Beaver ave (I’m not saying this longingly btw, that would be a very bad thing)
take a battleship (since this is the Naval academy) for a joy ride.
While the Navy has decommisoned all of its battleships, there is a thing called an “Ohio Class ballistice missile submarine”.
GREATEST. RIOT. EVER.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 2, 2009 8:11 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm bored
Last five seasons
2004 OSU: Cincinnati, Marshall, @ North Carolina State
2004 PSU*: Akron, @ Boston College, UCF
2005 OSU: Miami (OH), Texas, San Diego State
2005 PSU*: South Florida, Cincinnati, Central Michigan
2006 OSU: Northern Illinois, @ Texas, Cincinnati, Bowling Green
2006 PSU: Akron, @ Notre Dame, Youngstown State, Temple
2007 OSU: Youngstown State, Akron, @ Washington, Kent State
2007 PSU: Florida International, @ Notre Dame, Buffalo, @ Temple
2008 OSU: Youngstown State, Ohio, @ zOMG USC, Troy
2008 PSU: Coastal Carolina, Oregon State, @ Syracuse, Temple
2004-2005 had a scheduled home-and-home series with Alabama
So, basically, I guess I’m just saying that Ohio State hasn’t scheduled that much better than us, usually.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 1, 2009 9:43 PM EDT up reply actions
UNC
Listen, it might not kill us to do something that improves our public perception. If the public perception is that UNC is some kind of juggernaut, why not go ahead and work them in? It may not be a complete win-win situation, but it would carry more benefits for us than playing Virginia. They’ve got no future in sight.
Public perception says UNC is a considerable foe. We level-headed folks realize that they are mediocre at best and have a little ways to go to prove themselves. But let’s get them on the schedule, kick their ass, and take advantage of public perception for a change instead of getting our faces stomped in by it.
Luring recruits with my new "Posting HD" scheme since '08.
I'm not sure the perception is they are great.
I’m only really reading this on the PSU side. From a PR standpoint, the benchmark for me right now is last year’s Oregon State. I mean they were a decent team with a incredible marque win, yet they were completely forgotten in the context of “who did Penn State play this year?! marklar marklar marklar”. UNC (now anyway) doesn’t clear that hurdle for me.
ACC bias
Maybe I’m a little biased being in ACC-land, where wins over UNC, Georgia Tech, or Wake Forest are accomplishments that deserve collective sighs of relief at the water cooler Monday morning, but I get a general vibe that UNC is somehow a competent program now. Butch Davis is reaching Pete Carroll-lite status for some reason.
Luring recruits with my new "Posting HD" scheme since '08.
Well
I know he didn’t win a MNC while at Miami FL, but he did build the program back up again and turn them into a dominant program. They could’ve/should’ve won 3 MNC’s from 2000-2002. After he left and his recruits were all gone, his successors couldn’t win with their own players.
by Screen Name 20 on Jun 2, 2009 7:57 AM EDT up reply actions
To play Devil's advocate
That perception can’t be any worse than an Akron or a Temple, which would say that this series would be an improvement.
I agree with you that we could do much better than UNC, but in the context of the kinds of teams we’ve scheduled year after year, even a mid to low ACC team would be an improvement, especially over a D1-AA team
You gusy have touched on most of this...
Those ranking are okay, but Davis is Out with a capital O as soon as that team does anything close to sustain success. I mean that guy from Buffalo was on one the top available coaches last year and Butch has national title contention experience. So even if they get it together they could get all Syracuey before we play them.
You guys crack me up
So adding a team from a BCS conference to help with the perception of the schedule isn’t something that entices anyone?
Regardless of where the school and conference stand in the BCS discussion (I get it that it’s not Va Tech or even FSU), PSU, until next year, isn’t helping itself in the eyes of national media.
Half of the people bitching about what I wrote probably complained when Oregon State was thrown in there in the “made for TV” game last year and then look what happened. There was the possibility they could have even met Oregon State in a rematch, which thankfully didn’t happen.
Point is, how does anyone know UNC on the schedule wouldn’t benefit until it’s played and that season is played out? Did anyone think after the whipping laid on Ore. St. last year that win would help PSU?
And yes I included Navy in that post too. You could argue Navy is more quality than anything on PSU’s non-con slate this year.
But it wouldn't be just "adding" UNC,
it would be using UNC as the game for two years, the OOC win to hand our hats on. Not good enough.
We can and have scheduled the “Florida’s” of the world. Bama, pre-flop Miami, Notre Dame, ect…we don’t need to be giving up the very few home-n-home’s for teams like UNC.
