In reply to: How else do you project a good team? posted by JBrock18
All are full conference members and locked into certain games. Take a gander at who they choose to host otherwise. For sure ND has less games locked in from a conference standpoint but with Stanford and Navy on every schedule it’s essentially the same. Taking that into consideration for the most part ND does a decent job filling out the remaining portion each year.
I think your argument would be more valid without the ACC affiliation. If you don’t like the games then don’t go. An empty stadium may change things but the stadium will be close to full no matter what as long as the team hovers around that 10 win plateau. I’m 37 so I can remember the Holtz years fairly well from 88 on. Whether many of us like it or not there are a whole new generation of fans who don’t give a shit about the schedule. They want to be in the playoff and post shit on social media about how big of a fan they are.
Alabama home games 2021
1. Mercer
2. Southern Miss
3. Ole Miss
4. Tennessee
5. New Mexico State
6. Arkansas
Clemson home games 2021
1. SC State
2. Georgia Tech
3. BC
4. FSU
5. UConn
6. Wake Forest
Ohio State home games 2021
1. Oregon
2. Tulsa
3. Akron
4. Maryland
5. Penn St
6. Purdue
7. Michigan State
Oklahoma home games 2021
1. Western Carolina
2. Nebraska
3. WVU
4. TCU
5. Texas Tech
6. Iowa State
Georgia home games 2021
1. UAB
2. South Carolina
3. Arkansas
4. Kentucky
5. Florida
6. Missouri
7. Charleston Southern
And that includes LSU, who you forgot to include in your post.
Overall 7 home games - 1 FCS team, 2 non-P5 - whose teams combined to go .398 last year. For having 4 SEC teams locked in, it’s actually impressive how terrible that home slate is.
Why on earth would the acc affiliation not be part of our scheduling calculation? And we are independent for a reason - it’s to create better games for our ND Nation which is how we built this program in the first place.
Did we play Stanford last year? Did we play them every year Jon Elway was there? Why are they locked in?
And you seem to be advocating a lot for a diluted, shitty home schedule. Mostly by pointing out the awfulness of other team’s home schedules (and they are indeed awful) - and stating the business line about how we shouldn’t have a strong schedule because people will buy the tickets anyways. Is that a brag worthy accomplishment? Is that how leaders behave? Put out the shittiest product that someone will still buy?
You can’t seem to grasp it. I didn’t make the decision to join the ACC or to lock in Stanford and Navy every year. I’d prefer to play a big game every week as a fan. It’s fun. But as a former D2 college football player I realize that isn’t possibly sustainable physically or mentally for the players or coaches. Have a nice night, you seem stressed.
You have to design the rest of your schedule to aggressively make up for the shit you’re locked into.
You also don’t have to make those decisions in the first place so you can’t use them as an excuse.
Last season’s schedule had an excuse...all the rest are on us...otherwise what is the point of independence?
is actually going to most likely be decent. You argued that it was shitty, but it’s not. A couple good warmup games. 3 probable preseason top 15 teams after that. A shitty game against Navy that I’d love to drop from the schedule (but we can’t), and a mediocre G Tech game. Even our road slate traditionally would be fairly good, but isn’t that great now because of some under performing teams (@FSU is normally tier 1, and @V Tech and @Stanford are normally good tier 2s, with a neutral Wisconsin game always a very good one).
All in all, it’s not a bad full slate if you want to make a playoff run. It’s not the toughest gauntlet ever, but it’s not a bunch of cupcakes.