LSU plays Appalachian State on Nov 5

I couldn't have said it better myself Hawker. No disrespect meant to the Big 10 in any way, that comment was purely made in jest.

 

Re: This Stinks Totally

I'll admit that the a downside to scheduling I-AA is, like you said, something that may cause us to lose votes given that our perception is obviously low in the minds of voters compaired to the likes of Michigan, USC and Texas.

But I think it (scheduling) became a huge mess when we lose our flexibility and are forced to find a replacement for 1 specific date--Like we had to do this year.

Don't remember who exactly backed out of the original Nov. 5th game, but when you recently have schools like Marshall, Virginia Tech and Houston back out of their original commitment to pay us, it's not hard to believe that we are somewhat forced to play a I-AA school.

I really don't understand the opinion of those out there that feel we automatically "settle" for what appears to be something second-rate, instead of thinking of the possible thought that the administration MIGHT have already tried!

"Why didn't we hire Campo?!" ....ugh....PERHAPS HE WASN"T INTERESTED!
"We should have tried to get Spurrier" ....ugh....PERHAPS HE WASN'T INTERESTED
"Can't believe Miles is bringing Clay!" ....ugh...We're already jumping the gun because he was never introduced as part of our staff
"We should schedule a mid-major!" ....ugh....PERHAPS THEY ALREADY HAVE THEIR SCHEDULES FILLED!

Will the "jumping off the bridge as a first response" ever end?

 

Re: This Stinks Totally

I agree with that. Scheduling has become more and more difficult these days with all the teams backing out of contracts. Last year, I think it was Houston who backed out on us to play OU. We bumped up Ark St from the 2005 schedule to fill that void, which left us with App St. this year.

But it still sucks for the fans...

 

Precisely.

 

Re: This Stinks Totally

I really don't have a problem with it. I'm sure Skip or Radakovich tried but if you look at future scedules we have no room for a home and home until 2008 or 09. I'm sure most teams don't want to wait that long to be paid back. Everybody else in-state already had commitments so I guess we were left with just filling the spot. No biggie. If you guys don't show up for the game just makes my job easier.

 

DarkHornet I have been hoping that the NCAA will mandate 7 game home schedules when the 12 games schedules are allowed in order to spread the wealth around and keep teams on equal footing. That way many of the bigger programs will have to do a home and home with some of the programs that really need the money, not to keep up with the Jones like the SEC schools, but just to keep sports programs at thier university.

 

If/when it happens, look for Notre Dame to be granted an exception.

 

Actually, Notre Dame just announced that they were going to try and play more neutral games in the future and they normally only play 6 home games a year. They get so much moeny from their tv contact, the few times they make a BCS bowl and donations to their athletic programs that they don't need to schedule too many home games. Plus with the neutral site games they are going to add in the future I bet they end up with cities bidding for the games and paying a crap load of money.

 

FWIW, I just received a email reply from Don Long and he said that he knows that LSU has tried for the past six months to find a Div 1-A team that did not want a return trip (home and home) and couldn't.

I've no reason to doubt him, but LSU found Oregon St. on far less notice. Amazing that LSU couldn't do so again with with a year or so to fill the slot.

 

They've known about this way more than 6 months I'm thinking. Radakovich sent me an email saying they didn't want to schedule a D1-aa team but that they had no choice as they thought they had something worked out with a D-1 team but if fell through in January. I sent him a email back asking what was the rush, we could halled this team up in Octber and asked them to show up in November and they would. I also told him an even better solution would have been to play the spring game on the open date since they were thinking about not having it anyway. He actually sent me back a LOL on that one.