T1B

Buc, to be fair, your win over Va Tech in '04 was not an OOC road win.

It was a bowl game, played at a neutral site.

OOC road games entail going to the other team's house and playing 'em in front of their own rabid fans.

Assuming this is true, I had no idea that the last time Auburn won an OOC roadie was in 1997. That's simply amazing. The fact that it was only Virginia is just icing on the cake.

As for the USC-WSU game you weren't posting on this board this week so I guess you aren't aware that I predicted USC would struggle there, and possibly even lose. I took a little bit of shit from some quarters for saying this but having followed USC for as long as I have and seeing the negative circumstances mounting this one sure felt like a potentially dangerous spot.

As it turned out, it was an ugly performance, definitely, but they were never in danger of losing.

Just gotta take it and move on, hoping to stay undefeated while we wait for the injured to return and for the inexperienced kids to grow into their roles. Hopefully all that talent will keep us afloat until it's thoroughly game tested and fit to explode.

Van wrote:Buc, to be fair, your win over Va Tech in '04 was not an OOC road win.

It was a bowl game, played at a neutral site.

Well, qualify it down then. When was the last time SC played a tough run without a cushion of four or five sub-500s waiting on the cool down? Do you see how silly this gets?

OOC road games entail going to the other team's house and playing 'em in front of their own rabid fans.

And Auburn does it plenty. Take SC to the swamp every year. Neyland. Death Valley. Samford. Bryant Denny. I promise you short of Notre Dame SC sees nothing on that level every single season.

Assuming this is true, I had no idea that the last time Auburn won an OOC roadie was in 1997. That's simply amazing. The fact that it was only Virginia is just icing on the cake.

You listen to what you like. Meanwhile, SC now has to face a brutal home stretch including such football heavies as Washington, Arizona State, Oregon State and Stanford. I'm certain the bruising they'll take from the run has Oregon licking their chops.

As for the USC-WSU game you weren't posting on this board this week so I guess you aren't aware that I predicted USC would struggle there, and possibly even lose. I took a little bit of shit from some quarters for saying this but having followed USC for as long as I have and seeing the negative circumstances mounting this one sure felt like a potentially dangerous spot.

As it turned out, it was an ugly performance, definitely, but they were never in danger of losing.

...and had I posted this week prior, I would have said the same about Auburn having an injured starting QB, an injured star cornerback, a starting center with a torn ACL, two starting linebackers on suspension, a south carolina team with a speedy unknown starting for Steve Spurrier at home with two relaxed weeks to prepare in advance...but all that matters in the end is scoreboard and Auburn, much like SC, came away with an unimpressive win. It's still a win.

Just gotta take it and move on, hoping to stay undefeated while we wait for the injured to return and for the inexperienced kids to grow into their roles. Hopefully all that talent will keep us afloat until it's thoroughly game tested and fit to explode.

Sounds familiar. Good luck and [screwtheBCS]hope to see you in January[/screwtheBCS]. :wink:

in 2004 Allbarns OOC schedule was Louisina Munrow, The Citadel and Louisina Tech, all at Jordan Hare, glad to see them step up the OOC scheduling

Spinach Genie wrote:

Van wrote:Buc, to be fair, your win over Va Tech in '04 was not an OOC road win.

It was a bowl game, played at a neutral site.

Well, qualify it down then. When was the last time SC played a tough run without a cushion of four or five sub-500s waiting on the cool down? Do you see how silly this gets?

Pure backpedal and spin, that.

You'e going to have to get it in your head that no, I don't consider any four or five game stretch on any SEC schedule to ever be that imposing. A couple of 'em will be at home and in any given year the names appearing on the schdule are only tough by reputation and not by their play on the field.

You can't spin it, Buc. Either you play roadies OOC, or you don't. Obviously, you don't. I don't know if SoCalTrjn has his facts straight but if he does and it's true that Auburn's lone OOC road win in twenty fucking years came nine years ago against the mudfence that is Virginia then you've just got nothing...nothing at all.

The reality is that the top teams in the SEC are just like any other team. They have two or three games tops per season which are truly tough games. Some years it's only one truly tough game, since they don't play any OOC.