As for you last point, that is of course completely true.
Eric
I don’t think we’re arguing about the same thing. You’re point is that UNC is an upgrade when you look at the crap they are giving us in 2009. No one can argue with that.
My point is that a h&h with UNC means we lose a h&h with Miami, VT, or whoever. In that case accepting Davis’ offer seems like it’s actually making the schedule worse, not better.
Yep
I’m all for adding UNC, but not at the expense of a VT, Bama, Texas, etc.
And for those who get all up in arms about UNC but not about Miami, why? (And that includes myself) Yes, Miami has the better brand name, but does it really? Right now? And, this is just hypothetical, but who’s to say UNC won’t be a better H&H then Miami in 2015 (and yes, I know you can say that for any team on the schedule). They’re recruiting just as well and have finished better (slightly) the last 2 years with Butch Davis at the helm. Who knows if Butch will stick around with UNC, but who knows who’ll be the coach at Miami, either?
Recruiting rankings: UNC (Miami FL)
2009: 6 (24)
2008: 30 (3)
2007: 14 (13)
2006: 25 (14)
by Screen Name 20 on Jun 2, 2009 8:24 AM EDT up reply actions
You could argue
That Miami is all washed up as a football power. That gladiator “U” thing is nothing more than hype now. They are getting their ass kicked all over the state by Florida, and they don’t have nearly the financial resources necessary to compete with the big boys. At this point they are all reputation, fading reputation at that.
Everytime Miami tries to clean up its image, they get killed. They don’t have the facilities or the stadiums of their comepitition. Would I count them out? No…but if they faded away, I wouldn’t be suprised.
UNC football = PSU basketball. All they need is a coach and a commitment to win, and they’ll be good. Like Penn State basketball, they’ve never been able to put it together consistently, but there is no reason to think they can’t. Assuming they will is a bit of a jump, and that’s why the inital argument makes no sense.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
This year is crap, no one is arguing that
TCU coulda woulda shoulda, but unless UNC could have set it up with us before this seaon was finalized I’m in the skeptical camp on setting a home-and-home with them.
There wasn't a person in the world complaining about adding Oregon State
They replaced Arkansas State, after all.
"Never. We would never shoot nuclear weapons at Decepticons." -- Gen. Jack Jacobs
by Run Up The Score on Jun 1, 2009 10:30 PM EDT up reply actions
Mark May probably didn’t like having to constantly remember to gloss over “Penn State > Oregon State > USC” during the regular season, but I suppose that that was after the fact.
DO YOU HAVE ANY PRIDE, DANNY?
by ReadingRambler on Jun 1, 2009 10:35 PM EDT up reply actions
Actually there was one
He was mocked.
Blogging about D.C. Baseball since April '04. Penn State alum. Also partial to the Washington Capitals, New York Yankees and Yale football.
by WFY on Jun 2, 2009 9:38 AM EDT up reply actions
Friend of mine, prone to uninformed statements
Blogging about D.C. Baseball since April '04. Penn State alum. Also partial to the Washington Capitals, New York Yankees and Yale football.
by WFY on Jun 3, 2009 7:21 AM EDT up reply actions
Is UNC better than any of the current opponents?
To the knowledgeable fan, yes it is because Davis has them steadily improving. But to the casual, uninformed fan and media member we would get zero credit for beating UNC. Penn State is supposed to beat UNC. It’s the same reason why PSU got virtually no credit for beating Oregon State last year. It’s not a big name. And even if UNC goes 10-2, all everyone will say is how weak the ACC is instead of admitting they might be good.
Nobody disagrees that UNC would be better than Eastern Illinois or Syracuse, but like Kevin I think we can do better if we’re talking about a one-and-one series.
Mike
Black Shoe Diaries
totally disagree and it has nothing to do with Davis
What the heck is Davis’ reputation anyway? that he’s a charismatic guy who is able to entice reasonably talented kids to come to attractive campuses – he’s like the zooker on the full meal plan – he can’t win the big games, got spurriered out of the nfl and has a nervous tick.
unc on the other hand – would totally be like a boston college – yes I agree that it should not be a headliner, but it would deserve to be on the marquee. I’d be pretty darn nervous about it – regardless of their records, over the years they have played solid football and produced an assortment of quality defensive players.
Personally, i think that the casual football fan would be intrigued by a match up against unc – if only because they’ve heard of the school – unlike some of our other opponents.
