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there seems to be a constant barrage of misinformation on this board about how "Tcu did it" lead by FTH and his totally clueless comments that TCU didn't schedule BCS teams. In fact, from 1998-2010, TCU played 28 games against BCS schools and fact had an outstanding record of 20-8 including:

USC (W)
Texas
Texas A&M
Nebraska
Oklahoma (1-2)
Texas Tech (1-1)
Baylor (3-0)
Wisconsin (W))
Virginia (W)
Clemson (W)
Arizona (1-1)
Stanford (2-0)
Iowa St. (2-0)
Oregon St. (W)
Vanderbilt (2-0)
Northwestern (3-1)

TCU also played about 23 more games with schools like BYU, Boise St, Utah and Louisville who were on the BCS track and were clearly BCS level schools or schools like Cincinnati, USF who in fact were to become BCS schools. So by my count that is 51 games with BCS school, BCS level schools or schools on tract to become BCS level schools

http://www.collegefootball.bz/tcu

I'm going to bold the ones that were easily winnable during that span:

USC (W)
Texas
Texas A&M
Nebraska
Oklahoma (1-2)
Texas Tech (1-1)
Baylor (3-0)
Wisconsin (W))
Virginia (W)
Clemson (W)
Arizona (1-1)
Stanford (2-0)
Iowa St. (2-0)
Oregon St. (W)
Vanderbilt (2-0)
Northwestern (3-1)

That's some good scheduling. If you win, you make headlines under "best 'upsets' of the week" and if you lose, then it's only a slight disappointment. Unfortunately, half of those bolded teams are now much better.

TCU did everything perfectly:

-Hired a fiery coordinator from within who was (and still is) committed to the school.
-Smart AD who worked out very favorable schedules.
-Administration was clearly committed to winning in football.

GreenbeltPony wrote:TCU did everything perfectly:

-Hired a fiery coordinator from within who was (and still is) committed to the school.
-Smart AD who worked out very favorable schedules.
-Administration was clearly committed to winning in football.

None of it probably ever happens without LT though. Total program changer.

GreenbeltPony wrote:
TCU did everything perfectly:

-Hired a fiery coordinator from within who was (and still is) committed to the school.

He and Fran had a good recruiting strategy by going after BCS bottom feeders recruits.

Stallion,

About a month ago, I broke down TCU's scheduled non-conference games (not including bowl games). By season. It would behoove you to research it that way. They spread their challenging games out instead of playing Texas, OU, Nebraska all in one year. I maintain that the optimal OOC schedule to replicate what TCU did is as follows:

1 High Level P5 team every 2 years / switch to 2nd low level P5 team on the alternate years

1 Low Level P5 team every year (Wazzu, Virginia, Wake)

1 Easy Win FCS/bottom FBS game (UAB, New Mexico State) each year

1 game against TCU

Stallion wrote:there seems to be a constant barrage of misinformation on this board about how "Tcu did it" lead by FTH and his totally clueless comments that TCU didn't schedule BCS teams. In fact, from 1998-2010, TCU played 28 games against BCS schools and fact had an outstanding record of 20-8 including:

USC (W)
Texas
Texas A&M
Nebraska
Oklahoma (1-2)
Texas Tech (1-1)
Baylor (3-0)
Wisconsin (W))
Virginia (W)
Clemson (W)
Arizona (1-1)
Stanford (2-0)
Iowa St. (2-0)
Oregon St. (W)
Vanderbilt (2-0)
Northwestern (3-1)

TCU also played about 23 more games with schools like BYU, Boise St, Utah and Louisville who were on the BCS track and were clearly BCS level schools or schools like Cincinnati, USF who in fact were to become BCS schools. So by my count that is 51 games with BCS school, BCS level schools or schools on tract to become BCS level schools

http://www.collegefootball.bz/tcu

Spot on analysis. Especially telling when you add the schools that were to become BCS.

CalallenStang wrote:Stallion,

About a month ago, I broke down TCU's scheduled non-conference games (not including bowl games). By season. It would behoove you to research it that way. They spread their challenging games out instead of playing Texas, OU, Nebraska all in one year. I maintain that the optimal OOC schedule to replicate what TCU did is as follows:

1 High Level P5 team every 2 years / switch to 2nd low level P5 team on the alternate years

1 Low Level P5 team every year (Wazzu, Virginia, Wake)

1 Easy Win FCS/bottom FBS game (UAB, New Mexico State) each year

1 game against TCU

This!

Starting every year 1-3 or 0-4 is a kick in the junk!

Oregon St was a highly ranked school when TCU played them. National spotlite game at Jerry World. When SMU scheduled TCU they weren't BCS, Texas A&M was mid BCS and Baylor hadn't won a bowl game in over a decade. Tech is Tech

Stallion wrote:Oregon St was a highly ranked school when TCU played them. National spotlite game at Jerry World. When SMU scheduled TCU they weren't BCS, Texas A&M was mid BCS and Baylor hadn't won a bowl game in over a decade. Tech is Tech

Right, forgot about that game. I think that ranking was a flash in the pan though, since they ended up unranked (?), which seems to be a consistent occurrence IIRC.

