NDSU Football @NDSUfootball 7h7 hours ago
NDSU to host Charleston Southern in 2016 #FCSKickoff 8/27 on ESPN. Game time 6:30 p.m. http://bit.ly/1RiWEFN
Can't wrap my head around seeing the kids of players I grew up watching, playing college ball. Like seeing Christian McCaffrey ball out just reminds me of watching videos of his pops and how he used to cut materials from his uniform so he could feel lighter on the field, . I think the first one that made me feel old was when Hardy Nickerson Jr was being recruited.
UF is kinda in a weird spot, you would think the offense would be better, but I don't see Franks being the real answer there at QB and will that defense ever be that good again?
Tennessee, UGA, UF winning & losing all effects Miami, so I'm rooting for that disaster Mizzou to win that division.
UF is kinda in a weird spot, you would think the offense would be better, but I don't see Franks being the real answer there at QB and will that defense ever be that good again?
Tennessee, UGA, UF winning & losing all effects Miami, so I'm rooting for that disaster Mizzou to win that division.
With coach Mac i think having a good rb and oline will be most important thing. Our qbs will be like they are at bama, game managers that take a deep shot after running game has defense moved up.
Oline was trash last year and Kelvin Taylor was always a bit overrated imo. I think Scarlett and Mark Thompson will be an upgrade.
Nussmeier is suspect as an OC qb play better be much improved this year.
UF always recruits well on defense, not worried about that.
Yes, but you have to remember that Will Grier and Treon Harris were your quarterbacks
Biggest thing for that, is that you have to have a QB there in the 1st place
I agree, he did pretty well at bama with McCarron at qb. His year at Michigan was a disaster with Devin Gardner, hopefully that was a product of Brady Hoke.
If Callaway gets back i think the offense will improve. Hearing good things about Freddie Swain. Maybe Worton or Fullwood step up.
The question arises each year: Who plays the toughest schedule? At the beginning of the season, the NCAA releases a rating of each team's schedule based on its opponents' records from the previous season. This is a good method, but it does have obvious flaws.
The first flaw is simply basing the ratings on opponents' records from the previous season. Let's look at a few examples:
•In 2014, I had TCU as my most improved team in the country. The Horned Frogs won 12 games and nearly made the first College Football Playoff in 2014. I also had Memphis as one of my most improved teams, and the Tigers won the Miami Beach Bowl, finishing 10-3 and ranked No. 25 in the Associated Press poll in 2014. However, if you used the NCAA method, you got credit for playing two teams that were a combined 7-17 in 2013 with TCU being 4-8 and Memphis 3-9.
•Vanderbilt was clearly a much weaker team in 2014 than in 2013. It was coming off a 9-4 season but had only 10 returning starters and a new head coach. Fresno State had Derek Carr in 2013 and went 11-2 but last year had just 13 returning starters and was replacing an NFL starting quarterback. By the NCAA method of determining strength of schedule, you would have gotten credit for playing a pair of teams that were 20-6 the previous year, yet those two teams finished a combined 9-17 in 2014.
•Last year, I pointed out that teams like Michigan (5-7 in 2014), Stanford (8-5 in 2014) and Northwestern (5-7 in 2014) were all much stronger in 2015. Those three teams, who combined for an 18-19 record in 2014, combined to go 32-8 in 2015.
The second flaw is that a team's record does not determine its strength. Let's look at two teams for this year and see which one is really the stronger team:
Last year, Western Kentucky went 12-2 while being led by senior quarterback Brandon Doughty. Tennessee was just 9-4. A closer look shows that WKU played a total of three Power 5 conference teams. Vanderbilt had a 20-11 first-down edge versus them and 385-246 edge in yardage, and WKU was lucky to escape with a 14-12 win over a team that eventually finished 4-8. In the other two Power 5 matchups, Western Kentucky lost to Indiana (6-7) on the road and was beaten by LSU in Baton Rouge 48-20.