I would be sick – unc is very close to the top on my very short list of most disliked sports programs.
remember – in nc they say that God made the sky carolina blue – and them’s fightin words.
"God made the sky carolina blue"
That’s reason enough to hate them right there
Bring ’em on!!
"The sea was angry that day, my friends." G. Costanza
I don't recall the win over Ore. St. helping us much
except in perhaps the computer polls. They weren’t ranked when we played them, and hadn’t beaten USC until after we played them, so that didn’t help us any in the polls.
Other than once or twice (by Kirk Herbstreit and Lou Holtshz I think), whenever our OOC schedule was mentioned, I only ever heard about Coastal Carolina, Syracuse, and Temple. I was starting to think we only played 11 games last year.
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 2, 2009 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Part of the problem with that OSU win
was that they were coming off a loss to Stanford. Then as the season progressed and they kept on winning, nobody really adjusted our ranking based off the perceived strength of our win over them.
by Screen Name 20 on Jun 2, 2009 2:07 PM EDT up reply actions
on a complete side note
did anyone else not receive a NLC membership/season schedule? we got two members in this house and neither has rec’d one
For the glory
Nope...
no handy wallet schedule here either. I smell cost savings.
I’ve been relegated to looking up the schedule online.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
I've been looking for a wallet schedule for a while now
Normally they have tons of them, along with free posters, in the HUB bookstore
Here's the eff you to Butch Davis
We’ll play a home and home with you and football, at the same time you play a home and home with us in basketball. Then everybody does win. That or stick it up your ass.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
by jesse. on Jun 2, 2009 7:53 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I was thinking the same thing
Do multi-sport agreements of this nature ever occur?
I am still of the opinion that in this day and age your OofC schedule must be structured as crap, crap, low end BCS team, good team. At this time on this planet, UNC would still fall into tier 3 and would need to bring something to the table in order to be given a home and home. At the same time, it should be feasible, assuming you will never travel to crap crap, then home and homes with the two BCS schools should work. Somehow, our home game in Philly every four years screws this scenario up though.
I don't see why not
Especially since it’s way easier to get a basketball game on the schedule that a football game.
Here’s the thing, North Carolina would be a great school to get involved with. It wold be a really fun trip for an away game, they are good school, in a location where some exposure would help us recriut. If you throw in the basketball games, is there any reason we should be playing UVa. out of the ACC rather than UNC? I can’t think of any, it actually makes a lot of sense. UNC is a top flight school all the way around, and it would be awesome to have a relationship with them for all of our sports, baseball, volleyball, football, basketball, softball, etc… Frankly, in my opinion, this is what should be happening in almost all of our OOC football scheduling.
But I can already hear the discussion eight years from now; UNC sucks and Penn State is just playing a patsy, with the immediate response being “Remember they had Butch Davis when we scheduled them and they we’re calling us pussy’s so we agreed to go down there…”. It practically writes itself.
But if you’re only scheduling a football game, who do you think is going to be better in 6 years Miami or UNC. If you think UNC…wanna bet?
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
Relationships continued...
If you look at our schedules, we have a history with damn near every team we play. Who is on the future schedules, Rutgers, Virginia, Miami…
We have a long history with Miami, dating back to the late 1960’s. Rutgers, duh. We generally make it a point to play Virginia once a decade or thereabouts. Alabama and Penn State played a great series in the 1980’s. Nebraska, Syracuse, Boston College, hell, even Temple.
Point being, we don’t just play anybody. I know that sounds cool to say, but we play the schools we play, and it goes well beyond our “eastern rivals [gag]” and our Big Ten opposition.
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
This is a prime example........
of what I have stated on here over and over again………..the rest of the country isn’t impressed with PSU football.
I don’t think this writer’s commentary is as much about how great UNC is as it is about how little people outside of the NE generally regard our program.
Eric Watters Atlanta, Ga.
"If you hear Ric Flair is in town......WOOOOO........you KNOW things are takin' place".
Ric Flair
it's definitely not win win
We should beat them, we have nothing to gain.
If UNC were to beat us that would even further help their rise. The last thing we need is super recruiter Butch Davis anywhere near our turf.
Is UNC any worse than Virginia?
Seriously, we need to stop scheduling Virginia. Penn State has played 6 games against them, ever, so there’s no history there besides Al Groh.
I agree with Jesse on the quid pro quo; home-and-home football for home-and-home basketball.
Not sure how Groh is connected to PSU
other than having given Golden and D’onofrio jobs.
