On Monday, the Beavers announced that they will play the Sacramento State Hornets to open up the 2011-2012 season, in Corvallis. The game will take place on September 3rd.
Even though this doesn't really seem very newsworthy, I like what the Beavers did here. This past season was not too kind to the Beavers. That pretty much goes without saying. While I can admire them having the cojones to schedule road games against 2 of the top 7 teams in the country in the first 3 weeks of the season, I don't think it helped them at all. Now it's not always the case, but OSU knew how good Boise State and TCU were when they scheduled them.
I just believe that scheduling non-conference road games against elite teams in college football is a lose-lose situation in most cases. Not in all cases. In most cases. Case in point: Oregon State this past season. The Beavers had a really crappy season anyway, but losing games to TCU and Boise State did them no favors. I actually think some of the team's confidence was shaken after losing to Boise State.
All I'm saying is that yes, it helps to play a stronger than usual non-conference schedule if you want to climb in the rankings. But teams don't absolutely need to. If a team wins the big time games within their own conference schedule, that usually is good enough to get said team into the top 10 or even higher.
All I'm saying is that yes, it helps to play a stronger than usual non-conference schedule if you want to climb in the rankings. But teams don't absolutely need to. If a team wins the big time games within their own conference schedule, that usually is good enough to get said team into the top 10 or even higher.
If you play in a decent conference, which I would classify the Pac-10 as, you don't usually have to go out and play Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, TCU and other elite teams to climb in the polls. If you play in the WAC or the Big East, then yes, to open anyone's eyes, you have to get that big win against a giant program.
This season, Auburn played Arkansas State, Clemson, Louisiana-Monroe, and Chattanooga for their non-conference schedule. They also play in a major BCS conference and so just winning their conference serves them well enough. They beat Alabama, LSU, Arkansas and South Carolina twice. All of those are great teams and in their own conference.
Look at Oregon too. They played New Mexico, Portland State, and what turned out to be a not-very-good Tennessee team. They then ran the table in the Pac-10, which went a lot further for them than even their road win in Knoxville. They beat Stanford, Arizona and USC and smoked the rest of the competition. They beat the big time teams within their own conference.
Neither of these teams had to go out and take on Boise State or Florida to make their case. So if Oregon, Auburn, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, or LSU don't need to go out of conference to win big games, why should the middle-of-the-road Oregon State Beavers. Just beat USC, Stanford, Oregon and Arizona and you'll find Oregon State pretty high up in the polls come the end of the season.
I just hope the Beavers take it easy over the next couple years from looking for a huge upset win over a powerhouse out-of-conference school. They need to focus more on not getting run by the lowly Wazzu Cougars at home dammit. They need to settle down for a couple years, get some good experience for the current players and bring in a few good new recruits, and then go out and try to be giant killers of the college football world.
Here is the Beavers complete 2011 schedule:
Sept. 3 Sacramento State
Sept. 10 at Wisconsin
Sept. 17 Bye
Sept. 24 UCLA
Oct. 1 at Arizona State
Oct. 8 Arizona
Oct. 15 BYU
Oct. 22 vs. Washington State (@ Qwest Field, Seattle)
Oct. 29 at Utah
Nov. 5 Stanford (Homecoming)
Nov. 12 vs. California (@ AT&T Park)
Nov. 19 Washington (Dad's Weekend)
Nov. 26 at Oregon
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