The fans are getting restless. USC last year had the hardest strength of schedule in the Nation. They had non conference games against Norte Dame and Auburn. Last time I checked they won the ORANGE BOWL. If USC did not play such a tough schedule they would have gone nowhere but they stepped up and played the big boys and it payed off. Florida played Miami and Florida State last year and still went to a good bowl game. Granted they lost both of those games but when they were winning in the late 90's they were playing the big teams. Notre Dames always has agood schedule against top 25 teams. I like Texas A&M scheduling policy. One elite team, one middle of the road team(ie. Pittsburg,Southern Miss) and a cream puff. We play this year 2 cream puffs(ULM, LA Tech) and a middle of the road team(Arizona). We still don't even know who replaces Marshall but at this late it will most likely be another cream puff from Division 1AA. As fans we I think we deserve better than teams like ULL and Middle Tennesse State. All I'm saying is that most of the top teams play big nonconference games, have 6 home games and still manage to make more than enough money for the athletic program. Plus they still manage to go to 1st tier bowl games.
Maybe the scheduling policies of both our schools can include the A&M/LSU series again? Was a pretty good rivalry at one time.
Amen, Death Valley. One thing I've wished LSU would do, instead of Utah State, UL-Monroe, ULaLa, etc. is to schedule some of the major conference bottom feeders or mid-tier teams, or maybe even the service academies. We could probably get some of them to come here without promising a return game. It may not fool the strength-of-schedule rankings, but it would be a lot more interesting for us fans going out to the games.
Who should we schedule? Last year LSU had Virginia Tech and will have them again in 2004. LSU had scheduled Bowling Green, which spent most of the season in the top 25, and were actually in the top 15 for a little while. Unfortunately they bought out the schedule before the season. Next year there is Arizona and Marshall, as they have not yet officially bought out the contract. Marshall is not a big school, but they finished the season ranked, and LSU did not. In 2004 they will also play Houston. One of the other posters claimed that Florida always schedules tough games. Well, insomnia caused me to do a little research of their schedules over the last decade. While they do play FSU every year, the list is filled with mostly a bunch of nobodies. I made a list of Florida's nonconference games since 1993. 2002: UAB, MIami 2001: Marshall, La.- Monroe 2000: Mid. Tenn. State, Ball St. 1999: West. Mich., Cent. Mich. 1998: Citadel, La.-Monroe 1997: USM, Cent. Mich. 1996: La-Lafayette, Georgia Southern 1995: Houston, North. Illinois 1994: New Mexico St., USM 1993: Ark. St, La-Lafayette As you can see, they don't play teams much tougher than LSU. In fact, they have a lot of common opponents.
I beleive USM would be a good middle tier program to regularly play. The usually field a good team and would give us more competition that say ULM or ULL. Also since USM is fairly close I would expect them to travel better than most of our other out of conference opponents. I beleive a game like them would be a good prep for SEC play because they may be good enough to show us some weaknesses that we would need to address before starting league play.
