But some perspective: Between 1902 and 1973, 41 consecutive games against Clemson were played in Atlanta. Maybe it's the least Tech could do to give them two straight at Clemson.
How do you calculate Ease of Schedule? Specifically, how do you measure the "talent of the team". That's why this is stupid. Strength of Schedule is a flawed but measurable way to compare two teams outside of a playoff system for some sort of post season award or inclusion in a playoff, so how would you numerically measure the talent of FSU vs. Bama vs. Ohio State? Through subjective recruiting rankings of prior year's classes and individuals that have been conducted over the past 5 years, I guess. But I don't see how that's better than comparing it to actual results of teams playing teams from the current year.
It's all about the dollar. Ourhome attendance is weak so we give up games for money.
I don’t think predicting seasons is the point is it?
Yet, remarkably, many - nay, all - other ACC schools end up with easier schedules than Tech does. Check the ratings in the original post. The closest Acc outfit is UVA at 24. True, some of this is NC schools wanting to play each other, but really now Tech's AD must have something to say about this. If I were Batt I'd be hopping mad about this and I'd keep on complaining. The ACC needs the Atlanta market and for that Tech has to succeed.
The big problem I have with the attitude is that schedules are made years in advance, and we don't have a clue what the strength of teams will be in even two or three years. How do we know what the strength of schedule will be in four or five years? The ACC schedule is set until 2030. The OOC non-FCS games are set thru 2027. Football schedules are very difficult to change year to year. When do you want to change the schedule to something more difficult to have a shot at the playoffs? 2026? What if Key leaves after 2025 and we have a new coach? In that case you have now put a difficult schedule on a new coach. This is something that is much easier to judge in hindsight than it is in the future.
Honest question: I never understood this. CBB has schedule changes until about 2 months from opening tip. 2020 season proved that CFB schedules can be set for a year with about 6 months (or less) notice. What is the reason that CFB schedules are held like sacred cows and cant be touched? NFL does new scheduling each year without issue. But CFB has to preserve the 2028 scheduling between directional state u and a perennial top5 recruiting class state flagship?
For one thing, in CFB there are only a few OOC games for a team to work with, and finding a new opponent for a game slot isn't easy among the Power 4 conferences. This doesn't mean we can't work with the mutts to change things, but that game is considered sacred by many.
To your point, we don’t know what the strength of a team will be years down the road. But the likelihood of a “factory” school being a tough out is much higher than that of a non-factory. Traditionally. there has been a huge disparity in schedule difficulty between GT and our Coastal division peers such as Virginia Tech. The obvious reason is no one else had Clemson and the mutts as permanent rivals. But the ACC schedulers haven’t had a habit of doing us any favors either. In 2019, VT goes 8-4 against a schedule featuring only ND as a traditional power (a loss), and gets a Belk Bowl bid. In the ACC-only 2020 season, we went 1-2 against FSU, Clemson, and Notre Dame. VT only had to get a beatdown from Clemson.
The conference schedule can be changed quickly, but it is still a big deal. Changing the conference schedule isn't just shifting one or two games, it is changing the entire schedule for every team. The ACC went through that practice in the past year because of the changes to the conference makeup. Every change would affect other teams and schedules. If GT wanted to swap Pitt and Clemson for SMU and Stanford next year, that would mean that an opponents for SMU and Stanford would have to change. It would have to be away games for the new opponents, so other teams would have to have new opponents. Making such changes would have to take into account the home/away balance for each team impacted. It would have to take into account the desire for every ACC team to play every other ACC team within a certain time frame. It would have to take into account the announced goal of not having East Coast teams travel to the West Coast more than a certain amount. They went through this exercise of trying to come up with a rotating schedule that met all of the desired criteria, and this is what they came up with. Do they really want to go through the entire process again?
Impressive to who? FSU just went undefeated and the entire nation yawned and laughed including many GT fans on this board. GT could go 10-2 and no one will give us two thoughts. Until we do it for several years no one care and even then the6 won’t because the ACC, proven by the committee, is not seen as a serious conference. I wish it weren’t that way but it is. The ACC will get 1 team in the tourney and they’ll ensure a 2nd team is ranked outside the top 12. It’s just business and the ACC is not good for the SEC/BIG business.
So you are admitting the SEC and B1G are better football Conferences it seems. Then they deservedly should get more teams in the CFP, right?
I don't think it is this cut and dry. I do think teams being equal will favor the SEC and B10. But I think you have a 2 loss team after the ACC championship and being ranking in the Top Ten would have a good chance. Yes if everyone has 3 losses or more, no shot. But when you look at the committee, I just don't see the build in bias that you do.
The rub isn't that FSU would not have made it into a 12 team playoff. The rub is that an undefeated P5 champion was left out for two defeated P5 champions. If we take that same loss differential to a 12 team playoff, then it is very possible that a 3 loss team could get in over a 2 loss ACC team. It isn't about an actual criteria, it is about a narrative. That narrative has changed every year to match whatever Bill Hancock wants it to be.
