If there was one thing to take away from the release of the first College Football Playoff rankings this week, it might have been the importance strength of schedule really will be moving forward. The sample size is obviously miniscule at the moment, but seeing Baylor, a team that rallied to defeat TCU, be ranked six spots behind the Horned Frogs in the first rankings released by college football’s new selection committee was telling. After the release of the rankings, committee chair and Arkansas Athletics Director Jeff Long explained Baylor’s ranking by simply suggesting the Bears, defending Big 12 champions, simply had not been challenged enough overall with their schedule. You could make the argument TCU has not been tested much wither with games against SMU and Samford, but Minnesota turned out to look like a decent win as the season has developed.
One loss paired with a weak schedule can set a team back in the playoff hunt. Just look at Ohio State as well. The home loss to Virginia Tech has crushed the Buckeyes in the playoff discussion at this point, whereas Michigan State is given much more respect with a loss on the road at Oregon. This is not to say this is an exact science, because it isn’t, but perception of a challenge appears to be important in the eyes of the selection committee. A loss with a weak schedule just might be enough to derail the playoff train for any playoff hopefuls.
If you think Penn State will have a legitimate chance to be a player in the College Football Playoff conversation in the future, once the roster gets back to full speed through recruiting, then what happened yesterday should come as a mild concern.
Penn State added Appalachian State to the 2018 non-conference schedule, filling the last scheduling vacancy through the end of the 2018 season. Appalachian State, the little FCS program that once toppled Michigan in the Big House, is playing its first season in the FBS Sun Belt Conference this season. In 2018 it will playing its fourth season of FBS football, which gives it some time to grow as a program. However, no matter what progress is made with the program’s development over the next three years, Appalachian State should figure to be considered a weak opponent, relatively speaking. If Penn State was still on NCAA sanctions related to bowl eligibility and scholarship limits, this kind of non-conference scheduling would make plenty of sense, as winning games would come at a premium and still have some importance in keeping the program moving forward. But that will no longer be the case, as Penn State is eligible for postseason contention now. The roster still has to be refueled though, which I believe it will, and I would assume it takes another year or two (at the minimum) before we can realistically entertain the possibility of Penn State competing for the Big Ten and a playoff spot. Here are Penn State’s non-conference opponents for the upcoming seasons;
2015: at Temple, Buffalo, San Diego State, Army
2016: Kent State, at Pittsburgh, Temple
2017: Akron, Pittsburgh, Georgia State
2018: Appalachian State, at Pittsburgh, Kent State
The most attractive opponent on those upcoming schedules is Pittsburgh, the only power conference opponent to be played over the next four seasons (the four-game series continues in 2019, but that is the only non-conference match-up lined up at this time for that season). This also makes it important for Penn State to see success at Pittsburgh as well. Having a successful power conference opponent on the schedule can make a major difference in how a schedule is evaluated. Having just one good power conference opponent on the schedule can be enough to overlook any other inferior opponents on the schedule. Again, refer to what has happened early on with Baylor (SMU, Northwestern State, @ Buffalo) and TCU (Samford, Minnesota, @ SMU). Who would have thought Minnesota could make that much of a difference?
And this works the other way around as well. Pittsburgh benefits from the ACC’s scheduling deal with Notre Dame in football with games against the Irish in 2015 and 2018 on the rotation, but it should go without saying from a Pittsburgh perspective that the Panthers could theoretically benefit from having a healthy Penn State program on their schedule as well, in the event Pittsburgh makes any noise in the ACC. But Pittsburgh is not relying so heavily on Penn State on its non-conference schedule. The Panthers have a home-and-home scheduled with Oklahoma State in 2016 and 2017 in addition to the games with Penn State those years.
The non-conference scheduling efforts at Penn State look to provide for more challenges beyond 2018, of course. After one more game with Pittsburgh in 2019, Penn State has two games scheduled with Syracuse in 2020-2021, two more with Virginia Tech in 2022-2023 and a home-and-home series with West Virgina in 2023 and 2024. There is also one more game with Virginia that is owed as part of a previous home-and-home scheduling agreement, although I am not 100 percent sure what the status of that one is. Virginia was supposed to play at Penn State in 2013 after Penn State made the trip south in 2012, but Virginia backed out to host Oregon instead. Virginia owes a return trip, but this could just as easily be scrapped in the long run. Whatever the case is, Virginia cannot appear on the schedule until at least 2019 unless Penn State ditches one of its other non-conference match-ups.
Time will tell just how the College Football Playoff selection committee will continue to evaluate Baylor. If the Bears go 11-1 and win the Big 12, would they be passed over in favor of teams that have done more in non-conference play? Image is everything it seems for now, and Penn State’s future non-conference scheduling does not look all that pretty unless Pittsburgh is a viable threat in the ACC.
Winning still matters most, but allowing for a wider margin of error can be a strategic move.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
