What to do with you, banker? Is there really anything in this newest post that hasn't been debunked already? Let's see...
Sturt, scheduling tougher gets us nothing but losses if we don't have the money and players to compete.
True statement.
But of course, Mr. Insincerity gets us started with a misleading premise... ie, most years we've played in CUSA, we've went into November with a chance to win our division. We have had the money and players to compete. By most accounts, we just didn't have the coaches, though now evidently, people want to have it the other way around and blame it on money and players without actually having to let the words "I was wrong, Snyder was okay" emerge from their keyboards/mouths.
Quite honestly, as I have been trying to get through your pompous skull for over a year, our schedule as it is this season is more advantageous to our goal of reaching the access bowl...
There you go again.
How bout some context. It's this kind of thinking that should make us all worry that if Arkansas State pulls off an undefeated season, they'll beat out a one-loss Cincinnati or Boise team for the CFP bowl.
Really? You're worried?
Sorry. I'm just not.
No matter what we do with scheduling we can't get to the point where our schedule would be ranked higher than AAC schools, so that's a moot point.
Well, whaddayaknow... at least banker is headed in the right direction.
Indeed, it's a problem playing in a division that will otherwise be populated by 4 Sun Belt schools and 2 schools that only started their programs in recent memory. Compare that to what we had in CUSA or even what we had in MAC, and it's a pretty decisive step down in competition... no news there, as that's largely the whole reason so many Herd fans are salivating for the season to get started. We can agree on this much--we desperately need at least two of those programs to assert themselves rapidly as viable and stable, and God help us, 3 or 4. But that's out of our control, and all we can do is plan in case the best, or at least an acceptable, scenario emerges.
As to your statement, again, another half-truth one... yes, it's probably true that we can't get to the point where our schedule... that is, our
conference schedule... would be ranked higher than AAC schools. That much might be, and probably is, a moot point.
But that's not to say that we can't, to a significant degree, compensate for the conference schedule through other means, nor that we shouldn't bother... in fact, you can choose to ignore it, but I'll just bring it back up over and over again... that would be me, the one who bothered to go back and put all the numbers into an Excel file so that everything was in plain view... that we can compensate sufficiently to be competitive with AAC and MWC champs, but we have to build in to the system some ways that allow us to do just that... compensate.
It's this simple.
We need ways to ramp up the other six games that NCAA rules say we don't necessarily have to play against CUSA competition.
There are three tried-and-true premises that characterized nearly every school that emerged since 2005 to be the best non-AQ school... play in one of the two best non-BCS conferences, play at least one top 25 team, and lose no more than one game. And when NIU made it without satisfying A, it was in a year when, for the first time, all of the non-AQ conferences finished within two Sagarin points of each other--a virtual deadlock.
There's hope... which is why I'm so adamant that we can't let the MAC-fan attitudes win this thing.
This brings us back to money. You want to play a schedule that allows us to be viewed the same as AAC and MWC schools? Build the facilities, pay the coaches, recruit the players and build a CUSA dynasty. Do that and those conferences will come looking for you.
One teensyweensylittle problem with that, of course, and you know it, you sly devil... until the contract schools expand and take some AAC schools in, there's no room... and with word coming down this month that the NCAA may finally dispose of the 12 team requirement for championship games, the one conference that may have been making some moves almost certainly won't.
Money won't matter.
Now, again, lest I be misinterpreted... that's no excuse for not building facilities, paying coaches and recruiting players to build a CUSA dynasty. But again, it's misleading... I would even say, just an outright lie... to suggest that we have to wait for an invite to improve our position.
Playing a round robin with MAC teams that are no more respected than CUSA teams does nothing to raise the perception of your schedule. It only adds losses to the top teams of those two conferences and makes them easier to ignore.
Dang it, you are a tedious one. In my best Sylvester voice... insufffufferrerrabbabble.
One of the two conference champs will get the benefit of an end-of-season springboard. Some years it would be us, some years it wouldn't.
If we're good... if we deserve it... we'll win... and those games will be testimony to that, and we won't be ignored. If we're not, we'll lose those games, and appropriately, you'll be right... we'll be ignored.
Like someone smart... in your world, no doubt, "pompous"... once said... if you're scared, get a dog.