George Welsh is the PSU connection to uva. Oh how the elders used to plead for his return…
My apologies
I was thinking of Al Golden, who left VA for Temple four years ago.
Different guy, same reasoning.
Playing UNC
I’d be all for adding UNC, as long as they are added in addition to UVA in 2012-13 or Rutgers in 2014-15. UVA + UNC or Rutgers + UNC (plus 2 patsies) would be a good OOC schedule.
UNRELATED...
…or maybe not as we are discussing OOC cupcakes. But this seems to be the most popular post at the time, ergo the highest traffic. Does anyone have or plan to have a couple tickets to a cupcake game for sale? I’m interested in taking the old man as a Father’s Day present…
Yes - what game would you
like to attend. I probably have four available to each the following:
E Michigan
Temple
E Illinois
Minnehaha
Indiana
I just checked the NLC this morning and Tix haven’t been updated so I don’t know if my upgrade went through.
Let’s Discuss.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
I wouldn’t recommend anyone buying a ticket to see PSU play Eastern Michigan this year — perhaps one to play Akron, though, would make sense since that is who is scheduled for 9/5.
Lala
you are just killing my little ticket scam I’ve got going.
Stupid schedule know-it-alls.
Looks like I’m going to have to go back to praying on senior citizens with my “leftover driveway sealant” operation.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
Akron or Temple
would be great. I would need two, but would consider taking four if that makes it easier for you (I can always find fellow Staters to go to the game – hell just mentioning a day or two in Happy Valley would be enough).
by Jeff Junstrom on Jun 2, 2009 3:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Er, Akron rather than E Michigan...
I called the Hampton Inn yesterday to check on rooms and the desk guy corrected me fro Akron to E Mich and I didn’t check the schedule to correct him back.
When I get the Tix I will check back.
I would prefer to sell all 4. You would also get the yellow parking and I a preferred spot (Orange or brown I think)
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
lol, make sure you are booked for 2009 and not 2010 :-p
though worst comes to worst you can always camp in the tailgate lot
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 2, 2009 4:38 PM EDT up reply actions
What kind of price
are you asking? where are the seats? is there an email I can reach you at to make this easier?
by Jeff Junstrom on Jun 2, 2009 5:02 PM EDT up reply actions
I just added it
to my profile.
Not sure where the tix are – I put in for an upgrade and the status hasn’t been changed on NLC.
Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll let you know details asap. Face value is all I need.
One man doing the work of 100's for the good of 1000's
Didn't Wisconsin go down to CHapel Hill a few years ago?
I blame them for this UNC hubris. North Carolina, North Texas… they’re all directional schools in my small-minded heart!
your heart has a mind?
what are you, a chick?
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 2, 2009 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions
UNC bad????
How is scheudling UNC a bad thing? Have you looked at our non-conference schedule this year? It’s embarrassing. It’s utterly embarrassing to be playing that type of schedule. While UNC is not setting the world on fire, they’d be a good upgrade. At least they compete in a BCS conference, unlike Temple and E. Illinois. And I don’t want to hear about playing Miami and Nebraska in their prime. We played Miami 8 years ago! And we played Nebraska 6 years ago when they were at the beginning of their downslide. We did play Notre Dame in their last good season. Yes, schedules are made years in advance. Are you telling me someone out there thought Syracuse was going to be a top notch team when we scheduled them? There’s no excuse why we don’t have a game like Miami, Nebraska, or ND every year on our schedule. We claim to be a big time college football program, yet we schedule cupcakes out of conference.
well, a few things
I would say we had much more reason to believe Syracuse was going to be a good team than we have to believe UNC will be a good team when we play them (Syracuse had 15 consecutive winning seasons, and was just coming off of a 10-3 year).
And you are thinking that Temple or E. Illinois would be the types of games we would be replacing, but they aren’t.
First off we have to play one MAC team a year, so might as well be Temple (yes we also have Akron this year).
Second off, UNC is going to want a home & home, which means that instead of replacing E. Illinois, Temple, Akron, or any of those other 1 & done, or lopsided deals, they’d instead be replacing the Alabama/Virginia/Rutgers/Nebraska/Miami/Notre Dame/whoever teams on our schedule, and if that’s the case, do you really believe that UNC is an upgrade over any of those teams?
