Out of Conference Scheduling in the Play-off Era

#1
unfrozencvmanvol

unfrozencvmanvol

Nico came, he saw, he conquered.
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#1
For many years (going back to 2004) the Vols have played one OOC power 5 team per season and on a very few occasions played none. In 2003 we played both Miami and Duke. I get that we play Alabama every year from the West, and since 2008 that has been a bad draw, however we all know the Play-off will eventually expand to at least 6 or 8, maybe 12 or even 16. Should we consider bumping back up to 2 OOC power fives to give our team the best shot at a berth (assuming we don't win the conference) when we finally DO put it back together? We've got some more games with OU scheduled, Nebraska and Pitt also I think. Who else would you like to see us play?
 
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#5
#5
Volsfaninva917 said:
Playing in the sec our strength of schedule will never be questioned
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Tennessee can always be questioned though, if you haven't learned that from the national media the last several decades then you haven't been paying attention. Even when we were good. If Mickey can screw us, they will. Florida and Georgia are playing two OOC power 5's this year. I think we need to import a little, "anybody, anywhere" mentality to recapture some swagger with the young kids who never remember us as anything but cellar dwellers.
 
#8
#8
I prefer that all of our OOC games be power 5 opponents in home and home series. No more neutral site garbage.

Would love to rotate thru Michigan, OSU, PSU, USC, UCLA again, Oregon, Texas, etc. It would be a lot of fun to travel to some of the traditional powerhouse schools in the home & home series.

It is more and more difficult to justify paying season ticket prices for 2 or 3 "quality" home games. I would rather pay more for tickets and have exciting games than be ready to leave at halftime.
 
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#11
#11
I'd like to see UT play one good historical program from a Power 5 every year, home and home. I think a solid mid major like BYU, Southern Miss and then a cupcake.

The time is right to play Pac 12 schools and become as visible on the West Coast as possible. The talent has always been there in California and it's never been more open to leaving the West Coast. The Phoenix and Seattle areas are also producing more talent every year. We should be doing home and homes with USC, UCLA, Stanford, Arizona State, Washington, and Oregon. Either do home and homes or play one game in Atlanta and another in Las Vegas at the new Raiders staidum.
 
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#12
#12
Since OOC games are usually scheduled several years out, there is not way to know the opponent's strength/weakness when the game rolls around.

Home/home are difficult because of the City of Knoxville tax policies. They make "neutral" sites more appealing. If enough complain to the city powers, maybe there will be hope again for those popular games.
 
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#13
#13
jwilliams said:
I sincerely apologize for the snarkiness of this post in advance, but I just want to kick the s$*# out of Vanderbilt and Missouri. Baby steps. :)
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Mizzou is not only a thorn in the side for us.

Florida has crapped the bed a few times against them.
Mizzou is a solid program.
 
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#16
#16
XknoxvolsX said:
How did Oregon and Oklahoma work out for us?
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I'd say it had more to do with our lack of quality at the time. We played Miami when they were coming off a very strong run and beat them in the Orange Bowl. There is no reason to back away from potentially strong competition. The benefits from winning those games can be huge.

If it wasn't for Butch's awful in game coaching, then we probably beat Oklahoma.
 
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#19
#19
jwilliams said:
I sincerely apologize for the snarkiness of this post in advance, but I just want to kick the s$*# out of Vanderbilt and Missouri. Baby steps. :)
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That's fair, we do need to take care of the business that we most assuredly have not been taking care of in recent years. My point is not that we are ready to take on all comers, it's just that with play-off expansion likely in the next 10 years I think we may wish to look at adding more quality OOC opponents. Say the field expands to 8. I can foresee a situation where a 10-2 Penn State argues that they should get the last spot because they played a nine game conference schedule and beat ND. I'd like to be able to argue back that a 10-2 Tennessee beat the same number of power 5's and beat Michigan (a hypothetical OOC addition) worse than PSU did.

Also, I think it will help with recruiting to schedule some more marquee OOC match-ups. Lastly, on a purely personal level, getting throttled by West Virginia right off the bat immediately destroyed any illusions I had last year that we had a quality football team. It would have been much more painful if that illusion had persisted by opening with a cupcake instead only to be squashed by Florida. Let's learn who we are as soon as possible.
 
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#23
#23
We could schedule a lot of home and homes that we'd have a good shot at winning and would get us into States we recruit, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech. Also Louisville, Miami, and Florida State would be fun. Duke and Wake Forest would be much better as a fan than a lone home game against East Bumblefudge U.
 
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#25
#25
OrangeByBirth said:
Since OOC games are usually scheduled several years out, there is not way to know the opponent's strength/weakness when the game rolls around.

Home/home are difficult because of the City of Knoxville tax policies. They make "neutral" sites more appealing. If enough complain to the city powers, maybe there will be hope again for those popular games.
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That tax policy was put into effect to pay for the arena. After the arena was paid for it was supposed to go away. Wonder why it didn't.
 
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