NFL training camps are starting and the first college football game is 32 days away. Thus it must be time to re-run my annual complaint about scheduling.
This year six college football teams have not scheduled a single BCS opponent in the non-conference schedule. This year’s list:
Indiana
Baylor
Mississippi St.
Ole Miss
Virginia Tech
Texas Tech
I can sort of understand what Indiana, Baylor, and the two Mississippi schools are doing. Those schools are desperate to go to a bowl and if they have to go 4-0 in the non-conference schedule and 2-6 in the conference schedule to do it, they won’t be ashamed. But what’s perennial power Virginia Tech doing on this list? Yes, they play Boise St. this year. But this year’s schedule seems like a step down for a team that has had a series with LSU in recent years.
But Texas Tech remains my number one enemy. This is the 7th year in a row Texas Tech does not have a BCS opponent on the non-conference schedule. And I don’t see any on their announced future schedules either. All of these other teams at least played one BCS team at some point in the last three years.
Looking at conferences, once again the Big East leads the way with 1.88 non-conference BCS games per team. But due to only 7 conference games, Big East teams play the fewest total BCS opponents. Pac-10 teams will play the most BCS schools thanks to 9 conference games.
The 96 non-conference BCS games are double counted, so there are actually only 48 non-conference games between BCS teams. That’s down from 50 games in 2008 and 53 games in 2008.
This trend remains distressing because these games are the only way to evaluate conferences. Whether it be human voters determining this year’s reputation, or computers determining the best conferences, sample size is critical. 53 games was a very limited sample with which to draw any conclusions, and 48 games is even worse.