Caddy, I don't think that The Citadel cost Auburn a shot, but it was a part of the equation, and I think it made it easier for many of the voters to write off Auburn's success and helped to justify their vote in their own mind. Plus each of the cmputer polls uses their own measurement for the SOS I believe and I'm not sure how the Citadel game effected each of their rankings. Bottom line is that USC was going to meet OU probably even if Auburn had beat a Bowling Green instead. The secret in the SOS ratings is to schedule a team that is going to have a real good record but still be only a slightly competitive game for you.
I believe Auburn was hurt a lot more by their in conference schedule last season. The "experts" claimed that the conference was down as a whole and Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Kentucky and Alabama all sucked big time. I mean Harvard and teams like that were computer ranked ahead of them. I'm an Auburn fan and it will suck playing a mopup team like WesternKentucky again but I don't think it will make a great difference in the final season results.
cajdav1--I just did a quick and dirty SOS estimate using Tellshow's data (http://www.geocities.com/rtell/). I just switched Bowling Green and the Citadel between Ok and AU. It's just an estimate because Tellshow has all the Bowl games factored in and it would be quite tedius to back them out. Bottom line is that AU and Ok switch positions in terms of SOS. Most likely AU would have had a higher SOS regardless of who OK scheduled. These SOS's are good proxies for rank ordering the teams with the same # of losses, not by individual computer poll, but in aggregate. While it's impossible to say if they would have made it, I think there would have been a real horse race.
Rice could be doable. I think it's great since it gives LSU exposure here in Houston. UCLA is Sept 10 and Texas is Sept. 17. Both are road games for Rice. Navy is a home game on Sept 24 I'm thinking, if they do break a game, it'll be UCLA. Rice is scheduled to play UCLA in 2005 and 2006 in Los Angeles. In addition to eliminating games against the same non-conf opponent two years running, I'm sure LSU pays visiting teams more than UCLA (can't imagine a Rice-UCLA game pulling more than 40,000), plus it's a shorter trip for Rice fans. Be it Rice of Univ. of Houston, I hope LSU makes the trip here for a game in Reliant Stadium. That'd be totally sweet. :thumb:
Very interesting. I can remember when Virginia Tech was called VPI (Virginia Polytechnic Institute). I think I'll start calling the Barners 'Bama Tech.
