BigPack1517
New member
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2014
- Messages
- 131
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- 3
You guys really gotta address your non-conf schedule. That was killer and was at least the reason State wasn't one of the first four out.
Some of it is unlucky -- our beloved Penn State actually was a decent team but they weighed down y'alls SOS, and Vandy wasn't expected to go anywhere near 9-23. And you guys played absolute trash up until the ACC/Big Ten challenge. PSU and your narrow escape vs. Clemson in the ACCT were by far your best wins away from home.
But often the best conference to be in is one with a huge middle class that beats up on each other and picks up Q1 wins vs. each other, as opposed to a dominant top class, a couple top other teams (FSU, VT) and a lot of bad teams. Proved to be the case with the ACC this year
To be honest, the non-conference really did not bother me all that much (and the committee chair did not even mention it). This was a team returning two starters and three total contributors from last year (after replacing 70% of the scoring from the year prior to that), so I was really not bothered by the schedule being the way it was. Add in the fact that Auburn was a preseason Top 10 team, Wisconsin was a preseason Top 20 team, Penn State was returning three starters from a 26-win team (and actually did end up being a Q1 win), and Vanderbilt had Shittu and Garland at that point, I really felt the way the schedule fell was pretty unlucky.
And really, the schedule was not all that better last year, we just happened to get those Q1-A wins vs. Arizona, Duke, and @UNC. I was okay with playing a lighter schedule to get some confidence going into conference play with such a young team, however I do expect with only losing one contributor (as it stands right now/knock on wood) between this year and next year that we will schedule much more aggressively.