As if the Ohio State Buckeyes haven’t had enough embarrassment already during the past two “national championship games” (a.k.a SEC Coronation Celebrations), they apparently believe in the try-and-try-again theorem.
Though it hasn’t been formally released, The University of Tennessee and The Ohio State University (it makes me happy to say it that way since they suck so terribly bad against our proud conference …) have all but finalized a deal to play a home-and-home series in 2018-2019.
In a statement released today, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel expressed his disappointment with the OSU administration’s decision to inflict even more humiliation on their pompous and overrated university.
“When I heard about the home-and-home with Tennessee, I was so pissed that I ripped off my sweatervest,” Tressel said. “Thankfully, I have 754 more of them in my closet.
“I’m not too happy about this obviously because we don’t play real football in the Big Eleven, and now with Rich Rod at Michigan, that’s not going to any fun anymore. I guess they want some competition for us. I don’t know. Honestly, I kind of like not playing anybody, bragging all year and having our former players toot our horn and cruising into the national championship game. But whatever. Maybe in 10 years, we’ll have found a way to come within single digits of a Southeastern Conference opponent.”
Consequently, Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer was thrilled about the prospects of the series with the Buckeyes, especially after the ridiculous SEC schedule and previously scheduled home-and-homes with Oregon (2010, 2013), North Carolina (2011-12), Oklahoma (2014-15) and Nebraska (2016-17).
“It’ll be a welcome break,” Fulmer said. “But it sure would be nice if we could play Alabama’s schedule every year.”
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They’re hoping to put this off long enough until cloning advances are made. 11 Pryors on the field for the scarlet and gray!
My, but the smacktalk does start early… :)
Tennessee does have a tougher schedule than Bama every year, but that’s just because we’re on your schedule and can’t be on ours.
Well, we decided to schedule Ohio State because Western Carolina and Louisiana-Monroe were already filled up.
Anyway, I’ve heard those Warhawks (or whatever the hell they are) are a tough pill to swallow.
Yeah you scheduled them for 2018-2019. Do you know how far away that is? Who knows what OSU will be like then? Who knows what UT will be like then? Who knows what College Football will be like then? Seriously, go ahead and schedule them but I would be surprised this thing holds up. Alabama has Penn St. lined up for 2010 and 2011. Ga Tech in 2013 and 2014. We played FSU this year and Clemson coming up this year. Granted we do have some puffs on the schedule, but you have to considering what Alabama has had going for them. Why kill your drive by scheduling teams that are just going to bash your brains in until you are actually ready to compete with them (depth and talent) along with your always brutal SEC schedule?
And yes, UT does usually play a tougher schedule, but don’t say that never play puffs because they do too, just like every other SEC school. You have to do it to give your team a break so to speak.
Also, Alabama is in the process of setting up neutral site games with Texas and USC in the future. Look at the Superdome in New Orleans for Texas and Dallas for USC. Those are a far way off from being done deals, but there are talks.
And don’t forget that Alabama did schedule OU for a home and home and UCLA for a home and home a few years ago. I also believe that UA and OU have talked again about another home and home series, but nothing has been offered or anything like that.
Nice one. Kinda like watching an expert fly fisherman. Wave it gracefully over the water for six paragraphs, then plop it in the water right on top of them and snatch out a couple of big ol’ Tidefish. Well done.
ck,
Certainly, nobody knows how UT or OSU will be that far in the future. That’s partly why they schedule those big-name games so far out - nobody can predict that it will help or hinder a nat. champ. run. Also, the big teams get any toughie non-cons scheduled early because the money issue is a lot easier to figure out, as is getting a home-and-home deal done. But the deals usually have some kind of convoluted buy-out program in case a team wants to drop the games for some reason. The buyouts are usually structured to discourage a buyout in the few years leading up to the games, but are pretty lax this far out. So if the deal holds for the next two or three years, it’s a safe bet that it’ll hold through.
With the speed bumps, it’s a lot easier to work out a deal for a home-only series (often under the guise of a home-and-home that gets bought out). Those deals are usually done in a shorter time frame because they’re added to fill in the gaps in a schedule. These games do give the big teams a break in the schedule, but (more importantly) they get the big teams up to 12 games. So the order of operation is:
- Fill out the conference schedule.
- Find one, maybe two larger opponents to give a respectable noncon sched.
- Fill out with teams from the Sun Belt that go 6-6.
The conference schedules are effectively set until the end of time, barring a change in conference structure. The big dogs come next, and it’s in everybody’s interest to get those done well in advance. The chihuahuas are last, and they can be picked up at the local mall pet store during any holiday season.
