I have a feeling Texas and OU will be told to schedule cupcakes in late October by the SEC overlords soon enough.
I'm pretty sure they do it for TV exposure. They start conference play earlier than any other conference when most of the country is playing cupcakes. This gives them some prime time exposure with lots of eyes because everything else is wall paper. They then layer in those cupcakes later in the year with at least one or two marquee games in conference every week that will still be prime time viewership. I'm pretty sure it's all about the revenue.
Rice is the only team approaching a cupcake that I want to see on the schedule. And Rice is for 2 purposes: a "home" game for the Houston alums, and recruiting by planting our flag in Houston. SEC or no SEC, I want to see good non-conference teams on the schedule. Since we'll be playing a lot of teams from the South and will have that region covered, we should load up on California and Arizona teams for recruiting purposes. Bijan is from Arizona, as is Liebrock. We've also cherry picked top California talent a lot before.
Sound logic. I imagine the California and Arizona teams would line up for that. It's mutually beneficial.
I didn't mean the SEC will say ONLY schedule cupcakes. I said the SEC will say schedule a cupcake in November. It's pretty obvious the SEC conference schedule will continue to have games earlier in September and openings in November. See Alabama played Florida on September 18 and is scheduled to play New Mexico St on November 13. Our recent cupcakes have been Louisiana Tech, Tulsa, San Jose St, UTEP, and Rice. If those five were scheduled by Texas under the SEC, I can see Texas filling the November opening with them. Texas will still be free to schedule a marquee opponent in week 1 or 2.
Expansion to nine SEC games would make sense. Four pods of four teams each; play three in your pod plus two each from the other three pods.
10/30 I don't see any glaringly weak out-of-conference opponents for the big boys this week. Kudos to the brave ADs of the land for bravely scheduling worthy opponents (or conference opponents that they had to schedule...). And the bards and minstrels sang songs, extolling their bravery!
This week... It's Tom Holmoe of BYU: The Cougars scheduled Idaho State---NOT Boise State, Not even the Idaho Vandals. Rather, we're talking about the Idaho State Bengals. The 1-7 Idaho State Bengals got punked 48-17 by Northern Arizona, 31-10 by Portland State, and 35-14 by U. of North Dakota earlier this year. Nice way to pad your record there Holmoe. BYU is heading into the Big 12 soon, and it will be time to start putting some meat on the non-conference schedule. A disapproving look from Brigham Young.
Without having gone to look at historical records, is it a program that had a decent record five years ago when the contract was likely signed? After all...at the rate Texas is going, there could be some AD's that thought they signed a contract to play a good team and then got...the current version of the 'horn debacle.
5 years ago (2016), Idaho State was 2-9--playing in the Big Sky Conference. They were also 2-9 in 2015, and 4-7 in 2017. They post such terrible records playing teams like Sacramento State, Portland State, Northern Arizona, Northern Colorado, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, North Dakota, Eastern Washington, ... , and now ... BYU. 2016 Idaho State Bengals football team - Wikipedia
So...they got an invite to the Revenue Bowl. The reality is that the cupcakes benefit the team getting killed far more than the ones doing the killing. Some programs basically get their budget through the *** kicking game.
What do you think folks? Florida scheduled Samford. Alabama scheduled New Mexico State. Army scheduled Bucknell (who lost to Fordham by 45 points).
Except for Army, it's generosity giving financial help to the less fortunate. (Yes, I paid attention in church Sunday morning)
Which of the following may have been in the mind of Alabama's AD when he scheduled New Mexico State: 1. We should do what we can to help those underfunded New Mexico State Aggies' program. -or- 2. Let's pad our record with an easy W. These are some aggies we are certain to beat and beat badly.
I'll haver all of Johnny Tyson's "chicken poop" delivered to Bellmont if Sark will deliver wins and Championships like Saban.
Ross Bjork of Texas A&M wins this week's Chicken Poop AD of the Week for scheduling mighty Prairie View A&M as a non-conference foe. As with other current ADs, to the extent his predecessor first signed the dotted lion with Prairie View A&M and put them on the schedule, Bjork stands in his shoes now so he owns it. Way to pad that record aggies. Vintage SEC non-conference scheduling. When some alums said they wanted more games played in the State of Texas, they meant against the likes of TCU, SMU, UH, even UTEP... Ross Bjork: "C'mon guys, they're from Texas and have "A&M" in their name. It will be sort of like playing with ourselves..." Speaking of aggies playing with themselves...: "A&M" is gonna win all right, I guarantee it.
