Comments on: OU football: Bob Stoops misguided on scheduling

By: Big XII? = Little 10

Big XII? = Little 10 — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:19:24 +0000

Silly Sooner got into a game they didn’t deserve to play in 2008. And, huge surprise, they lost. Texas was a better team in 2008 as they proved on the field and by game location. Any Sooner who says other wise is a delusional moron (aka, they are a Sooner). Neutral field win + Road Loss > Home Win + Road Loss > Home win + Neutral Field Loss.

Thus, ous schedule was easiest. Case closed.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:19:38 +0000

Pardon my mistake LSU beat the Sooners 21-14 in 2003.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:17:51 +0000

Berry, you make very good points and I agree with many of them. However, 2003 was a very interesting year. OU finished the regular season 12-0 and then lost the Big 12 championship 7-35 vs Kansas St. Their non-conference schedule was North Texas, Bama, Fresno St & UCLA. Tough schedule. LSU (who won BCS title game vs Sooners) finished 11-1 (only loss was to unranked Florida that finished 8-5) reg season and beat Georgia in SEC title game. Non-conference schedule was ULM (i think that is in Louisiana…somewhere), Arizona, W. Illinois and Louisiana Tech. Not very tough non-conference. USC finished 11-1, losing to Cal in 3 OT’s. The Trojans non-conference was at #6 Auburn, BYU, Hawaii and Notre Dame. A mixed bag, but definitely better than LSU’s non-conference schedule. OU plays LSU in BCS game winning 21-14. USC plays in Rose Bowl and beats Michigan. The Sooner & Trojans play much tougher non-conference schedule but LSU wins the title. The Lesson: sometimes a tough non-confernec schedule works for you and sometimes it is indifferent or worse.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:26:17 +0000

45-35 did stand out. It was brought up over and over again. In the end, it wasn’t enough to overcome a weak OOC schedule and a loss to the other team in the 3-way tie. Get over it.

By: David

David — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:37:29 +0000

Weak non-conference schedule or not, 45-35 on a neutral field should stand out the most.

By: Horn Fan

Horn Fan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:34:14 +0000

Stoops is right. Running the score up on lesser teams is what got the humans to vote for OU in ’08. Knowing that, scheduling good teams hurts in 2 ways: First, you might actually lose. Second, you can’t run up the score on them so easily, or you at least run a greater risk of getting your starters injured if you do.

By: Potted Meat

Potted Meat — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:56:33 +0000

Berry is a wise old sage…

By: Douglas

Douglas — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:25:10 +0000

Berry is exactly right, I’ve made the same point to fellow college football fans for years. OU’s non-conference schedule is the primary reason it never gets left out of the BCS title game when deserving. In 2004, Auburn had nothing but cupcakes on their non-conference schedule (including a I-AA team), so they go to the Sugar while OU and USC go to the Orange. We all know what Texas’s non-conference schedule looked like in 2008, so they got the snub. Keep the current philosophy.. one cupcake, one mid-major, one marquee. hard to argue with the results of the past decade.

By: Lynn1

Lynn1 — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:26:49 +0000

Stoops is not talking about SOS, he’s talking about if you lose one of these games. Its very hard to recover from the loss. Of course it helps if OU wins the games.

Poll voters pay little attention to who a team loses to, they just group the undefeated, one loss, two loss, etc.