They are willing to take the hit, or their home game revenue isn't as large as LSUs, so the net loss isn't either. LSU's policy has been to schedule home and homes when we have 12 game seasons so that we maintain the 7 home games.
We may need islstl for this, but I'd bet that the overall combination of record, opponent's records and strength in the eyes of pollsters results in an eventual 5-6 Clemson being a better first game than a 9-3 Toledo. Although we won't have to come from as far back next year, a quick start against a nationally recognized team would improve our status even further. And Clemson is by no means a perenially top 5 team. Of course, you never know what will happen with such teams the rest of the year, as seen by this year's USC schedule of Auburn and ND. That said, I think on average a solid ACC team is a better opponent that a top tier MAC school.
Well, the Opponents record counts for 2/3, and the Opponents-Opponents count for only 1/3 of your SOS. So the Opp-Opp record would have to be a HUGE difference to make the two comparable. On a side note, Houston did make it to a bowl game this year, so maybe their record will be better than any of the OOC games we had last year as well.
Actually Skip said awhile back that with some of the added revenue from ticket price increase and all this TAF stuff that LSU would be able to look into home and home series with big time schools. I think over the next few years we will see a substantial increase in our OOC schedule difficulty.
That would be great! I thought I remembered hearing something like that a while back, but I wasn't sure. Even just 13 home games over 2 years would give us the room to have one top team every year.
Miami (OH) 12-1 record, 75-72 OppOpp Clemson 8-4 record, 77-64 OppOpp 12-1 = 0.923 75-72 = 0.510 8-4 = 0.667 77-64 = 0.546 0.923 * 2/3 + 0.510 * 1/3 0.615 + 0.17 = 0.785 0.667 * 2/3 + 0.546 * 1/3 0.445 + 0.182 = 0.627 As you can see, The stronger Opp Opp does not nearly make up for the worse actual record. And by the way, Bowling Green actually had a stronger Opp Opp this year than Clemson or Syracuse did.
Well, DarkHornet, this is not really a fair comparison. As I mentioned above, on average, Miami of Ohio will not go 12-1. On average, the 8-4 Clemson team will be a better matchup, both in terms of strength of schedule and in the eyes of pollsters (and writers who may claim we play a weak schedule). I'd like to see the 1 marquee OOC game, 1 "name" opponent (MAC team, for example) and 1 in-state or other weak game.
Remember the NCAA use to limit a team to 7 home games even the first time or 2 that they played 12 in a season, now they let teams play 8 during a 12 game season. I would love to see the NCAA keep the rule where you could only play 7 home games no matter what and then we would have an even playing field as far as revenue opportunities and it would cause teams to look into playing other top notch programs. Dark Hornet, I do agree with you that I would love to see LSU play tougher OOC games, however one MAC or Big East like team per year and one BCS team would probably be my scenario choice; but then again we aren't the ones trying to balance the books. And I wonder how some of these teams can afford to do what they do also, Especially USC, but I have the feeling that since they are such an expensive large private school with a great tradition that maybe they just get enough from donations and tuition to offset some of these costs, but I really don't know. Again, many of these other schools actually make more by playing on the road, including many BCS schools as their stadiums are small or they just don't attract a big crowd, like all of the other PAC 10 teams for the most part. Go to the NCAA website and look at attendance figures, they can be put into 3 classes, the haves, the have a little and the have nots. The other thing is that many of these schools that can afford to go on the road a lot are not building new facilities or upgrading what they have such as the academic center at LSU, the indoor football facility, the media relations facility, new dorms, better training rooms, better and more food, doctors, trainers, medical facilities, on and on. One of the resons for our recruiting successes are these new facilites that are becoming second to none in the nation. Maybe when Nick gets everything he wants for the prgram and the expenses subside some it will help us to explore home and home series more also.
In the 4 OOC games in an 11 game season, the following would be appropriate: 1 upper tier team - BCS Conference 1 in-state team 2 mid-level teams - MAC/CUSA/etc. I think this is a pretty reasonable balance, keeps some $ in state, and provides a good level of competition.
