At this point we should be glad that BCS schools would be willing to come to Tiger Stadium and play. I have been saying for years that we need to upgrade our non-conference schedule, and that means we have to be willing to play home-and-home games against real teams. So bring on the fake tigers or the beavers or whoever. Come and get your whippin!
SU in 2004? (link) Geaux From Matt Hayes: "Syracuse has lost two home games because of Miami's and Virginia Tech's defection to the ACC, and the fallout could mean the Orangemen will play more road or midweek games in 2004. More road games means less revenue, and a midweek game--which Syracuse never has played--would mean a parking nightmare around the on-campus Carrier Dome. Two potential opponents for Syracuse to play on the road next season are LSU and Oklahoma. LSU needs a game after Virginia Tech pulled out of its contract to play the Tigers in Baton Rouge next season."
I want Clemson. I am a season ticket holder and ULM La Tech and WIU just aint going to get it after my ticket prices went up. Also the fact that I about had a Heart attack screaming at my TV and car radio because everyone in the country kept talking about our OOC schedule.
I agree. That 3 game stretch (Auburn,Florida,Georgia) is gonna be tough, but if we come out of the box and cut a big hog in the a$$ it would be greeeeaaat!
Someone on TigerRoar said that it is official that OSU will be playing us next year. I don't know if it is true, but they have some OSU fans posting on there already.
Yeah - there are already OSU fans saying the typical USC is better than LSU and if our special teams had shown up we could have won so we will beat you guys...yada yada run-on sentence. They will play both USC and LSU next year if this is true. That means we will have to be ready to throttle that ass.
That QB of OSU is horrible on the road and thats in the PAC10. I can only imagine how bad he would handle the LSU crowd!!!! Plus with no Jackson at HB we should handle them pretty easily.
The three most likely candidates right now seem to be Oregon State, Clemson, and Syracuse. Of the three, I think it will be Syracuse for the following reasons: -they are gonna be desperate for schedule fillers because of the Big East defections. -they have shown in the past they are not afraid to schedule SEC teams. They have played home-n-homes with Auburn and Tennessee in the last five years and have held up quite well in those games. They split with Auburn (blew them out in Syracuse in '01 and went to the wire with them in Jordan-Hare) and played Tennessee very tough in the Carrier Dome in 98, the Vols national title year. I would like the open date to be filled with Syracuse for the following reasons. -It's better to play an East Coast team. That's where the media centers are, and that's who they pay attention to. -It's a good test to open the year, but not too strong of a test. I'm not saying Syracuse is a gimme, but I would go into that game expecting us to win pretty handily if we bring our A game. -Syracuse is a very high profile athletic program (they are defending national basketball champs) with high visibility and name recognition, moreso than Oregon State and even Clemson (which has been in the shadows for quite awhile) The game will definitely sell out and attract a considerable bit of media attention. It just means more to beat them than Oregon State. And Syracuse has a good fan base that travels well, by East Coast standards anyway. -When we have to return the game (and we eventually will, SU will want a home-n-home), I've always wanted to visit the Carrier Dome. I've heard it's a great stadium and a loud, but great, place to play. But, if we don't get Syracuse, a battle royale with Clemson for the right to claim the Death Valley nickname sounds good.
I would like to see us continue to try and schedule MAC teams. The upper eschelon MACs are consistently ranked in the top 50, and that helps our SOS causes. A Miami of Ohio game last season would have been tremendous for our SOS.
The problem with scheduling MAC teams is that those teams still lack the name recognition of a team from one of the stronger conferences. With the ticket price increase I think Skip will be forced to try to bring in some better OOC teams and even tough a team like Miami (OH) or Northern Illinois might be better than Syracuse, they lack the name recognition and the casual LSU fan will see it that way. The AD is concerned about putting people in the seats and he knows its easier to do it with Syracuse than any MAC team.
