Monday, August 08, 2005
Apparently we're trying...
...to beef up the weak out of conference schedule. There's been a lot of talk on the message boards in the last month or so that we're no closer to landing a big name opponent for the 2006 season when the 12th game becomes part of college football again. There was a rumor we were trying to work something out with Michigan. Then there was a big uproar because we were trying to get a two for one deal with either West Virginia or Pitt. Word on the street was that they were balking and wanted a straight up home and home series and our new AD wouldn't budge. So Jacobs has been taking a beating on the message boards from fans who are sick of paying out the nose for the right to buy tickets to Auburn vs. Louisiana-Monroe, Western Kentucky, and Temple. And I thought the acrimony and insults lobbed at Jacobs were well deserved. It doesn't really seem like it would be that hard to get a straight up home and home deal done with a Miami or Michigan or even a Notre Dame. They want the recognition, the big national TV game. All those guys play big name OOC games every year (I know ND isn't in a conference but they play a pretty tough schedule). Well apparently I was wrong. There's an article on espn.com today, a conversation between their two national college football columnists about the state of college football. The last comment Ivan Maisel makes is that Notre Dame is making an attempt to lighten their schedule. He says, Ivan: They have made a conscious effort to lighten the schedule but it hasn't kicked in yet. They turned down Auburn. Auburn wanted a home-and-home. Notre Dame said no. Then in his weekly chat session (which you have to watch live or else it goes straight to their Insiders only package) he elaborated saying he knew for a fact that Auburn approached both Notre Dame and Michigan about a straight up, home and home series and they both said thanks, but no thanks. At least we're trying. Now maybe we can actually get a deal done and upgrade our pathetic schedule.
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Tubs was on Finebaum last week and talked about that kinda. He wouldn't say who Auburn has approached, but he did make the comment that most other big named schools didn't want to play Auburn right now. He said,"Lloyd Carr probably doesn't have any desire to tw what the inside of Jordan-Hare looks like". Tubs did say they still had other big named schools they were looking at. Another problem is the open date that we have for a game. Tubs said that there are only a few options on that day. He is hoping SLive changes everyone's schedule to allow everyone to be able to matchup with big out of conference schools better.
This kind of hurts. Quoted from Brad Edwards, espn.com's BCS columnist:
ESPN's college football staff watched every game played by USC, Oklahoma and Auburn last season. And for what it's worth, the consensus of our group after the regular season -- not a unanimous opinion, by the way -- was that Auburn was the second-best team in the country. One person thought the Tigers were the best. Might a committee that watched every game have reached the same conclusion? Might the BCS championship game have had a different result? Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know.
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