Question: Does the 2017 schedule prove that the 1978 schedule is impossible to do?

Well I don’t truly know because I wasn’t around in 1978, but I imagine that national perception played a large part in that schedule since there was no NC game and it was all based on polling. Alabama was snubbed in 1977 and was still looked down on by media so maybe Coach Bryant wanted an indisputably difficult schedule so there could be no excuses? We no longer need to win such a big popularity contest anymore, we just have to make it into the top 4 teams to get our shot. So the dynamics of necessary scheduling are different now. IMO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

SOC matters. Imagine if Wisconsin played even one good ooc game. They likely would have been in or it would have propped up their ranking going in to the stretch run of the season. They were discounted all year because they were in the weak half of the Big 10 and played no one out of conference. They didn't even have a FSU on their resume. Also anyone that knows football knows FSU was not the same once their qb went down. The team we played was top 10.

Per the USA Today College Football Encyclopedia, the following teams played the toughest schedule in 1978:

1) Notre Dame (.713 opponents winning pct)
2) USC (.691)
3) Alabama (.650)

So just starting with that particular year, I figured I'd take a look (my volume ends in 2008) at anyone who won it all and played a tougher schedule than .650. Most years there has been - AT MOST - one team that played .650 or better (in 1979, both Penn St and UCLA beat that pct wise).

1982 - Penn St (.687)

1983 - Auburn (.701, didn't win it but should have)

In 1985, four teams - Notre Dame, Auburn, Alabama, and Florida - played schedules with winning pct of .655 or above.

1988 - Miami (.651) - naturally, this was one of the years they DID NOT win it all.
1989 - Notre Dame (.651) - naturally, didn't win it all
1990 - national champ Colorado was close (.646)
1993 - national champ FSU was close (.645)

1995 - just a note: Nebraska, regarded as an all-time great team? .598

1999 - two-loss Alabama faced a murderer's row of .685 winning percentage. Of course, this one is slightly inflated because we played Florida twice.

2000 - Florida St lost title game, faced a .652 schedule

2003 - Shula's first team faced a .677 schedule....keep in mind this team did not play in either the SEC title game or a bowl game......

2005 - Oklahoma faced a .707 schedule......not surprisingly, they didn't make the title game

2006 - national champion Florida .651



So since 1978, you have FOUR national champs - 1978 USC, 1978 Bama, 1982 Penn State, 2006 Florida - who faced a schedule of .650 or over and won the national title.

NONE of those teams went UNDEFEATED.......

Of course, the more recent numbers since 2014 will ALWAYS be higher because you face teams in the playoffs with records of 12-1, 13-1, 14-0, and if you play for the title you face TWO of them.

The only possible unbeatens I'd have to check are 2010 Auburn and 2013 FSU. I doubt either face that tough a schedule.

RammerJammer14 said:

Well I don’t truly know because I wasn’t around in 1978, but I imagine that national perception played a large part in that schedule since there was no NC game and it was all based on polling. Alabama was snubbed in 1977 and was still looked down on by media so maybe Coach Bryant wanted an indisputably difficult schedule so there could be no excuses? We no longer need to win such a big popularity contest anymore, we just have to make it into the top 4 teams to get our shot. So the dynamics of necessary scheduling are different now. IMO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Not to sound snarky but the schedules are made years in advance. Our trip to Seattle that year was the second half of a home and home. Washington came to Tuscaloosa in 1975, we went there in 1978. USC was the second half of the 1977 home and home. Nebraska was the second half of a home and home as well......

...so there's no way Coach Bryant could have scheduled ANY of these games AFTER the 1977 snub.

And besides, USC faced a tougher schedule than we did if that's the argument. AND they beat us head to head.


Now to answer 81s original query:

There has been an argument over the years that we should drop the neutral site tags on big OOC for H/H and also drop the Non P5 and FCS games altogether for more “exciting” and more “challenging” schedules like the 1978 schedule.

