Advantage of scheduling better non-conference games?

[JaguarUSF]

What is the reason to schedule better teams for non-conference games? Does it lead to higher poll rankings if you beat them or just play them? For .500 teams that struggle to get bowl elgible, wouldn't it be better to schdule bad teams to get 3 extra wins if you're not concerned with the polls?

[Guest [Icy]]

It's named strenght of schedule, the harder your schedule the better your wins will be valued to go up in the polls. Even loosing, it's better to lose agaisnt a top team than against a bad one. It's a hard work to find the best schedule for your team, real schools expend tons of resources just on planning that. As you said, you need to think on the amount of wins that you can get as one could make a difference, but also against who do you win and lose. There is not a best way of doing it, just evaluating your team, your rivals, the rivals of your rivals, etc. Btw, go Bulls! ;)

[JaguarUSF]

Da Bulls Yeah, USF should have beaten UConn last week...that was sad. Oh well, they can take down the Big East champs this week and feel a little bit better. Of course, it would have been cool to destroy the BCS by getting an automatic bid with 3 losses....of course, can't FSU qualify with 4?

[Azamien]

I think the best way to do it is this: If your team is strong enough to be in the hunt for a BCS game, schedule the best opponents you can. If your team isn't going to be in the BSC hunt, then schedule cupcakes to make sure you're bowl eligible.

[Tim Plum]

I wouldn't necessarily schedule cupcakes because a school's prestige, recruiting and monies will be affected. The better recruits play for more prestigous schools, prestige is gained by beating better opponents and moving up the ranks, more money comes to better schools.

[JaguarUSF]

Still, would a recruit prefer a 0-4 team that played all top 25 teams and lost or a 4-0 team that played bottom 25 teams and won?

[Azamien]

[QUOTE=Tim Plum]I wouldn't necessarily schedule cupcakes because a school's prestige, recruiting and monies will be affected. The better recruits play for more prestigous schools, prestige is gained by beating better opponents and moving up the ranks, more money comes to better schools.[/QUOTE] But if you have no chance of beating one of those better opponents, then the exposure of a bowl game is better than a loss to Kickyourbutt U.

[Tim Plum]

work your way up, if you're in the 70's then play 40-50's and work your way up in prestige

[coachcbj]

Okay, then what would you suggest for a team Like San Jose St. with a prestige of 35. It has been very hard to schedule games. It seems the better schools will only play me at their place. And the even lower schools wont play me at all. We have only for 4 homes built in so its very had to try to get two more home games plus a road game. BTW, Stanford should automatically be built into the schedule as the season opener. Its a rival game! They have been playing that game (usually at Stanford) for over 30 years now. I go every year. My parents and my brother and I all went to San Jose St. But we all worked at Stanford at some point in our lives. Is it possible to get that game added for the final release.

[HomerSimpson98]

[QUOTE=coachcbj]Okay, then what would you suggest for a team Like San Jose St. with a prestige of 35. It has been very hard to schedule games. It seems the better schools will only play me at their place. And the even lower schools wont play me at all. We have only for 4 homes built in so its very had to try to get two more home games plus a road game. BTW, Stanford should automatically be built into the schedule as the season opener. Its a rival game! They have been playing that game (usually at Stanford) for over 30 years now. I go every year. My parents and my brother and I all went to San Jose St. But we all worked at Stanford at some point in our lives. Is it possible to get that game added for the final release.[/QUOTE] coach, have you tried to edit the DB to make the 2 teams rivals and specify the rivalry week as week 1?

[coachcbj]

I didnt know we could add more then one rival in the database. Fresno St is already in there as a conference rival. Can I add Stanford too?

[HomerSimpson98]

Nah, I dont think so. But if you do this, I think you'll get what you are after. edit: Now that I think about this, there was someone who had a problem with rivalries between 2 different conferences. . .

[dubb93]

[QUOTE=coachcbj]I didnt know we could add more then one rival in the database. Fresno St is already in there as a conference rival. Can I add Stanford too?[/QUOTE] You could always delete Fresno as the rival and make it Stanford(set to week 15!). As long as you are Fresno's rival you should play each season. And since Stanford would be your new rival you guys would play each season too. It works for Miami-Florida-Florida St. Florida and Florida St. are rivals, but Florida St. is also Miami's rival. Just make sure conference rivals are set to week 0 and non-conference rivals to week 15(which means only 1 non-conference one possible).

[johnmcc]

Since i'm playing with UK now, i scheduled a couple of "cupcake" non conference games specially since i don't see them walking thru the SEC.

[dubb93]

It may also be smart to schedule local teams. Like when I was Indiana, I scheduled Cincy, Kentucky, and Miami of Ohio. My thinking was I want to beat the local teams, that will make us look more attractive to the recruits. I read somewhere that if a recruit is looking between 2 schools of equal standing his interest may go up for the school that beat the other. It is still a theory of mine at this point, but I'm sure it couldn't hurt.