The Gators Could be the Nation's Best Team But Their is a Reason That They have a Higher Threshold to Play for a National Title
Call it poetic justice. On October 26, 2004 Florida dismissed Head Coach Ron Zook with four games to go in the season. That same day the second BCS poll for 2004 was released. Miami was ranked second in the BCS and Florida State was ranked fifth. The following weekend Miami and Florida State both lost for the first time on the same day since 1978. Since that day, the pecking order for college teams in the state of Florida has changed dramatically. Florida is in the national championship hunt while Florida State and Miami fight over who will be the ACC's 7th bowl representative and who will be stuck at #8. Meanwhile, South Florida has a far superior team to both former national powerhouses in just its fifth year in Division IA.
This year the Gators have proven once again they could compete with the big boys on the national level. Some experts even think Florida maybe the best team in the nation. Sure, the Gators do not light up the scoreboard like Ohio State or Notre Dame, but they have a far superior defense, and besides a bad kicker, one of the best special teams in the nation.
But the Gators it appears will not play for a national title. Is that fair? Sure it is when you compare Florida's scheduling habits to not only its direct competition for this year's BCS title, but to just about every other school in a major conference. In fact, one of the most shocking statistics anywhere in the nation is that the Gators have not left the state of Florida for a non-conference game since a blowout loss in Syracuse back in 1991! While Florida State and Miami took advantage of the NCAA 12th game to schedule the likes of Oklahoma, Alabama, Southern California, Texas A&M, West Virginia and Ohio State in upcoming seasons the Gators 12th game menu for the upcoming seasons consists of Florida Atlantic, Hawaii, Louisiana Monroe, Florida International, and Middle Tennessee. Florida's BCS opposition, Southern California and Michigan have been actively seeking to fill their 12th games with nationally attractive matchups including the possibility that USC will play Miami and/or Virginia Tech in the next few seasons and that Michigan will play Texas and/or Oklahoma in the near future.
I have not done the research but I would be shocked if any other D1A program in the nation has a longer streak of not leaving its home state to play an out of league game. While Florida has become a superior program to Florida State and Miami in every conceivable way under Urban Meyer, TV ratings for Florida's games continue to lag behind those of the other two, clearly inferior programs. Why? Florida is not considered a national program because they do not play a national schedule. (I was shocked to compare the ratings for Miami's game against Maryland with Florida's game against South Carolina in markets which got both telecasts at the same time. The Maryland-Miami game was rated nearly 2 points higher despite the fact that Miami already had four losses)
When the NCAA was discussing adding a twelvth game a few years ago, Florida Athletic Director Jermey Foley stated that it would be great for his program because it would give the Gators a chance to schedule some big time games out of the Southeast region. (His quote was something along the lines of ....."I would love to play someone like Michigan or Nebraska.") Unfortunately, Foley instead scheduled the patsies listed above. While adding additional home games against weak sisters may help the bottom line, it's certainly not going to win the Gators any favors from the BCS computers anytime soon. Foley needs to revisit Florida's scheduling policy. With one loss, especially in a flukish fashion on the road Florida should be the team to play Ohio State. But they don't deserve a shot, because a national champion should prove that they can do more than win games in their conference playing one particular style of Football.
Monday, November 27, 2006
The Gators and the BCS
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9 comments:
Honestly, at 1:15AM you really need to be focusing on your sleep instead of stirring things up and hoping that you get the ire of the 3 or 4 other people here that root for FLORIDA.
You seem to be blaming Florida for playing 2 big time rivalry games in the state of Florida. Florida v. Georgia is not going to be moved and it is played at a neutral site... therefore it should be removed from your equation.
Florida State sucking this year is number 1, not Florida's fault and number 2, as big a rivalry as there is in college football regardless of where the 2 teams exist.
On the other hand, how can your beloved USF get any better if they dont play FLORIDA? Same for UCF? Florida plays these schools and doesnt nothing but bring big time money to their cofers for athletics.
The Big East was never as competitive as the SEC and neither is the ACC. The SEC is a carnivorous league and thats obvious by the abundant competition.
Another thing you overlooked is that FSU had 8 home games this year! 8 GAMES AT HOME IS A BIG BONUS TO A TEAM. Has FLORIDA ever played 8 games at home? I dont even think we had 8 home games when Alltel stadium was being rebuilt and we played UGA in a home/home series.
-OUT!
Jim Rome, you and I disagree 100% on this. Tennessee and Auburn always find a way to play big non league games, as does LSU. Often times they lose those games. So playing in the SEC is not an excuse whatsoever.
Can't you ever be critical of the Gators. Here I am saying the Gators are the best team in the nation but they underschedule, and yet you pillage me. Honestly, when Miami didn't win the title in 2000 because FSU got into the BCS over them (even though they beat FSU) it wa sbecause Miami made the long trip to Washington to play the Huskies. I don't care about a tough SEC schedule. A road trip out west early in the season is tougher than any regional trip midseason. It hardens the team and gives the national TV audience a real look at both teams. The same can be said for Michigan and Ohio State's frequent trips out west early in the season, or to play the likes of Texas. Oh and while the Big East was weak it wasn't as weak as you think (look at how much better Va Tech has become once joining the ACC....they would consistently lose 3 or more Big East games from 2001-2003 with better teams than they have had the last few years) and wasn't as weak as the current ACC. The Big Ten is as strong on a yearly basis as the SEC, and yet those teams manage to schedule tough out of league opposition.
