1) Alabama:

Wisconsin (Arlington, TX)
Middle Tennessee State
Ole Miss
ULM
@Georgia
Arkansas
@Texas A&M
Tennessee
LSU
@Mississippi State
Charleston Southern
@Auburn

2) USC

Arkansas State
Idaho
Stanford
@Arizona State
Washington
@Notre Dame
Utah
@Cal
Arizona
@Colorado
@Oregon
UCLA

3) Cal

Grambling State
San Diego State
@Texas
@Washington
Washington State
@Utah
@UCLA
USC
@Oregon
Oregon State
@Stanford
Arizona State

4) Washington

@Boise State
Sacramento State
Utah State
Cal
@USC
Oregon
@Stanford
Arizona
Utah
@Arizona State
@Oregon State
Washington State

As usual, Phil Steele gets it wrong.

Alabama- makes sense. Have SEC west like normal- then Georgia and Tennessee in crossover games, then Wisconsin OOC. USC has south, plus Oregon and Stanford from the North, and the ND OOC. Cal's crossover games are USC, UCLA, Arizona St, and Utah- and then Texas, San Diego St OOC. Washington has USC, Arizona, Utah, and Arizona St from the South, and then Boise OOC.

All 4 seem extremely difficult. If not those 4, than who Bit?

Those are all pretty salty schedules Bit, who do you think is being left out?

(05-12-2015 10:54 AM)stever20 Wrote:  Alabama- makes sense. Have SEC west like normal- then Georgia and Tennessee in crossover games, then Wisconsin OOC. USC has south, plus Oregon and Stanford from the North, and the ND OOC. Cal's crossover games are USC, UCLA, Arizona St, and Utah- and then Texas, San Diego St OOC. Washington has USC, Arizona, Utah, and Arizona St from the South, and then Boise OOC.

The common thread among those Pac-12 teams is that they "skip" the worst team from the opposite division. USC doesn't get to play Washington State; Cal and UW don't get to play Colorado. It's similar for Bama, they don't play Vandy or Kentucky this year.

(05-12-2015 11:33 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  Those are all pretty salty schedules Bit, who do you think is being left out?

Don't know at the moment, and I don't really care to dig into it, since by season's end the data will be irrelevant, except as a base comparison.

But I'm sure someone is being left out. This ranking seems biased towards conference schedules. It's certainly NOT weighted based upon the OOC schedules. We'll see the real result at the end of the season.

This is just another opinion, nothing more, despite the fact that it's based on some educated guesses. But that doesn't make it fact. That only happens after it all plays out. So we shall see.

so it's just the Bit playing the fool saying no preseason predictions mean anything.

I didn't think our schedule was that bad. I still don't.

(05-12-2015 12:41 PM)stever20 Wrote:  so it's just the Bit playing the fool saying no preseason predictions mean anything.

It's an annual thing. I don't like the propensity of reporters trying to rank everything before it even happens. This has become the norm because it allows reporters to not have to think up anything to write. Each year they put out the same BS, and fans are stupid enough to eat it up. This kind of reporting requires little thought and no intelligence. As the son of a reporter from the old school, this irritates the hell out of me, and always will.

It just proves Idiocracy was right. More's the pity...

(05-12-2015 12:47 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(05-12-2015 12:41 PM)stever20 Wrote:  so it's just the Bit playing the fool saying no preseason predictions mean anything.

It's an annual thing. I don't like the propensity of reporters trying to rank everything before it even happens. This has become the norm because it allows reporters to not have to think up anything to write. Each year they put out the same BS, and fans are stupid enough to eat it up. This kind of reporting requires little thought and no intelligence. As the son of a reporter from the old school, this irritates the hell out of me, and always will.

It just proves Idiocracy was right. More's the pity...

That's fine, but you shouldn't be saying that he is wrong. If you are saying he is wrong, you need to have an opinion on who should be on the list instead. Night and day difference there.

Also as I showed with the other preseason ratings- they are far more accurate than you ever want to give them credit for. And don't give me the crap that oh they don't have any teams exactly ranked right. When it's +/- 1 spot- that's pretty damn accurate and you know it.

(05-12-2015 12:58 PM)stever20 Wrote:  

(05-12-2015 12:47 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(05-12-2015 12:41 PM)stever20 Wrote:  so it's just the Bit playing the fool saying no preseason predictions mean anything.

It's an annual thing. I don't like the propensity of reporters trying to rank everything before it even happens. This has become the norm because it allows reporters to not have to think up anything to write. Each year they put out the same BS, and fans are stupid enough to eat it up. This kind of reporting requires little thought and no intelligence. As the son of a reporter from the old school, this irritates the hell out of me, and always will.

It just proves Idiocracy was right. More's the pity...