This year, for example, Auburn has only two truly tough games, both at home, a full month apart: LSU, which they won on some bad calls, and, possibly, Florida.

'Bama is not a tough game, not now. Tennessee is only marginal. (Wait, they don't play Tennessee this year.) Georgia, the same.

Lotsa big names, sure, but they're all paper tigers right now. A really good team should roll right through those teams.

OOC road games entail going to the other team's house and playing 'em in front of their own rabid fans.

And Auburn does it plenty.

No, they don't.

Four roadies a year by definition says so. Of those four roadies, fuck, even some of those are against SEC Nobodies.

Take SC to the swamp every year. Neyland. Death Valley. Samford. Bryant Denny. I promise you short of Notre Dame SC sees nothing on that level every single season.

Nobody in the SEC goes to all those places every year and those places aren't always tough every year anyway.

Four roadies per year, Buc, that's it.

Auburn's entire road schedule this year?

-Mississippi St

-S. Carolina.

-Ole Miss

-'Bama

Ahem.....uh...ahem..

YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!

ZERO OOC roadies. Zip, nein, nix, nada, fuckall SQUAT! NONE

For roadies total...all four teams are unranked...three of the four traditionally field squads of lepers.

Your entire road schedule this season consists of one game against a two loss team (so far) that gummed their way to a loss against Arkansas after barely beating Hawaii at home.

Jesus fuck, Buc. It wouldn't be so bad, 'cept that it's pretty much that way every goddamn year in the SEC. At worst, you might have to play two tough conference games. That's it, and even there you may get those games at home too.

Assuming this is true, I had no idea that the last time Auburn won an OOC roadie was in 1997. That's simply amazing. The fact that it was only Virginia is just icing on the cake.

You listen to what you like.

It's either true or it isn't. Is it? 'Cause, if it is, there's no "grey area" or "it's open to interpretation" possibilities here. That's absolutely laughable and you've got absolutely nuthin'.

Meanwhile, SC now has to face a brutal home stretch including such football heavies as Washington, Arizona State, Oregon State and Stanford. I'm certain the bruising they'll take from the run has Oregon licking their chops.

It oughtta stack up quite well against the likes of Arkansas State, Tulane, Buffalo, Ole Miss, MSU, S. Carolina and Arkansas.

Buc, that's one of the worst schedules ever, for anybody.

I'm surprised Auburn EVER gets anybody injured. They risk more each Wednesday, in shorts and pads.

As for the USC-WSU game you weren't posting on this board this week so I guess you aren't aware that I predicted USC would struggle there, and possibly even lose. I took a little bit of shit from some quarters for saying this but having followed USC for as long as I have and seeing the negative circumstances mounting this one sure felt like a potentially dangerous spot.

As it turned out, it was an ugly performance, definitely, but they were never in danger of losing.

...and had I posted this week prior, I would have said the same about Auburn having an injured starting QB, an injured star cornerback, a starting center with a torn ACL, two starting linebackers on suspension, a south carolina team with a speedy unknown starting for Steve Spurrier at home with two relaxed weeks to prepare in advance...but all that matters in the end is scoreboard and Auburn, much like SC, came away with an unimpressive win. It's still a win.

Agreed. In the Big Picture the W is all that matters. They both at least managed to keep their heads above water.

Just gotta take it and move on, hoping to stay undefeated while we wait for the injured to return and for the inexperienced kids to grow into their roles. Hopefully all that talent will keep us afloat until it's thoroughly game tested and fit to explode.

Sounds familiar. Good luck and [screwtheBCS]hope to see you in January[/screwtheBCS]. :wink:

In the pre season I picked OSU to meet Auburn in the BCS Title Game. I'll stand by that pick.

