One of the truly great and unique parts of college football is that teams choose whom they play for a quarter or third of their schedules. Imagine populating the first 25 questions of a 100-point exam. Do you plug in 25 easy ones? Or should you mix in a challenge or two to impress the teacher?
Of course, filling out the non-conference schedule isn't that straight forward. Teams change over time and suddenly the pastry buffet you thought you had in store is a table full of snarling beasts.
There's an art to when, where, and who teams choose to play, especially those who have the influence and budgets to play any game they want.
For example, just a month ago, Michigan kicked off its now-doomed season by beating Appalachian State 52–14. It was a flashy, sharp, and unmemorable day for the Wolverines — exactly what a season-opening cupcake is supposed to be.
And yet, the previous meeting between the programs was anything but. The Mountaineers famously upset the fifth-ranked Wolverines to open the 2007 season in one of the lowest points in the sputtering juggernaut's recent history but also in non-conference scheduling at large.
Michigan found itself in a classic no-win scheduling quagmire: Beat the defending 1AA champs and your brief highlight won't make the first two blocks of SportsCenter. But lose to them in college football's biggest stadium? We're still talking about it seven years later.
With the exception of classic some traditional rivalries, non-conference games typically fall into five categories. As we've already seen in 2014, these can be excellent opportunities for the teams involved and they can be complete disasters.
The Heavyweight Game
Base Case: Oregon 46, Michigan State 27 (9/6/2014)
Worst Case: LSU 28, Wisconsin 24 (8/30/2014)
These are the matchups college football fans get excited about. To athletic directors' credit, the schedule seems to include more of these date-savers each year. Ohio State, USC, Oklahoma, Oregon, and others have embraced the stage and challenge of playing a big game in the season's nascent weeks, knowing that a loss is hardly a season's death sentence. This year, Oregon answered questions about its ability to out-quick a stout defense, while Michigan State held a lead at halftime and put together a mostly respectable road performance. We still have to see how the selection committee treats these cases, but if the Ducks mostly keep winning, it seems unlikely that this early road loss would keep an otherwise unblemished Spartan team out of the playoff.
The downside of these games is, of course, the potential blowout. Alabama's 2012 obliteration of Michigan is the best example, but lacking that kind of thrashing in this category for 2014, let's consider another negative outcome.
LSU and Wisconsin both entered the season with major skill position holes to fill. After the Badgers abandoned the run and the Tigers committed to it exclusively in this game's second half, it was difficult to feel either team was balanced enough to beat an elite team. Sometimes two good teams bring out the best in each other; other times, like this, they just make each other look bad.
The "They Traveled Where?" Game
Best Case: Missouri 49, Toledo 24 (9/6/2014)
Worst Case: Bowling Green 45, Indiana 42 (9/13/2014)
Most games between power conference teams and non-power conference teams (man, do I miss "BCS/non-BCS") fit a clear pattern. Lesser State visits Powerhouse U's giant stadium to collect both a likely defeat and a check while the hosts pocket a win and an even larger sum of home-gate revenue. Some schools, however, face a constant dilemma in picking non-league foes for this scenario: they are not usually very good or their home games are not big enough cash generators to compete with other schools for non-conference competition. As a result, they sometimes have to pay off home dates with a return trip to a campus they otherwise wouldn't glimpse.
When this goes well, storylines and a decent effort make the trip memorable. Missouri, coached and quarterbacked by Ohioans, won a nationally televised game against a live opponent in the Buckeye state. For a program on the outskirts of the SEC's most fertile recruiting grounds, it was a good outcome from an otherwise undesirable obligation.
On the other hand, Indiana's obligation to come to Bowling Green was just sad. Sure, the Hoosiers recruit the area, but Northwest Ohio is not nearly as recruit-rich as other parts of the state. And from a football perspective, Indiana is much better served traveling to power-conference peers (like Missouri!), than taking a no-win proposition against a MAC team certain to be revved up for any Big Ten blood.
The Live Dog Game
Best Case: Alabama 33, West Virginia 23 (8/30/2014)
Worst Case: Virginia Tech 35, Ohio State 21 (9/6/2014)
Sometimes playing a team that was once good is enough for schedule cred.