Stallion wrote:there seems to be a constant barrage of misinformation on this board about how "Tcu did it" lead by FTH and his totally clueless comments that TCU didn't schedule BCS teams. In fact, from 1998-2010, TCU played 28 games against BCS schools and fact had an outstanding record of 20-8 including:

USC (W)
Texas
Texas A&M
Nebraska
Oklahoma (1-2)
Texas Tech (1-1)
Baylor (3-0)
Wisconsin (W))
Virginia (W)
Clemson (W)
Arizona (1-1)
Stanford (2-0)
Iowa St. (2-0)
Oregon St. (W)
Vanderbilt (2-0)
Northwestern (3-1)

TCU also played about 23 more games with schools like BYU, Boise St, Utah and Louisville who were on the BCS track and were clearly BCS level schools or schools like Cincinnati, USF who in fact were to become BCS schools. So by my count that is 51 games with BCS school, BCS level schools or schools on tract to become BCS level schools

http://www.collegefootball.bz/tcu

Stallion, you are right they have a 20-8 record against BCS schools. But break it down correctly.

They did not play USC, Texas, OU and A&M the same year, in a row. They might play one of them each year. They played BCS teams that they could beat like the Arizonas, Vandy, Northwesterns, and they played some BCS teams in Bowl games, after winning 10 games in the regular season.

SMU has played 3 BCS teams each year. This year alone we had TCU, TAMU and Tech as OOC games....how did you expect us to have a good start with that kind of schedule?
I've heard from many in here that say we need those games, but someone pointed out correctly that it's better to have a winning record than just have a one or two game spike for attendance. I like the long term approach to build attendance with OUR FANS and not Texas, TCU, OU fans filling our house.
That 0-4 hurts you in the season and means you don't go bowling. We won 4 conference games, and if our OOC wasn't that hard, going 2-2 or even 3-1 OOC would have gotten us to a bowl and we would have been 7-5 (considering we still lost to Rutgers, Cincy, Houston and UCF). And I would argue we would be in a better position to finish out those games and win some of them. We could have pulled wins vs. Rutgers, Cincy and UCF this year...Houston if we had Garrett Gilbert.

feelthehorsepower wrote:
Stallion, you are right they have a 20-8 record against BCS schools. But break it down correctly.

They did not play USC, Texas, OU and A&M the same year, in a row. They might play one of them each year. They played BCS teams that they could beat like the Arizonas, Vandy, Northwesterns, and they played some BCS teams in Bowl games, after winning 10 games in the regular season.

SMU has played 3 BCS teams each year. This year alone we had TCU, TAMU and Tech as OOC games....how did you expect us to have a good start with that kind of schedule?

Quit acting like our schedule was some insurmountable obstacle! We played one low P5 (TCU) one mid (Tech) and one high (A&M). Our opponents are irrelevant when we are not recruiting or preparing for the games sufficiently. Someone mentioned Wazzu, Virginia and Wake. Washington definitely would have beaten us. Virginia and Wake both beat teams better than us. What makes anyone think we'd be more likely to beat them than Tech?

MustangStealth wrote:

feelthehorsepower wrote:
Stallion, you are right they have a 20-8 record against BCS schools. But break it down correctly.

They did not play USC, Texas, OU and A&M the same year, in a row. They might play one of them each year. They played BCS teams that they could beat like the Arizonas, Vandy, Northwesterns, and they played some BCS teams in Bowl games, after winning 10 games in the regular season.

SMU has played 3 BCS teams each year. This year alone we had TCU, TAMU and Tech as OOC games....how did you expect us to have a good start with that kind of schedule?

Quit acting like our schedule was some insurmountable obstacle! We played one low P5 (TCU) one mid (Tech) and one high (A&M). Our opponents are irrelevant when we are not recruiting or preparing for the games sufficiently. Someone mentioned Wazzu, Virginia and Wake. Washington definitely would have beaten us. Virginia and Wake both beat teams better than us. What makes anyone think we'd be more likely to beat them than Tech?

I really meant a team like the Wazzu team we beat a few years ago. We would definitely be more likely to beat UVA and Wake than Tech - Tech has more athletes around the field. Not saying we would beat UVA/Wake...just saying that smart scheduling gives us that chance.

We should have competed more effectively vs Tech and TCU - I will give you that

With schedules set 6-8 years in advance, there is no guarantee who will be good or bad in a particular year. We could have scheduled Duke 6 years ago and it would have looked like a sure win at the time, while Wake had just won the ACC and would have scared the pants off of you guys. The bottom line is that you have to beat who you play. Crying about the schedule is a waste.

GreenbeltPony wrote:

Stallion wrote:Oregon St was a highly ranked school when TCU played them. National spotlite game at Jerry World. When SMU scheduled TCU they weren't BCS, Texas A&M was mid BCS and Baylor hadn't won a bowl game in over a decade. Tech is Tech

Right, forgot about that game. I think that ranking was a flash in the pan though, since they ended up unranked (?), which seems to be a consistent occurrence IIRC.

Preseason ranked #24 despite going 8-5 and losing their last 2 games including their bowl game by 24 points. 5-7 final record. Just shows how relevant preseason rankings are.

NTXCoog wrote:

GreenbeltPony wrote:

Stallion wrote:Oregon St was a highly ranked school when TCU played them. National spotlite game at Jerry World. When SMU scheduled TCU they weren't BCS, Texas A&M was mid BCS and Baylor hadn't won a bowl game in over a decade. Tech is Tech

Right, forgot about that game. I think that ranking was a flash in the pan though, since they ended up unranked (?), which seems to be a consistent occurrence IIRC.

Preseason ranked #24 despite going 8-5 and losing their last 2 games including their bowl game by 24 points. 5-7 final record. Just shows how relevant preseason rankings are.

Which team are you referring to?