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There has been a lot of noise lately regarding Florida’s scheduling. Recently, an email chain between the members of the Gatorsfirst.com team got me thinking I should include the readers on this topic. I have added material and information from my original thoughts, and while I think our schedule is significantly below our standards for schedule strength, often there are 110 teams or so with a schedule below our standards.
To jump-start our site after the recent technical issues, let’s jump into this topic…
This is an excerpt from a Bruce Feldman mailbag.
From Bob in the Bay Area: Fun little exercise for you. The most dominant team in the country is Florida, National Champs. Here is their schedule vs. the Irish's supposedly &cake& schedule. Be curious as to how many weeks Florida has an easier opponent than Notre Dame.
Nevada = Charleston Southern
Washington St = Troy
Navy = Florida International
Connecticut = Mississippi State
Stanford = Vanderbilt
Washington = Arkansas
Purdue = Kentucky
Boston College = Tennessee
Michigan State = South Carolina
Pittsburgh = Florida State
Michigan = Georgia
USC = LSU
Now, who has the &easy& schedule again???
Also, the historical strength of most of these schools when the schedules were made (i.e. Washington), might give you a different viewpoint.
Feldman: Thanks for the note. You raise an interesting point, although I do think where Michigan is compared to Georgia is pretty far off at this point. I'd say the same for FSU and Pitt. Plus, UF also probably would have to beat another top 10 team in the SEC title. That's going through four top 25 teams and probably three in the top 15 (LSU, UGA and the SEC West champ). I doubt you'll see anyone other than USC in the top 25 on ND schedule. I'm not arguing against having traditional opponents who are now struggling like a Michigan or Washington. Like I argued that it shouldn't have been dismissed that Utah did go to Michigan and should get credit for winning a game that was scheduled at a time when the Wolverines were a powerhouse.
In ND's case, I'm making my point about why this team has a legit shot to win 10 games this season because I think it would be favored in 11 of them. (You should see some of the e-mails I've received from fans about this who keep trying to remind me that Charlie Weis is still the coach there and about the teams they lost to last year.) Anyhow, if they had Florida's schedule, I probably wouldn't expect more than nine.
None of these teams are a threat to beat Florida, and none should be a threat to beat Notre Dame. 99% of any talk of Notre Dame having a 'tough schedule' is because Notre Dame is about 10x as bad as they should be.
Nevada = Charleston Southern
Washington St = Troy
Navy = Florida International
Connecticut = Mississippi State
Stanford = Vanderbilt
ALL of these matchups go Florida's way, and significantly so. The only argument is South Carolina, and I will never feel safe going against Spurrier, as silly as that sounds after the last 2 years, so I put it as a check in our column.
Washington = Arkansas
Purdue = Kentucky
Boston College = Tennessee
Michigan State = South Carolina
Pittsburgh = Florida State
Michigan = Georgia
I'd argue LSU has been as good if not better than USC the last several years. Baton Rouge doesn't = Los Angeles, though, so you can see where the difference in National coverage.
USC = LSU
Overall, our schedule is abnormally pathetic (for our standards) this year, as we somehow got all 4 of the worst SEC teams. Well, depending on where you put Auburn. But the point Feldman makes about “number of teams in the top 15” is a very important point. I do think Michigan could be ranked at some point this season, because they are still called 'Michigan' and if they get a good record they'll win some votes, regardless of who their early season wins might be. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if FSU gets ranked in the top 15, as someone from the ACC will be, and they are a top team in that conference.
Notre Dame’s schedule is easier. As most everyone’s schedule is (easier than Florida's) every year. Which is my main point: Florida, of all teams, never needs to defend its’ schedule. On the Solid Verbal podcast, the Wiz of Odds called out our schedule for being easy, and said (I’m paraphrasing), “Florida has not traveled out of state for a non-conference away game since 1991”. First, he’s talking about a Syracuse game which caused me mental trauma, in my infantile state of football fanhood (and yes, I used the word ‘infantile’ to drive up our traffic from naughty google searches). Second, as we’ve had to remind Miami fans and many others- the SEC expanded in ’92. That left less room for scheduling non-conference away games. Third, unlike most teams, when we do schedule marquee out of conference opponents, we have two in our state (and yes, it is OUR state). While SEC might not be the best comparison, when Tennessee plays UCLA, Auburn plays West Virginia, and Arkansas plays Texas, they are teams that lack the annual out of conference series on par with Florida-Florida State, and Florida-Miami.
The way an SEC schedule works, we play everyone in our division (annually, this means UT, UGA, USC, UK, and Vandy) and LSU as an ‘interdivisional rivalry’, a scheduling quirk which exists mainly to keep Auburn-Georgia and Tennessee-Alabama as annual rivalry games. For our other two west opponents, we draw Arkansas and Mississippi State. It’s worth noting that if any of the three West teams we don’t play (Ole Miss and Auburn) should make a top-10 type run, and we play to our expectations, we’d face them in Atlanta.
Navigating the SEC obstacles alone should be enough to prove a contender’s mettle, but isn’t always the case (cough 2004 Auburn cough). But we add to that Florida State, an annual home-and-home series (despite the last two years- and I think they’re improving- they did recently finish in the top five for 14 straight years).
In the end, this year’s schedule is weaker than usual for three reasons: rotating in some weaker SEC opponents, playing Charleston Southern and FIU, and Bobby Bowden’s refusal to retire. The ‘weaker schedule’ being acknowledged, we never need to apologize for our schedule. Our ‘weaker schedule’ will probably turn out to be a top 10 schedule- again- in national strength of schedule rankings.
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