this years upcoming nonconference is historically terrible, but im willing to accept that.
but all the other future schedules are just bad too (going all the way to 2028)…and that’s where i have a problem
it started with Hunter Yurachek’s pact that we’d only do home and homes at TDECU Stadium (which would limit the caliber of p5 we could get) but that we wouldnt play FCS anymore… that we’d play 2 p5 and 2 local g5 every year
it only took 2 years to give up on the no fcs thing and “only playing houston games at TDECU” but we already scheduled a bunch of weak p5 to fit the 2p5-2g5 rule, like Kansas (simply because p5)… the 2p5 2g5 rule was dumb from the start … i’m fine with playing fcs, im fine with doing a 1 off in the Texans stadium and i really hope we do whatever needs to be done to improve the caliber of p5 we play (2 for 1 with ND, an uneven neutral with Ohio state… i dont care, get them on the schedule)
majority of us here, a big portion of our best memories with the team are from beating high caliber Non Conference (top 5 Oklahoma, Oklahoma state, Louisville, ucla. oregon, Mississippi state) i hope 2030 isnt the next time we see a ranked brand name team vs the cougars in the regular season
Colorado and Boise State is solid OOC… Also, Utah and Colorado the following season… If we could add a Tech type team as well that’s pretty salty in OOC…
Schedule is not awful. Our Conference opponents can sometimes be awful.
UCLA has proven that they will play us. Schedule them as often as possible, home and away. There are worse things than going to The Rose Bowl, then the Beach!
Louisville wasn’t bad they were 8-4 that year and the conference had several other notable wins. Like Temple beating Penn St. and Memphis beating #3 Ole Miss.
thats assuming we run the table every year…weak schedule are only okay if you 12-1 or better…anything else everyone becomes aware of of bad the schedule is…
we fired 2 different coaches on 8-4 seasons because we were all aware how bad the schedule was, and no one enjoyed those season… the 2016 season at 9-4 was celebrated here on a tougher schedule, we were ready to offer a coach 5mil (3mil more than any other g5) right after than season
It was a 2 for 1 and the home game for USF is at an NFL stadium that will have more ND fans than USF fans. Plus USF even only got that because ND needed a 2020 OOC opponent I believe.
They were 5-3 in ACC. Not a single win over a team with a winning FBS record.
And we didn’t run the table in conference. We sharted in East Hartford.
We will never be in the playoff. Ever. Goal should be access bowl. Nobody has been as successful as UCF in reaching that goal. Their non-conference schedules are the perfect model.
I actually like our schedules going forward with Utah, Colorado , Boise and this yr’s schedule bc we need wins to build the program until we’re solid. Tom Osborne was asked to advise us way back and he said you need wins to build a program then go up from there when ready and he’s right. We don’t need 3 losses or 2 ooc loses then play a tough aac schedule. The aac is actually a good football conf. , we just aren’t getting paid enough by Espn and we should be p6. Anyway, we need wins bc at the end of day, we like 8&4 or better.
2015 was our best season in the modern Coog era and our OOC highlight was beating a 7 win L’ville team.
2011 was probably our second best season of the modern Coog era and the OOC highlight was beating a 6 win UCLA at home.
2006 was the break through year in winning CUSA and our OOC highlights were beating a 7 win Ok State team and losing close on the road to a 7 win Miami team (and we lost to Ulala at home (yuck)).
Boise, BYU, Colorado, Tech in a year, Utah and even Kansas could all be as good as those teams when we play them.
2009 and 2016 are kind of instructive in that we had really strong OOCs and got some great wins, but we also cratered in conference play. Herman at the time said he didn’t want to play a schedule like the 2016 schedule going forward.
Scheduling one and dones to get thrashed at Michigan, OU, or wherever else wasn’t really fun.
As the program gets built back up I’m game for either a true 2 for 1, home and home where our home game is at NRG, or season opening “neutral” game hyped by ESPN that’s more of a road game with big programs like OSU, Texas, Georgia, ND, etc., but even those options aren’t really going to be on the table until the program gets built back up and even then probably not at all.
We had Washington st or wash last yr but cancelled bc of covid. In the past 10 yrs before this, I only recall Arizona under sumlin and maybe Oregon so it seems we’re targeting future games with col and Utah on the future ones.
Our best seasons were 1976 when we finished #4 in country (beat #9 aTm, #5 TT, and #4 Maryland) and 1979 when we finished #5 in country (beat #4 Arkansas, #8UT, & #7Nebraska).
Considering overall competition, other years were good, but not as good as 76 & 79. You must have meant 2015, because we lost to 3 mediocre unranked teams in 2016.
No I mentioned 2016 on purpose. We played Oklahoma in a nearly sold out Reliant and captured the attention of the whole country. We also played Louisville that year in a sold out TDECU.
I would think that those two could be our two biggest regular season games since we left the SWC.