Overall, their foes had a combined losing record on the year. The Volunteers may have lost 4 games last year, but their defeats were to Alabama (national champ), Oklahoma (playoff semifinalist), Florida (SEC East Champ) and Arkansas (8-5 bowl team). Tennessee blew double-digit fourth-quarter leads versus Oklahoma and Florida and had the ball when trailing by five points on the road at Alabama at the end of the game. Against that same Vanderbilt team that outplayed WKU, Tennessee led 53-14 before allowing two late garbage touchdowns. This year, WKU loses quarterback Doughty and has just 11 returning starters. If they played Tennessee's schedule this year, they would be an underdog in at least eight or nine games. Tennessee has 17 returning starters, including quarterback Joshua Dobbs, and is the clear-cut favorite to win the SEC East, likely will be a top-10 team and could be favored in as many as 11 games. In my toughest schedule, I will have Tennessee a much tougher foe in 2016 than WKU. But using the NCAA's method, Western Kentucky is the tougher team (12-2 versus 9-4).
Now let's turn our attention to 2016. I decided to see what the NCAA method would come up with for toughest opponents faced. Below is a chart of the top 25 teams ranked by highest percentage of opponent wins (or toughest schedule). The opponent wins, losses and win percentage are the NCAA's method -- not mine. The chart also shows the number of opponents each team will face that finished the season ranked in the top 25, the number of teams that had a winning record last year, and number of opponents that made the postseason.
LSU is at the top of the list, with its opponents a combined 108-52 (67.5 percent) last year. Arkansas is second, with its opponents combining for a 104-52 record (66.7 percent) . The Big Ten and SEC are well-represented, with the SEC having five teams in the top eight of toughest schedules and the Big Ten having three of the top 13. An interesting team to watch is Wisconsin. Last year, the Badgers' opponents combined for a 66-70 record, and they faced just three teams that finished with a winning record. This year, the Badgers' foes were 98-57, and they face 10 teams that made it to the postseason last year.
At the other end of the spectrum, UTEP plays the lightest schedule, with its foes last year combining for just a 52-94 (35.6 percent) record. Temple plays the second-lightest slate at 56-91 (38.1 percent). The Power 5 teams with the lightest schedule are Clemson -- whose foes were just 67-81 (45.3 percent) last year, the 20th weakest -- and Florida, whose foes were 69-78 (46.9 percent) or 23rd lightest. This list is one on which you would rather rank at the bottom than at the top.
Now let's look at the three columns to the right.
The first column is the amount of foes that a team plays that were ranked in the Top 25 at the end of last year. Wisconsin and Illinois grab the top spot, as each play six. There are 20 teams that do not face a team that was ranked at the end of the season. There are 52 teams that play one ranked team or fewer, and 49 of them are in Group of 5 conferences. The only three Power 5 teams in that group are Clemson, North Carolina and Utah, which each face just one foe that finished ranked at the end of last season.
Next, seven teams face 10 opponents that finished with a winning record: Alabama, Arkansas, LSU, Ole Miss, BYU, Arizona State and, surprisingly, Utah State. Just 17 teams face four or fewer opponents that had a winning record, and the only one of those in the Power 5 conferences is Maryland. UTEP plays just two.
And last, only two teams face 11 opponents that were in the postseason last year: USC and Utah State; but USC "wins" this tiebreaker, as one of Utah State's foes was Southern Utah, which was in the FCS playoffs. The teams that face the fewest opponents that were in the postseason last year are UTEP, which faces just two, and Southern Miss, which plays three.
When I release my toughest schedule rankings in my upcoming magazine, they take two major factors into account:
The first is my nine sets of power ratings. This ensures that an FCS team is rated lower than a team like Nebraska. Nebraska was 6-7 last year but beat UCLA in a bowl game and lost four games on the final play, with six of their seven losses by seven points or fewer. The second factor is the number of home and away games played.
I send my magazine to the press at the end of May, and it will hit newsstands at the end of June. I analyze the difference between my toughest schedule and the NCAA's toughest schedule, and I will share with you my toughest schedule. My power ratings are finalized at the end of May, so you can get those before you even pick up this year's magazine.
gene smith @OSU_AD 1h1 hour ago
STATEMENT: My comments at a soccer press conference yesterday were not meant to discredit our rival. I apologize to ...
MORE>>>
1/2
gene smith @OSU_AD 1h1 hour ago
...UM student-athletes & my good friend Warde Manuel. We at OSU look forward to continuing the greatest rivalry in collegiate football.
2/2