Howdy my good people, and welcome to the weekend.
I was thinking about our new SEC brethren a few days ago - Missouri and Texas A&M. I'm fine with them joining the conference, but I'm not sure I'm fine with them winning in 2012. If I have my druthers, I think I'd like Mizzou to go 0-8 and A&M to go 1-7 (beating Ole Miss, of course). This year is kind of like pledge-ship, right? All the 'active' SEC members need to haze the newcomers before they 'officially' become members of the club.
I saw where Louisiana Tech head coach, Sonny Dykes, made some disparaging remarks about the talent of our Bulldogs.
"Last year we played Mississippi State, and I swear to you there was no difference in our players and theirs, I was shocked. There was no difference. They might've had a little more depth, but across the board our players were about as good as theirs."
He goes on to say how they have better players than Ole Miss, etc. There's no doubt Mississippi State under-performed in that game last year, but there's no way LA Tech has better players than we do. This is simply a coach trying to boost the self-esteem of his players and let his bosses know he is doing a great job recruiting. LA Tech had better be glad they paid the $300K to buy out of our game this year or they'd be set up for a butt-whoppin'. If Dykes is still around in 2015 when we play them again, keep this quote around for a little motivation....lawd knows we needed some last September.
One of the points that Justin didn't bring up in our back in forth this week about tougher non-conference schedules was this: if a selection committee is formed for a 4-team playoff, they will likely emphasize strength of schedule as a key component like basketball does. This could have a lot of side effects to college football.
In basketball, scheduling tough games is fine because you can lose five of them if you want to - it won't really hurt your chances to make the big dance as long as you win in your conference. But one slip up in the non-conference could cost you dearly in football. But teams will want to schedule top competition to get an edge in the event they are up for consideration in the 4-team playoff. Will teams start scheduling multiple non-conference games?
Here's what I think could happen. The SEC will join the other conferences to create a 9-game conference schedule in lieu of having to play tough OOC foes. Then, FCS teams will be dropped because of their weakness, and other BCS conference schools will be picked up - possibly playing two games a year against them. So that's nine conference games, two games vs. tough OOC opponents, and one game vs. ___ Sun Belt or C-USA school.
This will further the gap between the haves and the have-nots. If Troy, for instance, isn't able to collect money from three SEC schools per year, what will they do? I have a feeling there will be a divide - 50 to 70 large schools will break off to form a division above the MAC, WAC, Sun Belt, etc. or the lower-tier schools will move back to FCS. One reason among others will be not being able to afford 85 scholarships, the effect will be big conferences owning everything....playoffs, money, etc.
After 7-10 years of this system I see the clamor for an 8-team playoff being so loud it is undeniable. Folks will complain about how they feel 4 or 5 teams could have been considered good enough to be in the 'Final 4'....and some teams were slighted because their usually tough OOC foe had a down year.
That is my insane theory for today. Have a good weekend, y'all!