I think this will be a good game, and they are on the same level as Marshall. Better coaching and a Team who went 9-2 last year. plus it couldn't hurt us in recruiting in that area. I say we say bye bye to marshall in bring in South Florida. Baylor is scared to death to play them and they would be better than any MAC team including Marshall IMHO.
I would have no problem playing them. It would give USF some much needed exposure too. It would be good for both of us, they aren't a cupcake so it will better prepare us for the future and it will help them with exposure and a payday.
I think because Baylor was supposed to play at South Florida they are trying to find a replacement for that game that will play there.
Baylor is scared to play anyone because they are HORRIBLE. I live in Texas, and my sister and a few friends are actually Baylor grads, so I pay a little bit of attention to them. It allows me to be able to talk sports with them. Anyway, that football program is unbelievably bad. The Big 12 was created in 1996, and the Bears were winless in conference play until last season when they beat the dreaded Kansas Jayhawks.
Bring on the Creampuffs What is the point of playing good teams from mid major conferences? If you beat the crap out of them you are only doing what you are expected to do and you gain nothing in the polls or in national respect. If you lose you take a major drop in the polls. Playing 8 SEC opponents plus one major non conference team is brutal. In the past LSU has lost games to Alabama-Birmingham, Southern Mississippi and Miami-Ohio. If LSU plays a Marshall or a Central Florida there is a tendency for the players to look at it as a game they should win just by showing up the same way they look at teams like USL or North Texas State. Instead of scheduling good mid major teams wouldn't it make more sense to play either a total creampuff or a bad team from a major conference. LSU has more to gain by beating somebody like Baylor or Wake Forest or Rutgers than they do from wins against a Marshall or a Central Florida even if Marshall or CF are a lot better than the Bad Teams From Great Conferences Here is the way I would like to see the schedule arrainged: Week 1 - Rent a win Team 1- A tuneup game for the players to get a game under their belt and work out the kinks It worked out great for Virginia Tech last year having played Arkansas State before playing LSU Week 2 Major non conference foe, ie Virginia Tech, Arizona, Notre Dame, Texas A &M, Southern Cal, ect. Week 3 Rent a win Team 2 - A game to work on the timing and eliminating mistakes that by then the coaches know need working on and to get ready for the SEC Week 4 First SEC game Week 5 Second SEC game Week 6 Open Date Week 7 Rent a win Team 3 - A game to regain the timing and team cohesivness after a week off Weeks 8,9 & 10 SEC games 3,4 & 5 Week 11 Open Date A time to recover from nagging injuries and to focus on the final 3 game push for the SEC Eastern Division Championship Weeks 12, 13 & 14 Last 3 SEC games Week 15 SEC Championship Game Jan 4th National Championship Game - Since the NCG was played in the Rose Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl the last 2 years this year it will be in either the Orange or the Sugar, I don't know which one but wouldn't it be incredible if LSU played for the NC in New Orleans
I don't know if I agree totally with that philosophy Bengal B. I think it's the highs and lows that get you in trouble. Beating a Florida for example and then coming back the next week and playing a cream puff is where you can get yourself in a bind. The Miami of Ohio game you mentioned came after a big win at Texas A&M....btw, only two losses that season was TAMU and Ole Miss, should have been playing for the NC. This trend of rent-a-wins is fairly recent, never used to play that many until the 90's. I don't think you beat yourself to death playing a top 25 team EVERY week, but I don't particularly like our schedule and I think its counter productive to the team...how empty did Tiger Stadium get this past season in the second half of The Citadel game, or in recent years games like North Texas? There was a four game home stretch in the beginning of the season that was brutal....The Citadel, Miami(ohio), Mississippi State, and ULL...I know nothing could be done about the MS game. I"m in favor of 1 rent-a-win for the first game of the season, and then let's schedule some Notre Dames, and Florida States like we used to. Arnsparger had some pretty good seasons scheduling North Carolina, Notre Dame, Colorado State, etc as our non-conference opponents. And I think we're that good. I coach a tournament baseball team and this year we pulled out of a mid-week league that was not very competitive and joined a league that is highly competitive. Playing the cream puffs during the week and then playing tough competition in weekend tournaments was hurting us. Just an opinion.....
i hate rent - a - win games. They are wholly boring. I am all about scheduleing up and coming teams. I would much rather see LSU play good teams at home. The problem with scheduling big names is that they want LSU to reciprocate. IE - play at their crib. That just will not work, so must play at least 2 rent a win teams a year. I certainly don't want to give up a home game. I say bring on USF. That would be something to look forward to.
Yea, I've responded to this in length on another thread. I know we can't play top 20 teams without a home/away series. I do think we could get Notre Dame here though since they don't belong to a conference...we did it a few years ago. I would be much happier to schedule a USF or Marshall type than what we do schedule. I don't agree with Bengal that we would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. That does apply with a Div. 1AA school though. If you lose to a Marshall, yea it's not good, but loose to ULM or Citadel and that is tragic. And if the players get apathetic for a non-conference game and loose, then shame on them. That is NO reason not to schedule good opponents. It sounds ridiculous..."Let's not play quality opponenents because we might loose and drop in the polls." If we're as good as we claim then we can prove it on the field against anybody, otherwise we don't deserve it.