Wouldn't you like to see the Gators play somebody exciting for a change, someone from outside of the region?????? If the Gators make it to Glendale, it will be their first trip out of the Southeast for any reason since 1995! That's simply insane. The Gator Basketball team travels the country and the Gator Football team never leaves the region. Insanity.
By the way UCF has a home and home with Texas coming. Texas actually gave them a return game which Florida didn't. I think that will make them better and give them some national exposure also. USF on the other hand doesn't really have anyone strong scheduled in the upcoming years other than Miami which may or may not be good. But they have played @ Penn State and @ Oklahoma in recent years and the OU game was on national tV. I think those games were better than playing Florida on pay per view early in the year.
Florida has nothing to apologise for.
Look at Ohio State's schedule -- they played two teams in the BCS top 25 (#3 Michigan and #19 Texas) while Florida will have played four after next Saturday (#5 LSU, #9 Arkansas, #11 Auburn and #16 Tennessee).
Or Notre Dame, who beats up on the service academies.
As long as we have to play at least four or five, teams that are, year after year, among the nation's elite programs, we have nothing to be sorry about.
As to the popularity of the team's games on television, that might be a reflection of the second-class status the Gators are given by the major south Florida newspapers and broadcast stations.
I am a Gator but this is a good topic to discuss, because I think most of us know that while this year the SEC has been excellent, many years in the 1990s the SEC was down because UGA, LSU and Bama were all having tough times and our non conference schedule stopped us from competeting for top recruits outside the region. While I don't agree with K that we are the best team or that we don't deserve a shot at the title, I do agree that USC's non conference schedule of Arkansas, Nebraska and Notre Dame is exactly the kind of slate a top team that wants to be a national power plays. We should think about that.
Wow, glad too see so much spirit. Joe you bring up an excellent point on the UGA situation. I still think Florida can work through that and schedule more creatively, but I will admit that is a negative issue when trying to balance non league opponents.
Gator Mike, I agree that the Miami schedule is madness. Miami tends to either overschedule like next year, or underschedule like this year. Also factor in that UM is trying to work out a game with Southern Cal for the next year or the year after, and that UM also plays a resurgent Texas A&M team the next two years, and Ohio State the two years following that. A&M just beat Texas in Austin. Miami seems more interested in TV money and national exposure than filling seats for home games. I guess UM and UF just have different business models.
Gator makes a good point about OSU's schedule but I would argue the fact they would play a home and home with Texas who normally would be ranked higher than #20 or whatever they are now shows how serious they are about playing the best.
Tampa Cane ~ Gee, I wonder how my wife and I got into UF back well before the mid-1970s? Her father was a bread salesman and mine was a postal worker. We were both the first in our families to go to college.
As for Pajcic,Florida did recruit him; but Pajcic wanted to continue to play with his high school teammate Ron Sellers. Ray Graves apparently wasn't keen on Sellers, but FSU recruited both of them. (Big loss for UF, but we did have a couple other good QBs back then).
Gator, good point. I know for a fact Ray Graves recruited Pajic. A few years ago Steve, his brother told me Bill Peterson sold Pajic on playing right away and that's why he went to FSU over Florida, Miami and Georgia. Florida had some guy named Spurrier and Miami some guy named Mira. Both were pretty good. Georgia had just graduated the great Fran Tarkenton, and had a pipeline of other QBs in the mix. FSU on the other hand had no QB of note at the time.
Tampa Cane you make some nice points but as a Gator grad who keeps my close ties to UM I am offended you would claim UF is an "elite" school while implying FSU is somehow a peasant school. What the heck are you talking about? Why did I get into Florida when my parents weren't even born in this country? You make no sense whatsoever.
The dirty secret that the SEC faithful do not want exposed about the decline of their conference is the SEC doesn't play anyone out of conference. From 2000 through last season assuming a 12 team ACC, both conferences have won nearly the same number of non-conference games and are 18-18 head-to-head (hardly a statistic to support SEC dominance!). But, the SEC has played only 65 of its 189 non-conference games against the BCS conferences versus 121 out of 195 for the ACC. To bolster their records, the SEC has feasted on teams from non-power conferences - Sunbelt, WAC, MAC and Mountain West - racking up 61 wins. By contrast, the ACC counts only 17 victories from such pushovers.
Not only is the SEC playing inferior competition, the blatant truth is the SEC has made its living against sub-.500 teams piling up 78 victories against teams with a combined winning percentage of 36.7%, including 66 against teams with 7 or more losses. Against non-conference opponents with a .500 or better record, the SEC has managed a record of only 53-50 while the ACC's record against such teams is 62-54.
Playing weak sisters is one thing, but of the SEC's 189 out-of-conference games, 140 were played at home while managing a paltry 22-27 record on the road. The only team in the nation that travels less is Duke's men's basketball team. The ACC plays a far more balanced schedule with 110 home and 85 road games, winning nearly as many road games as the SEC has played.
But, you whine, the SEC is so tough top-to-bottom, the teams deserve a break. Wrong, yet again. The easiest games of all are against the bottom three teams in the SEC who have amassed a dreadful 5.0% winning percentage (5-95!) against teams in conference with a .500 record or better. The bottom half of the SEC only managed to win 16.0% against the top half. This is less than the bottom three teams in the ACC managed (16.7%) against the winning programs in conference. Except for Duke, there are no automatic ACC wins. Eleven ACC teams have been to a bowl game and won (yes, even Wake Forest) as compared to only nine SEC teams. Clearly, the ACC is toughest top-to-bottom
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