Capstone’s response makes me a happy man.
This entire blog was worth it for that one little ol’ response.
Take it easy on him. He’s young and in love. Not to mention that he’s one blog titled “Bruce Pearl is basketball’s Les Miles” away from returning the favor.
Maybe so, but I’ll believe Bruce can make a poor decision when I see it.
The post I’m worried about is the “Where does Tennessee go now that Bruce bailed on them to IU” post. Gosh, I hope that doesn’t happen.
Sorry, Ghost, but starting Prince was a horrible decision that was bailed out by the rest of the team. Having Lofton shoot that ridiculous shot from miles out bailed him out because a very low percentage shot happened to fall. There’s no genius behind it. He’s basically conceding losses and hoping that something ridiculous changes that.
Prince played great until the closing minute. He’ll give us valuable minutes against Louisville. The Lofton play … nobody else should have taken that shot. He has faith in the senior, and it was a great playcall considering we’d not been dominating SC on the low post in that game.
We’ll see whether or not his great decisions continue to pay off. Can’t argue with them so far.
Nor can LSU fans argue with the results of Miles’ play-calling, but that doesn’t make them smart.
It’s hilarious to me that you’re now playing the “Bruce isn’t a good coach” or “Bruce makes dumb decisions” card. I’ll just let you play it and laugh from a distance.
How about this? Y’all can think he’s stupid, and we’ll laugh all the way into the tourney? How about that? LOL
And with that, my point is made. Your response makes me a happy man.
??? I’m confused. I’m not passionate about this argument at all. What are we arguing? It’s a joke.
We aren’t arguing anything about basketball…in fact, we’re agreeing that making a ridiculous statement about an opponent to elicit a response from that opponent is baiting.
My point is the Alabama scheduling thing is not ridiculous, even if my jab was intentional. The Pearl stuff? Maybe I can understand some people thinking the Lofton decision was questionable, though he hit the shot. But starting Prince? Something had to be done.
And I was assuredly baiting Alabama fans. I figured CK would be the one who took the bait. That’s why it made me so happy.
Football was the primary focus here, right? So the Vols and Buckeyes will line up in 2018-2019? I like that. I wrote a blog months ago about future college football schedules and many teams, like UT, but NOT like Alabama have really tough non-conference opponents scheduled well into the future.
Somebody up there made a good point though. You don’t know how good OSU or Tennessee or anyone else is going to be 10 years from now. Teams that scheduled Miami (FL) and Florida State 10 years ago probably though those would be automatic losses.
Nice scribble Ghost.
You’re not supposed to bring us back to point, Moondog, but since we’re there…
Good OOC matches sell tickets and ads, but SEC teams are at least currently playing against the best of the best already. Ten years from now that might not be the case and a strong OOC might be necessary to play against quality competition. But to take UT as the example, last season you played against the previous two MNCs–both in-conference–but what game prior to the season was pointed to as the proof that UT will play anyone anywhere? A Cal Bears team that not only finished the year just one game over .500 but beat UT. Is that game still worth the bragging about schedules that was done before it?
I like that Bama is scheduling games with BCS conference teams now, but I like it just because I enjoy watching hyped up games. Playing USC or playing Wofford doesn’t change the quality of the team itself.
I agree with you tidefan. I’m just giving you bammers a hard time because that’s what we’re required to do. It’s a little known fact, and apparently since you live in Tennessee you didn’t get the memo, that if we are to remain in the state, we MUST give Tide fans as much grief as we possibly can.
It’s as I said in my previous comment, you never know how good a team is going to be 10 years down the road. But one quality non-conference BCS opponent on your schedule is necessary if you’re going to be ranked high enough, potentially, to play for a national championship. I wrote a blog about that too at my site.
If you look at the current trend, every major BCS team is scheduling essentially the same way. They play their conference schedule, they have at least one, possibly two tough non-conference BCS opponents, and a few powder puffs to fill out the schedule.
With a 12-game schedule, and a possible championship game, you can’t afford to schedule four strong non-conference BCS opponents and have a shot at the BCS championship.
If it weren’t for the hard times to be given and received, none of us would be here. And that’s just my parent’s marriage. This site is all about bringing the noise.
And you’re right about one good OOC opponent being necessary for ranking purposes. I just don’t agree that it should be. People talk about not getting a feel for how good a team is because they didn’t play anyone out of conference, but then they prefer computer rankings that take into account your opponents’ strength of schedule. But I’m largely barking at the wind, since most of the folks that read us are like-minded, they just slant toward different programs. We’ve spent days on end agreeing with each other in the most insulting ways possible.