In 1978, the SEC was NOTHING like it is today. Fans saying we should schedule like it's 1978 are forgetting that half of the games back then (not 1/3) were out of conference, there was no SEC championship game to consider, and Florida was not yet anything resembling a national power.

My question is “why?” Given that throughout the 2017 season, that FSU game alone continued to plague us for the entire regular season due to injuries and if not for the cupcake games then we probably wouldn’t get quality playing time from the backups and rest to get by with only 1 loss. I think the fact that USC and tOSU played tougher schedules but still got left in the cold for a team that played Fresno, Mercer, and CSU. We don’t have to impress pollsters anymore just have to remind the committee of our track record.

SOS is really a "fallback" argument when two teams SEEM to have the same credentials. It has no bearing otherwise. Ohio St may well have played a tougher schedule but that simply did not excuse a 31-point loss to Iowa. Maybe if it was a 3-point loss to Iowa we're talking Ohio St in the playoff.

Seriously, I don’t see many LSU fans celebrating the 2011 schedule after the BCSNCG. That is probably the closest schedule to the 1978 schedule in modern football, and LSU was fortunate to go 13-0 even with that loaded team. But they still finished without the crystal football and I haven’t heard one LSU fan gloat about that schedule since.

Well, while I don't want to disparage a team as good that team was, anyone who saw that LSU-Alabama regular season contest KNEW - if they were honest with themselves - that it was a situation where the clearly better team didn't win the game. Seven different things went wrong for us, LSU played about as close to a perfect game as they could have (2 INTs excepted).....and it STILL took them to overtime to beat us. Les Miles couldn't say, 'Hell, no I don't want to play them again' when asked, but I guarantee you he knew it was going to go the way it did.


So does this finally prove that having an “exciting”schedule does you no favors? Or does having an “exciting” schedule trump a national championship off a weaker schedule?

I get it from the standpoint of season ticket holders wanting better games but.......no. There are four teams right now that don't have to worry about their schedule if we have the playoff debate: us, Ohio State, OU, and Clemson.

So it does us no favors.

Last time I looked there is no spiffy trophy for the toughest OOC schedule, but if there were I doubt the winner would have very many crystal footballs. Bama fans seem to have forgotten how tough it is to win in this league, to win on the road in this league.

The only people fussing about our schedule are our own season ticket holders, who resent the neutral site games, the Big Ten, who like to blame their nine game conference season and our habit of scheduling a IAA before Auburn, and radio talk show hosts that need hour-eating content. Being honest I don't care who we play, but I like the of scheduling a couple games per year where the younger players can see the field. I think that's important.

Rtr

bamamick said:

Last time I looked there is no spiffy trophy for the toughest OOC schedule, but if there were I doubt the winner would have very many crystal footballs. Bama fans seem to have forgotten how tough it is to win in this league, to win on the road in this league.

The only people fussing about our schedule are our own season ticket holders, who resent the neutral site games, the Big Ten, who like to blame their nine game conference season and our habit of scheduling a IAA before Auburn, and radio talk show hosts that need hour-eating content. Being honest I don't care who we play, but I like the of scheduling a couple games per year where the younger players can see the field. I think that's important.

Rtr

Click to expand...

Generally speaking I agree.

And besides - overlooked in the whole "our conference plays nine games" is the fact that SOME of our OOC foes would wipe the floor with some IN CONFERENCE teams. Does anyone REALLY believe that Kansas would beat Fresno State? What about Baylor right now? They lost to both Liberty and UTSA. What about Illinois? Anyone REALLY think they'd give us more of a game than Colorado State?

No team in the SEC had LESS than four wins. SIX of the fourteen Big 10 teams (that's nearly HALF the conference) had THREE or fewer, and even if they want to argue "but the SEC beat those FCS teams" then that lowers it to three and there were STILL four Big Ten teams with 2 or fewer wins.