Worthless argument, Van. Your premise is the PAC talking points. They only one dwelling on them is the PAC. Surely those who create the various press polls and vegas odds aren't putting the SEC is the top echelon every year out of charity? Surely all those MNCs the SEC has collected over the years weren't out of kindness? I would imagine if three-quarters of the PAC were really anything other than mediocre floormats every year, someone would have noticed? Two, maybe three games Van. You're basing your argument on this. You see, the OOC argument is empty to me. I don't respect it. What counts to me is competition. Is SC a better program than Auburn? Yes. Is the PAC a better conference than the SEC? Laughable. Does SC play stronger competition on an annual basis? No. Are you going to sit here and tell me Cal only got their heads kicked in because of a road trip? Or WSU? Or Arizona? It might have something to do with who they were playing. The who, Auburn plays home and away. The where, Auburn's been there. Qualify it, but have a look at this. Six SEC schools rank in the top 25 all time to the PACs two. That's what the SEC is. Reputations don't just materialize, and they don't linger without reason for long. You're too thoughtful to be the atypical delusional PAC fan, (see SoCalTrjn) Van. You have one of the finest programs in the history of college football. You play a strong schedule, but you also play in a weak conference. Outside the PAC, no one debates this. If you don't like the rest of the college football world changing around you, most of the rest of us don't either. I don't like playing the mids to maximize money, but it does keep our stadium repaired. It builds us new facilities. It's going to build us a new swimming complex and basketball complex. In turn, the university profits. I'd love having Michigan, Notre Dame, Texas and USC on the schedule every year, Van, but there's a lot of competition for those sorts of games. It comes back to ratings. We'll play our Georgia Techs and West Virginias here and there just as you play your BYUs and Hawaiis. We'll get the ocassional USC and Florida State just as you get the Auburns and Nebraskas. We'll also play several top 25 teams every season. We'll play several recent MNC winners. We'll play teams who are putting some of the best NFL talent on the field. There's no need to apologize for that, and you PACs might as well resign yourselves to that one.

USC always plays several top 25 teams every season too.

Difference is, they play them any time, anywhere. They beat them, in their houses.

The Pac 10 doesn't need to apologize for their NFL representation. They do just fine. They also see much more turnover within their conference. Schools like Oregon, Oregon St, WSU and Cal, schools that were long doormats, they've risen to BCS Bowl Game levels of late. Washington has often been a national power. UCLA, too.

Lotta balance, is the point.

The SEC?

Ole Miss, MSU, Vandy, Kentucky, Arkansas and S. Carolina have never been a factor in the BCS or in the SEC, not in our lifetimes.

What little significance Arkansas ever brought to the table was back when they were a SWC team. So, you've got fully half of your conference playing the annual role of the Washington Generals, with no end in sight.

Again, I'll still say that overall the SEC is often the best conference, by the slightest of margins over the Big 10. I've never suggested otherwise and I defy you or anybody else to show where I have.

That's not the point.

The point is that the SEC isn't so far above the other conferences that they don't even need to play OOC. I just demonstrated Auburn's entire schedule this year and it's pretty much the same as it is in any other year: two tough games, and they're both at home, and that's it.

Playing in the SEC didn't give them any more tough games than any other team in any other major conference. Their schedule is mostly an absolute joke, a flat out insult, top to bottom.

One OOC road win in twenty years is the reason. It's also the reason Auburn and LSU have only one title apiece during that entire stretch, even though they always are ranked very highly.

They just don't earn it, not with their schedules. You can't start the season with a minimum of 9 preordained and utterly meaningless wins. No reason to respect that crap. You can't beat a downtrodden 'Bama and continue to try to thump your chest like you beat the Bear's 'Bama, not when you loaded up on Wofford and Buffalo and Kentucky all season long.

A win against an LSU here and a possibly resurgent Florida threre is nice, sure, but it's no different than Ohio State winning a couple of big games per year or USC doing the same.

No matter who you are....You HAVE to play some road games, and you HAVE to play OOC.

Buc, you can't trot out the "financial reality" excuse either for their ridiculous scheduling. Look, ALL schools have to somehow pay for new swimming pools and new weight rooms and secondary sports programs. Somehow though plenty of teams manage to do so while playing balanced schedules.

There's no reason that any team needs an 8-4 home vs road schedule to survive. That's not a decision to survive. That's gluttony, and cowardice. That's nothing but an unwillingness of each powerful program's AD to risk his job by risking losses.