Let's face it: there are too many college football teams for media and fans to reevaluate every team every year, just as there are too many products on the supermarket shelves to research them all. To use a tortured buzz word, we rely on brands.
West Virginia, despite its miserable eight-loss 2013 season, has had enough recent success to be a mildly eye-raising opponent. At least, that's what Alabama thought upon scheduling the Mountaineers on a neutral field.
While the Tide were likely to win, an upset would not have been completely unthinkable, especially in the season's first week on a neutral field. With that on the line, Alabama gets more credit for beating a team we could imagine being good than a team like East Carolina that might actually be really good.
Ohio State probably felt the same way about Virginia Tech. A comfortable favorite, the Buckeyes were completely handled in Columbus by the Hokies. This wasn't a leave-it-all-out-there loss to a great opponent, as subsequent Hokie losses have shown. This was a signal about the rest of Ohio State's season.
The Cross-Country Recruiting Trip Game
Best Case: Ohio State 34, Navy 17 (8/30/2014)
Worst Case: TCU 30, Minnesota 7
Speaking of branding, teams are increasingly willing to travel uncomfortable distances for recruiting exposure. Apparently college recruits only see locally televised games and can only see teams when they come to town.
Ohio State opened its season in Baltimore against Navy. The Buckeyes certainly could have found a more lucrative option by rolling any number of schools in the Horseshoe, but they chose to don their road whites in week one to make a regional splash. The mid-Atlantic region is notoriously raidable by programs from other regions, including both Urban Meyer's Ohio State and Florida teams. It's worth noting that the 2014 best case scenario involved the Buckeyes trailing deep in the third quarter, because…
Wow, a couple of teams made some ugly road trips. UCLA went coast-to-coast to Virginia in week one, looking horribly jet-lagged in a lackluster 28–20 win. But at least that southern California team won. USC's defense was run over, through, and around by Boston College; it's unclear if the result moved the needle for any East Coast five-stars.
But the absolute worst result goes to Minnesota. Like many less-than-top-tier power conference programs, the Gophers often sort through overlooked recruits in the country's deepest talent pools. There's so much high school football talent in Texas that Minnesota can find plenty of useful pieces even after Texas, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma skim the cream.
So with that goal in mind, the Gophers can't feel good about the Lone Star portion of their 2015 recruiting class following its loss to TCU. When asked after the game how his offense is performing, Horned Frog coach Gary Patterson jabbed, "I have no idea. You've played a Samford and now you've played a Big Ten team." Who's ready for a verbal commitment to the Twin Cities?
The Surest Thing Game
Best Case: Florida State 37, The Citadel 12 (9/6/2014) (or any other of about 50 games each of the season's first few weeks)
Worst Case: Florida 65, Eastern Michigan 0 (9/6/2014)
Early season excitement is often doused by a flood of these games. We all get it: The little guys collect a check and a glimpse of the spotlight while the big boys collect an easy win. And yet, these games are impossible to enjoy. The best possible outcome is unmemorable and uninteresting, especially after halftime. In fact, excessive scoring often extends these games past the boundaries of decency and anyone's attention span.
Really, the only non-yawns for these games are bad things. Football, as we increasingly know, is a dangerous sport that could inflict life-altering injuries on any of its participants every time they get on a field. I recognize the financial realities, but when it comes down to it, guarantee games are the offspring of the slimiest part of college sports: the university's willingness to risk its students' health to make exorbitant revenue off their labor.
Florida saw this in its week two blowout of Eastern Michigan. A teammate rolled up tight end Jake McGee's leg, and the Virginia-transfer's leg was broken in the process. To be clear, injury risk is an accepted part of football, one that players willingly take on by playing.
And yet, nobody needed to see a 65-0 game to know Florida is better than Eastern Michigan. If a coach promises a player's family that he will take care of their son, how can he justify playing a game that is nothing more than a fundraiser?
Yeah, Michigan losing to Appalachian State was bad. But Jake McGee having to deal with a broken leg so Florida's books balance is far worse.
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