That's fine, but you shouldn't be saying that he is wrong. If you are saying he is wrong, you need to have an opinion on who should be on the list instead. Night and day difference there.

Also as I showed with the other preseason ratings- they are far more accurate than you ever want to give them credit for. And don't give me the crap that oh they don't have any teams exactly ranked right. When it's +/- 1 spot- that's pretty damn accurate and you know it.

He is wrong, and that will be proven by season's end. I just called out his mistake before anyone else, because I don't like opinionated reporting. That's a big reason why I rarely listen to sports reporters these days. Their reporting is mostly opinion, with the occasional fact thrown in for good measure.

Howard Cosell would never get work in sports today. He was highly intelligent, and gave out factual information without opinions.

Howard Cosell had a man crush on Muhammed Ali. He also used $2 words I didn't understand as a child and still don't understand some of them. I'm a simple man.

Last year- here is Phil Steele's projection for toughest SOS in 2014...
1 Notre Dame- actual SOS 13
2 Tennessee- actual SOS 15
3 Arkansas- actual SOS 1
4 West Virginia- actual SOS 14
5 Auburn- actual SOS 6
6 Iowa St- actual SOS 20
7 Virginia- actual SOS 24
8 Utah- actual SOS 8
9 California- actual SOS 10
10 Texas- actual SOS 12

so every one of his top 10 in the top 24, and 8 of the 10 in the top 15. 5 of them within 2 spots of where he projected them. I'd say that's pretty damn good.

Interesting that USC now plays Idaho and Arky St in OOC. they have always been famous for usually playing 10 P5 teams, ND and 1 MWC level team.

I wonder why they have changed to playing 2 Sun belt level teams.

(05-12-2015 01:57 PM)goofus Wrote:  Interesting that USC now plays Idaho and Arky St in OOC. they have always been famous for usually playing 10 P5 teams, ND and 1 MWC level team.

I wonder why they have changed to playing 2 Sun belt level teams.

This is an anomaly. They play Alabama at Jerry World next year and pick up Texas OOC after that.

(05-12-2015 12:47 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(05-12-2015 12:41 PM)stever20 Wrote:  so it's just the Bit playing the fool saying no preseason predictions mean anything.

It's an annual thing. I don't like the propensity of reporters trying to rank everything before it even happens. This has become the norm because it allows reporters to not have to think up anything to write. Each year they put out the same BS, and fans are stupid enough to eat it up. This kind of reporting requires little thought and no intelligence. As the son of a reporter from the old school, this irritates the hell out of me, and always will.

It just proves Idiocracy was right. More's the pity...

I think someone is in bad need of a "Full Latte!" When we get a WWE representative for president we'll be there!

Jesse Ventura for President?

No. I think we can do better than that.

(05-12-2015 01:59 PM)Hokie4Skins Wrote:  

(05-12-2015 01:57 PM)goofus Wrote:  Interesting that USC now plays Idaho and Arky St in OOC. they have always been famous for usually playing 10 P5 teams, ND and 1 MWC level team.

I wonder why they have changed to playing 2 Sun belt level teams.

This is an anomaly. They play Alabama at Jerry World next year and pick up Texas OOC after that.

Fair enough, but that just makes me wonder even more why they did not fill out their schedule with anybody big in 2015. Did somebody back out with short notice? Do they expect the team to be awful in 2015?

I should not care but I always like to use USC as an example whenever somebody tries to argue that nobody schedules 11 P5 teams a year. Something I believe that all P5 teams should do.

(05-12-2015 08:19 PM)goofus Wrote:  

(05-12-2015 01:59 PM)Hokie4Skins Wrote:  

(05-12-2015 01:57 PM)goofus Wrote:  Interesting that USC now plays Idaho and Arky St in OOC. they have always been famous for usually playing 10 P5 teams, ND and 1 MWC level team.

I wonder why they have changed to playing 2 Sun belt level teams.

This is an anomaly. They play Alabama at Jerry World next year and pick up Texas OOC after that.

Fair enough, but that just makes me wonder even more why they did not fill out their schedule with anybody big in 2015. Did somebody back out with short notice? Do they expect the team to be awful in 2015?

I should not care but I always like to use USC as an example whenever somebody tries to argue that nobody schedules 11 P5 teams a year. Something I believe that all P5 teams should do.

I think it probably had something to do with the crossover games. Like last year they had Oregon St and Washington St. This year it's Oregon and Washington. Pretty big difference there. Also while they did have 11 p5 teams- the 11th one was BC.

Congrats to the PAC for the early season perception of strength. What does it mean? Not much really except for the bragging rights to be in the PAC corner for now. Unfortunately, those very strong schedules likely wont go well for Washington and California. We wont be talking much about their strong schedules during the schedule.