They won't do it without a home and home and LSU is not going to give up the gate. ITs $$$$. I would do the same thing. NO money no program
Yeah but that was to no fault of our scheduling. If memory serves me correctly, VT backed out on us from that game to go play USC for a season opener. And now they have the nerve to suck when we do play them.. Conspiracy I tell you!!! (Just being silly) Bottom line is it's a crap shoot. These schedules are made years ahead of time and it's a tad difficult to predict who will be tough OOC opponents. And even if you are good at 'guessing' who's gonna be a quality opponent, then ya gotta match up dates.. then schedule return trips later and schedule those... Then hope nobody else has already booked them for their schedule. I'm just gonna say I'm glad it's not my job to do because I wouldn't want it. Especially in these past few years since 2003.
I think VT will be a top 25 team next year win we play them and might end up higher than that by the end of the season. They still have great players but they are out of sync right now because the team was built to go around Vick. What a dumbass by the way. What really sucks is that Arizona and Fresno might be good teams next year and we just cant predict that kind of thing 3 years ahead of time.
Thing is, now with the 12 game schedule we should be able to schedule a home and home with a decent team every year and still maintain the 7 home game rule. Just have to be careful to make the away ooc game in the same year we have Tulane at home.
Well as stated by an earlier post. Look into the futuer 7 years and who do we think would be a quality opponent and make everybody happy. Then do that every year. When the rule first came out I never thought the administration would go after a "Big School". They are going to schedule what they can and take the gate. Remember none of these so called National tile contenders are breaking down the door to play LSU. And I hope it stays that way. If you figure there are 10 teams year after year who are what most people would like to see. What an impossible schedule task. It's hard enough getting a Div I school. Don't think these other schools aren't looking at the millions of dollars fixing to enter the gate, hotels and rest. in the area etc.. So pretty much what you get is someone looking to make about 600,000. You can't say well if we schedule them we can get tv money. CBS won't commit to a game a week ahead of time let alone 7 years. If you ask me part of the reason for the rule change was to spread the wealth.
I agree with the need to have less "Cupcakes" on our schedule, but a lot of people have a tendancy to blame LSU personnel for not scheduling stronger teams......... anyone ever wonder how hard it is to get middle to higher OOC games because they don't want to schedule LSU? Think about it, what middle to upper middle team would want to add a loss playing at Death Valley? Just a thought.
I hear what you're saying, but Tulane has been a historical rival and a part of me is satisfied with it continuing. Do you think Notre Dame will ever stop playing Army, Navy and Air Force??? ULL, La Tech and ULM have cried and whined about getting the chance to play LSU and now they all have their chance--on a rotating basis. Why not play them? I mean, this year, playing ULL is no worse, IMO, than playing a team from the MAC. ULL is probably going to win the SBC this year...and a few years ago, La Tech had a team that was respectible to schedule. As for 'Zona and Fresno State, you can't point to those as bad scheduling because when each of those were scheduled, 'Zona was looking like they were regaining their "Desert Swarm" status from the mid '90's and Fresno State had wins over quite a few decent BCS teams as well as some nice showings against top BCS teams. Who would have thought that both of those teams would be as bad as they have shown to be? ...and your "great VT" game....well, they were the same team that bailed on us a year or so ago.
This doesn't follow the thread, but I'd like to take the opportunity to congratulate Miles for the game against Fresno. We faced some adversity in the first half when Fresno took a couple of quick shots from us and didn't give up. We regrouped and put them away. So far Miles has been solid against the nancys, which isn't saying much, but it does boast of consistency. Halfway into the season, I feel ok about the loss to Auburn and can accept a bad game against Florida. I want to see Miles take the next step and get an impressive regular season win when we head up to Tennessee. A W is no short order, but it would boost the morale of Tiger Nation.
I was hesitant to put Tulane because of the history, but it hasn't been a real rivalry in years, which is why I did. I never said "great VT" game, so I don't understand the quotation marks. Anyway, I would like to see a team that is consitently in the top 15 in our schedule every other year, or maybe ever more frequently. Arizona and FS are always falling in and out of the top 25-30, and that's being nice. VT was a good pick to me because of the beating we took several years ago. It'll be our revenge game.
I know there was much talk about getting an annual game against a team from another BCS conference (like we used to play aTm for a few years until the Aggies decided to wuss out). With that said, I would REALLY like to see an annual OOC game against Clemson from the ACC. "The Battle for Death Valley". Unlike 'Zona and Fresno, Clemson has proven to consistantly be a good team and occassionally--like this year--a very good team.