This argument has become a ridiculous cliche. Anyone here think Alabama, Auburn, or Georgia - clearly the three best teams in the SEC last year - wouldn't roll Illinois, Maryland, Rutgers, Kansas, Baylor, or Indiana? The Hoosiers played Charleston Southern right before they played Michigan. Isn't that a crock?

FACT: this frivolous objection wouldn't even be made had Ohio State beaten Iowa by 31 points rather than lost by 31.

81usaf92 said:

There has been an argument over the years that we should drop the neutral site tags on big OOC for H/H and also drop the Non P5 and FCS games altogether for more “exciting” and more “challenging” schedules like the 1978 schedule.

My question is “why?” Given that throughout the 2017 season, that FSU game alone continued to plague us for the entire regular season due to injuries and if not for the cupcake games then we probably wouldn’t get quality playing time from the backups and rest to get by with only 1 loss. I think the fact that USC and tOSU played tougher schedules but still got left in the cold for a team that played Fresno, Mercer, and CSU. We don’t have to impress pollsters anymore just have to remind the committee of our track record.

Seriously, I don’t see many LSU fans celebrating the 2011 schedule after the BCSNCG. That is probably the closest schedule to the 1978 schedule in modern football, and LSU was fortunate to go 13-0 even with that loaded team. But they still finished without the crystal football and I haven’t heard one LSU fan gloat about that schedule since.

So does this finally prove that having an “exciting”schedule does you no favors? Or does having an “exciting” schedule trump a national championship off a weaker schedule?

Click to expand...

Bama has played 3-5 schedules during the Saban era that were considered tougher than '78. In 2016 Bama played 10 ranked teams ('78 played 5), more than anyone in history. Bama played 3 of the top 4 teams in the final poll, itself being the only other one. They played 13 bowl or FCS playoff teams. So, yes it can be done and has been. But to address your primary point: I agree that it is not necessary for Bama to play a tougher OOC. Btw, last year FSU, Fresno and CSU finished 35, 38, 79 in the Massey Composite rankings. Even with all of the whining, I assume that is better than average. In 2015 they played 9 ranked teams, etc...

Alabama has played within the rules.

When the NCAA rules are changed, then we will change.
(No reason to complicate things for ourselves when we don't have to do it)

I have learned that facts do not matter. Throw that SOS out the window along with those stats. What Vegas thinks does not matter. Vegas had Bama favored to win the CFP when most others were saying "they don't deserve to be there. As hard as it is for me to grasp, it doesn't not matter what I think. The only thing that matter is the PERCEPTION of the teams to those who cast votes. In a beauty contest that same PERCEPTION only matters to that panel who cast votes.

Note: see Selma's post three above this one. As he points out it is perception that counts. Oregon State and Illinois would probably lose to half the G5 but that is not the case Cloutwise.

RammerJammer14 said:

Well I don’t truly know because I wasn’t around in 1978, but I imagine that national perception played a large part in that schedule since there was no NC game and it was all based on polling. Alabama was snubbed in 1977 and was still looked down on by media so maybe Coach Bryant wanted an indisputably difficult schedule so there could be no excuses? We no longer need to win such a big popularity contest anymore, we just have to make it into the top 4 teams to get our shot. So the dynamics of necessary scheduling are different now. IMO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

You are right, scheduling is far different now than then. Actually, everything is. In 1978, Alabama was in the midst of a decade of dominating the SEC, which was not viewed as favorably as it is now. The 1977 polls would not have had anything to do with the schedule, as those were made out far in advance then as now, but Coach Bryant was aware of the need to showcase his team and not have it pigeonholed as only a Southern power. At that time, there was still lingering bias toward other regions, especially among the more influential sportswriters and power brokers. As long as the SEC remains as powerful as it has been in the last couple of decades, OOC scheduling shouldn't be an issue for Alabama's national standing. I don't expect major changes in either.