Our OOC scheduling could be hurting our bowl chances

[SMU 86]

I get the easier W, but you don't get better playing lesser competition.

Better teams raise the bar and helps awareness and attendance.

I understand what you are saying but the 2 or 3 games of good attendance could cost bowl apparance. I would be willing to trade attendance for more sure possibility of wins any day at this point in our program. You also get better by getting better players and developing the ones you have not necessarily playing better teams (see TCU). I am just bring this up as a point of discussion that's all. We'll see how the next few seasons go. Going into aTm and TCU next year with Aldrick, Fleps, and Moore having graduated should be interesting.

[ponyinNC]

I agree, especially b/c we will always have TCU. Simply b/c of that , we should always have at least one cupcake. The problem is that the schedule is decided way before we know how good our teams will be...

[EastStang]

Sooner or later we need to beat TCU. If we can beat them, we can beat anyone. I agree that we need play good teams and at worst one patsy. Next year we get the Cultists, the Froggies, and the Middies. We should have beat Navy this year. We killed them in the first half and then we got back in the game and gave it away. The Cultists have great talent, but please, they are worse than Tech in the Big XII. KP will be a junior and should have a better grip on things next year and if not, JJ knows how to deal with that (think BLM). I would like nothing better than to fly to Houston head to Kyle Field and watch us send the maroon Cultists into shock. After all, how do we ever get to be a potential BCS buster if we play cupcakes all the time. Note that CUSA has not had a very good record at beating BCS teams, so its up to us to be the best we can be.

[SMU 86]

We are a few years away from having BCS busters talent wise. 2011 will be the best class we have had because we had the publicity of getting to a bowl game. And our new strength coach is helping in the in our players but it took TCU 10 years to get to the BCS and while it may not take us that long to development (hopefully) we have to think bowl games not BCS games at this point IMO. I think at this point we only need 1 stretch game a year as Gary Patterson says. We need to string together a bunch of bowl games to help in recruiting IMO.

[Nacho]

with tcu on the schedule we should play 2 sure things and one lower level bcs team. anything else is a disaster. get navy off asap.

[Charleston Pony]

the schedule is not that difficult; we were competitive against Tech and could/should have beaten Navy. I don't see anything overly difficult in future schedules, assuming we continue to improve

[SMU 86]

Fun discussion either way. I think we all agree that one cupcake per year is needed. I think we are several years away from having the players to go undefeated and get in the BCS discussion. I'm just hoping for consecutive bowl games now to help recruiting. We miss a year going to a bowl and it may hurt us in recruiting momentum.

[ALEX LIFESON]

Houston made our defense look slow. BEAT TULANE!

[PK]

I guess the only option is to give up. I for one am counting on improvement and hopefully winning games that some of you are just writing off. I do not mind one lesser team a year, but the goal is to become a BCS buster and that will not be accomplished with cupcakes. We are not scheduled to play Ohio State or Oklahoma, or Alabama. We have some mid level majors. We need to be able to win some of those if we want to be the team we should want to be.

AMEN!

[Rebel10]

Fun discussion either way. I think we all agree that one cupcake per year is needed. I think we are several years away from having the players to go undefeated and get in the BCS discussion. I'm just hoping for consecutive bowl games now to help recruiting. We miss a year going to a bowl and it may hurt us in recruiting momentum.

Well said.

[West Coast Johnny]

Next year we could be 1-3 again in non conference games having to then win 6 out of 8 conference games to get to a bowl Also, instead of playing UAB, Marshall, and East Carolina from the East Div of CUSA when play for the next 2 years UCF, Memphis, amd Souerthen Miss (2 possible losses there with another probable 1-3 OOC record). Then in 2013 we could be 0-4 in OCC games no matter who would be coach. The is not good for a team trying to build it's way up. TCU and Boise only schedule 1 or 2 fairly difficult OOC games. TCU plays a D-1AA opponent every year. Having one D-1AA and one MAC opponent every year would at least give the team a chance.

Are you a football fan? Do you like to see your team challenged? Or do you just want to beat down a crap opponent and then end up in the Stuckey's Truck Stop.com bowl on ESPN-Ocho?

[SMU 86]

Next year we could be 1-3 again in non conference games having to then win 6 out of 8 conference games to get to a bowl Also, instead of playing UAB, Marshall, and East Carolina from the East Div of CUSA when play for the next 2 years UCF, Memphis, amd Souerthen Miss (2 possible losses there with another probable 1-3 OOC record). Then in 2013 we could be 0-4 in OCC games no matter who would be coach. The is not good for a team trying to build it's way up. TCU and Boise only schedule 1 or 2 fairly difficult OOC games. TCU plays a D-1AA opponent every year. Having one D-1AA and one MAC opponent every year would at least give the team a chance.

Are you a football fan? Do you like to see your team challenged? Or do you just want to beat down a crap opponent and then end up in the Stuckey's Truck Stop.com bowl on ESPN-Ocho?

Just trying to copy the TCU strategy and not the UNT strategy so that we can attract better recruits (at least until we get a more solid team).

[Stallion]

You know you keep saying that but its really not their strategy. Its shows you really don't pay attention much. The reason TCU has played 1-AA schools is because they have been dropped by other schools or conference realignment has caused a reshuffling of their schedule. At the last minute TCU was forced to add a home game-its understandable in that case just as it is for SMU. TCU has added several games against tough opponents to beef up their schedule. I don't see TCU backing down from playing tough teams if they are given an opportunity to play them-they have signed several one game series games with Top 25 teams in recent years proving it. Texas, Oregon St, Clemson

[SMU 86]

TCU schedules a D1AA team every year on purpose. UNT loads their schedule up with harder opponents than TCU and gets beatdown which hurts recruiting. They also are always 1-3 0r 0-4 in OOC games and it forces them to win 6 or 7 conference games to go to a bowl. Gary Patterson said publicly that he only plays one stretch game per year. We are playing 2 or 3. Anyway we'll see.

[S....M....U]

we are very close to beating the likes of Texas Tech and TCU. Just you wait and see. and A&M better look out. I'm glad we have a tougher OCC schedule. Our bball team is taking the other route...we will see how that works out for them.

Go Mustangs!

Beat Tulane!