USC and Oregon St also have to find ways to pay for all their program's needs. One's a wealthy private school located amidst a fuckload of wealthy and influential citizens and one's a less wealthy state school that's well out of the limelight.

They both get it done.

No reason Auburn, Florida State, LSU and Alabama couldn't be made to do so too, by the NCAA's scheduling committee.

That's what needs to happen, to rectify this nonsense. Schools like Auburn have to have the path of least resistance option taken from them.

6-6, everybody, everywhere. Wanna play Buffalo, La Tech and Bunghole A&M to pad your W-L schedule and keep your job? Fine, knock yourself out. Just know that you're going to also have to schedule a return trip to their place.

Auburn's never going to agree to play in Buffalo, obviously.

So, hey, voila, suddenly the AD at Auburn and the AD at OU will eventually be forced to pick up the phone and call each other, rather than the poor slob at McNeese St.

Gotta happen. Too many programs out there with zero sack, otherwise. Way too much abuse of the excuse.

Remove the possibility of the excuse and we're good. Everybody benefits.

Correction: Everybody benefits equally, as it should be. Most of all, fans of CF benefit the most, as it should be.

Then, yeah, give us a fucking playoffs! Plus One, bare minmum. This is not rocket science here. Two simple common sense rules changes and bam, the landscape of CF is completely transformed.

Buc,

Just stop. End it now. Not because I think you're losing but because Van simply will not quit. He'll just keep going. He has the time and desire to never end this thing.

You're also debating him on his #1 passion in life: OOC CF scheduling.

For Van, it goes:

1) ripping OOC college football schedules that aren't USC's
2) motorcycles
3) guys who dress really pretty and play the guitar well

Plus, you both have gotten to the point where you're recycling your same takes over, and over. Your points have been made.

My Inner Voice wrote:You're also debating him on his #1 passion in life: OOC CF scheduling.

For Van, it goes:

1) ripping OOC college football schedules that aren't USC's
2) motorcycles
3) guys who dress really pretty and play the guitar well

Hmmm...

Fuck, dude. Now you're gonna go and make me rank my passions??

Interesting concept. Can't exactly say as I've ever really thought about it in those terms before.

First off, I gotta tell ya', motorcycles would be FAR down on my list. Nowhere near the top. Can't even see the top, in fact, from way down there where motorcycles reside.

Sheeeit...

Okay...

#3: Reading and writing, in general. About anything, really. Probably my favorite hobby.

#2: Sports. Kinda ties in with #3 at this point in my life but I'd say the playing of, following of and debating of sports has been at or near the top of my life's central themes/time occupiers.

#1: The slutty minds and subsequent escapades of proper women. This one's always run neck and neck with sports with me. Depends on the season, or even the week, as to which one's #1.

Guitar would be well below those three things and motorcycling would be well below guitar. They'd both fall well below finding great places to eat, which might be #4 for me.

You're actually fairly correct though about the CF scheduling deal. I'm finding more and more of late that the inequities of CF really do piss me off. If I were in a high profile public position, say, if I were the Christopher Reeves of the crippling issue of CF's scheduling, yep, I'd probably make it my life's mission to get this shit fixed.

I'd probably end up taking a sting ray's fatal barb through the eyeball before I ever got anywhere with it but I'd campaign like a motherfucker right up until the very end...

Oh, I've been done...but as Van said earlier, it's not properly into the season unless him and I can debate this particular subject to pitiful exhaustion one more time. :D

Mgo, when Buc and I are eighty years old and watching football together in the old folk's home he'll still throw his dentures at me and I'll still respond by trying to stomp 'em through the linoleum with my walker...

That's just how we roll.

:-)

And I'll stroll in the nursing home, with my still young, functioning fresh set of legs, and tell you both to shut the fuck up.

Because that is how I roll.

And we'll ignore you and go on about our all important business of arguing back and forth because we're not about to take any guff from some young punk who lacks respect for his elders.

Then we'll have you forcibly removed from the premises.