Now one solution would be that we could have 2 BCS teams on our schedule at the same time, since we could alternate which one is home and which one is away each year, so that way we’d still get our 3 non-con home games every year, but for that we’d have to drop our deal with Temple, which doesn’t work because of our obligation to play a MAC team (and also would give us max 7 home games a year, and not the 7+ that the athletic department claims is “necessary”). Still, this is the only likely scenario that would get us 2 BCS teams on our schedule every year, without the special cases like Or.St. last year, where they came for a 1 and done.
The real solution isn’t that we need teams like UNC, it is just that we need our marquee game team to not suck balls (Syracuse), and we need to stop scheduling 1-AA teams (I wish they’d just make it a rule that those games don’t count in 1-A records/standings/rankings) in favor of mid-major teams, and then when we schedule those mid-major teams we should at least get decent ones, and not Akron.
It is similar to our basketball schedule last year. It wasn’t that we needed more “good” teams, it was that we needed to replace the horrible teams with just bad to below average teams.
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 3, 2009 1:37 PM EDT up reply actions
also, your statement "we claim to be a big time college football program, yet we schedule cupcakes out of conference"
I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what all “big time college football programs” do, outside of USC, who has to schedule decent competition OOC because they don’t have any competition in conference (except for a rotating slate of mediocre teams who occasionally put together above average seasons against equally bad teams in conference, and/or who pull off the upset against USC).
Did you look at the OOC games of the teams from the top 10 last year?
Florida:
Hawaii
Miami
Citadel
Florida State
Oklahoma:
Chattanooga
Cincinnati
Washington
TCU
USC:
Virginia
Ohio State
Notre Dame
Texas
Florida Atlantic
UTEP
Arkansas
Rice
Alabama
Clemson
Tulane
Western Kentucky
Arkansas State
Utah (not going to list, because it is their cMWC onference slate that is bad, not their non-con)
Texas Tech
Eastern Washington
Nevada
Southern Methodist
Massachusetts (2 1-AA teams!!!)
Penn State
Coastal Carolina
Oregon State
Syracuse
Temple
Boise State (plays in the WAC)
Ohio State
Youngstown State
Ohio
USC
Troy
Florida’s OOC is pretty good, so is USC’s, but outside of them, who has a clearly better OOC than we did last year?
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 3, 2009 1:59 PM EDT up reply actions
Nicely done
I don’t think I’ve ever seen it written out that way. With the exception of U$C with tOSU, our OOC really doesn’t look all that bad in comparisson. With respect to Florida though, yeah sure, they scheduled three D1 schools (I think HI is D1, but I don’t know), but honestly those teams sucked, so it’s not all that impressive.
I can’t believe (although with the bias towards the SEC and Big 12, maybe I could) that Tx Tech scheduled two 1-AA teams, and never got punished for it like we did in the BCS rankings.
Hawaii is 1-A
even 2 years ago they were in the BCS (went undefeated until they lost to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, 41-10).
And as for this list, I am in no way trying to use this to excuse our 2009 schedule (and in opponents to the PSU scheduling philosophy, the 2008 schedule would have been just as bad, had ESPN not stepped in and ponied up money for Oregon State for us, but that did happen, and gave us a decent schedule that everyone assumed was bad because they assumed OrSt was gonna be bad).
But I just don’t see why people are looking at the 2009 schedule and being like, “PSU always schedules crap and has worse schedules than other ‘top’ teams,” because when you actually look at the “average” schedule of other “top” teams, it isn’t really that easy to say we are “that” bad.
Heck, I bet if someone took the OOC schedules for the top teams last year (or for any year, really), and showed them to someone who didn’t know what schedule belonged to what team, and just asked them to rank them based on difficulty, and to guess what team it belonged to, it probably wouldn’t be as easy as people assume it is (especially if they didn’t take into account any regional bias in scheduling)
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 4, 2009 11:06 AM EDT up reply actions
Totally agree
Our schedule this year, and almost every year for the past few years is inexcusable, especially now that we’re out of the dark years. I didn’t mean we are any better than any of those other teams in terms of OOC schedule, just saying that in comparison we’re as bad vs. other teams that the everyone loves to drool over. We need to do a hell of a lot more to get some respect either from the talking heads, pollsters, or the BCS computers.
Reason #1 to play UNC
they are one of a handful of teams who has beaten us, but whom we have never beaten.
DAMN YOU
WIssahicton Barracks!!!!
"I honestly think the "Spread HD" is going to work pretty well, and we’ll be just fine this year". - 8-27-2008
ah shoot, I ahdn't even noticed them
wasn’t thinking about ties
by The JuggerNitt on Jun 5, 2009 12:33 PM EDT up reply actions
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