What I am saying is that while it would be great to play 2 or 3 big time teams out of conference every year that is not going to happen because LSU would have to do a home and home arrangement with schools like that and LSU is NOT going to give up a 7th home game even for one year because of the money involved. Miami can afford to play Florida and Florida State every year and still schedule a Tennessee because they play in the Big East where there are a couple of other quality teams but not the overall week to week physical confrontations that teams from the SEC or the Big 12 face within the conference schedule where anybody can beat anybody "On any given Saturday" Same for Florida State in the ACC While I greatly enjoyed seeing Louisville beat Florida State on their home field I think hell will freeze over before LSU plays a road game against any team from Conference USA or the MAC. Everybody would love to see the Tigers against both an Oklahoma and a Florida State one year and a Southern Cal and a Miami the next year but its not going to happen. Sure, when LSU plays a home game against a rent a win team there are 15,000 - 20,000 No Shows but the fact is that most of those tickets have been sold already so the money is already in the bank Like I posted on another topic on this forum I would like to see LSU set up something where people who are not going to attend those games could send the tickets back to LSU and they could be given to school kids who wouldn't be able to go to a game otherwise. Look at it this way. I don't know the complete schedule but I do know that next year the Tigers play at least 4 games within the conference against teams who either are or could be nationally ranked at game time - Florida, Georgia, Auburn and possibly Alabama still has enough talent left to be very good. Ole Miss on the road with Eli still taking the snaps should be a tough one. Even though we get Arkansas at home this year the Razorbacks are usually pumped up against us. The only SEC game I think will be an easy win is Mississippi State. I don't know how good Arizona is but its an out of conference road game. If we play the remaining games against teams that would consider a 30 or 40 point loss a moral victory there are some very important benefits for LSU - Players with nagging injuries who could still play if they were needed agaist a major opponent can either take the game off or benefit from reduced playing time and the reduced chance of aggravating their injuries AND Games that we put away by halftime or early in the 3rd quarter give the 3rd and 4th teamers valuable playing time and experience. Some of those guys might be needed later in the season Look at last season Both Devery Henderson and Shyrone Carey got significant playing time against USL and the Citadel in the 4th quarters of those games. Neither one of them played all that well in those games and both of them made some crucial mistakes that could have cost the team big time in a close game but both of them benefited by the experience and they both came up big later in the season, especially Henderson Lets face it - Until the NCAA comes to their sense and puts a real playoff system in it is all politics. If you play in the SEC and go undefeated in the conference or only lose one game you get a high BCS rating UNLESS you lose an out of conference game to somebody who is not a nationally ranked team. In 2001 LSU was 9-3 after winning the SEC title game. If the NCAA had had a playoff system LSU would have been one of the playoff teams as the SEC winner. At that time I feel like LSU was as good as anybody in the country (except for Miami) If LSU could have played their way into the NC title game that year does anybody think they couldn't have given Miami a better game than Nebraska who got the the Fiesta Bowl by default despite being blown out by Colorado in their last regular season game and not even playing in the Big 12 Title game? As th BCS is set up its lose 2 or 3 games and you're out, no matter how well you are playing at the end of the season. In 2001 the New England Patriots had some early season loses and were not all that highly regarded but they were able to put it all together and get better and better as the season progressed and win the Super Bowl. Sure it worked out this year that Ohio State an Miami were the best 2 teams and deserved to play for the NC but it dosen't always work out that way. It is very possible that a college team with some early season losses who then overcomes their early adversity and begins to click as a team could be the best team in the NCAA and end up in the Citrus Bowl or the Outback Bowl Last Year LSU, Colorado, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Oregon State were all better than Nebraska by the end of the season but since the Huskers didn't lose a game until the last regular season game they got to play for the NC
I still disagree, you don't deserve a NC by how you play at the end of the season, it's what you do the whole season. Yea, New England came on at the end but there are playoffs in the NFL so until the NCAA has a playoff that comparison is pointless. And so what if LSU was the best team at the end of 2001, we weren't the best team all year so we didn't deserve it. We lost to Tennessee, Florida and Ole Miss that year, the UT and UF losses coming off a 31-14 win vs. the midwest powerhouse Utah State. And then we lose to UM after a 44-0 blowout of Mississippi State who you could call a rent-a-win that season also. Yea, those rent-a-wins did us a lot of good. And true in some of those rent-a-wins, there were 15-20 thousand no-shows and if you think that's okay just because the tickets were sold I disagree. There's a lot more revenue generated than just ticket sales and it's a moral issue for the players also. Along with those no shows, I saw a huge number of fans leave after the 1st half of the Citadel game. Don't you think that has some effect on the players. And I don't necessarily blame the fans for leaving at half, I stuck it out but it was a painful game to watch. I want to win a NC as bad as anyone but I want to win it on merit, not because we scheduled a few patsies. I know we can't get the top 25 to come here but we sure can do better than the Citadel or Utah State.
