Toughest ACC non-conference schedule: GT of course

Root4GT

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Games get rescheduled all the time.

”Radakovich said he contacted Alabama athletics director Mal Moore in December to discuss postponing the series because, at the time, he was considering some alternatives that would help Tech's recruiting efforts, as well as balance the schedule.“

Can you really hold it against Alabama for a rescheduled GT game when it’s GT asking for the postponement?
Sure he can as well as the rest that have SEC Dysphobia! I don't like them at all but realize they win the championship 3 to 1 versus all other college football teams. It helps not living in the Southeast where you bump into the many SEC folks that have very little else in their lives that they get joy from.
 

yeti92

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Sure he can as well as the rest that have SEC Dysphobia! I don't like them at all but realize they win the championship 3 to 1 versus all other college football teams. It helps not living in the Southeast where you bump into the many SEC folks that have very little else in their lives that they get joy from.
You must have me confused with someone else.
 

RonJohn

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I'd love to see that same statistic for just OOC games. That would be interesting.
You can notice that five of the top ten are SEC West teams. They are ranked so high because they play each other, which means they play a lot of highly ranked teams, which means when they play each other they get ranked high, which means that they play a lot of highly ranked teams, ............
 

g0lftime

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You can notice that five of the top ten are SEC West teams. They are ranked so high because they play each other, which means they play a lot of highly ranked teams, which means when they play each other they get ranked high, which means that they play a lot of highly ranked teams, ............
Makes for better tv. People more likely to watch teams with higher rankings play each other.
 

Root4GT

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You must have me confused with someone else.

You can notice that five of the top ten are SEC West teams. They are ranked so high because they play each other, which means they play a lot of highly ranked teams, which means when they play each other they get ranked high, which means that they play a lot of highly ranked teams, ............
SEC West Teams have won 10 of the last 20 National Championships. Three of the 7 teams have won NCs. There is a reason they get the high rankings.
 

RonJohn

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SEC West Teams have won 10 of the last 20 National Championships. Three of the 7 teams have won NCs. There is a reason they get the high rankings.
Of those three teams, only Alabama has been a consistently good upper level team. Auburn since 2013 has been third or lower in the SEC West much more than not, and the last two years has been at the bottom of the SEC West. LSU won the championship in 2007 and 2017, they have been very up and down. More up than Auburn, but they have had similarly bad years. They made it to the championship game in 2011, and in my opinion should have played someone besides Alabama since they had already played. Hard to judge relative strength if you only ever play with yourselves and never have any relative measurements. Alabama has won 6 since 2009. They are the one team in the SEC that has been a dynasty team in the last decade plus.

Another thing I would point out is that because of the way the rankings work, the SEC was all but guaranteed a spot in the BCS championship game. It didn't matter what other teams in other conferences did, it was always pre-ordained to be one SEC team against some other team from another conference. with the exception that in 2011 it was two SEC teams in the championship game. The SEC is definitely the best at spin.
 

Root4GT

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Of those three teams, only Alabama has been a consistently good upper level team. Auburn since 2013 has been third or lower in the SEC West much more than not, and the last two years has been at the bottom of the SEC West. LSU won the championship in 2007 and 2017, they have been very up and down. More up than Auburn, but they have had similarly bad years. They made it to the championship game in 2011, and in my opinion should have played someone besides Alabama since they had already played. Hard to judge relative strength if you only ever play with yourselves and never have any relative measurements. Alabama has won 6 since 2009. They are the one team in the SEC that has been a dynasty team in the last decade plus.

Another thing I would point out is that because of the way the rankings work, the SEC was all but guaranteed a spot in the BCS championship game. It didn't matter what other teams in other conferences did, it was always pre-ordained to be one SEC team against some other team from another conference. with the exception that in 2011 it was two SEC teams in the championship game. The SEC is definitely the best at spin.
Nice rational. What other Conference can make anywhere near the claim the SEC can? That's not even counting FLA and UGA's NCs. FSU and Clemson have won 3 between them. No other ACC team has even sniffed the playoffs and rightfully so. Last year Tenn was on the verge of making the playoffs until Hooker got hurt. The B1G, ACC and Big 12 need to win the significant OOC games on a regular basis. They haven't for 15 or so years!
 

roadkill

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The SEC overall is good. By most every metric, SEC teams in aggregate are superior to other conferences. They were only marginally better 15-20 years ago, but the gap has increased.

What seems core to the disagreement between many posters in this thread is the disparity between the actual degree to which they are superior, relative to the position to which they have successfully hyped themselves. We can discuss all day how many SEC teams schedule inferior OOC opponents, etc., all to bolster the hype. Bottom line is that they have controlled the narrative, and it's working.

At this point, the ACC (and the B1G and B12) need to have multiple teams competing for the playoffs. The current ranking process puts other conferences at a disadvantage, but until other conferences start dominating the head-to-head matchups, nothing will change. I want GT to be good. I also want Clemson and FSU to both be good again at the same time – think mid-2010’s time frame.
 

RonJohn

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Nice rational. What other Conference can make anywhere near the claim the SEC can? That's not even counting FLA and UGA's NCs. FSU and Clemson have won 3 between them. No other ACC team has even sniffed the playoffs and rightfully so. Last year Tenn was on the verge of making the playoffs until Hooker got hurt. The B1G, ACC and Big 12 need to win the significant OOC games on a regular basis. They haven't for 15 or so years!
That is only because when they DO win the OOC games, there is spin that it doesn't matter. Ole Miss is a bottom feeder (until the beat UF). The SEC teams don't care about bowl games, so losing doesn't matter, (but it is absolute proof when they win).

Don't misunderstand all of my statements. I do think that the SEC has been the best football conference for the past 20 years. I just do not believe that the gap is as far as the hype makes out. I do not believe that a team like Miss State would DOMINATE the Big12 if they moved to that conference. The SEC has had some really strong teams at the top, but they are not as deep and completely dominant as an overall conference.
 

yeti92

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Nice rational. What other Conference can make anywhere near the claim the SEC can? That's not even counting FLA and UGA's NCs. FSU and Clemson have won 3 between them. No other ACC team has even sniffed the playoffs and rightfully so. Last year Tenn was on the verge of making the playoffs until Hooker got hurt. The B1G, ACC and Big 12 need to win the significant OOC games on a regular basis. They haven't for 15 or so years!
What does a Florida national championship in 2007 have to do with Florida in 2023 though? Florida has had losing records 3 of the last 6 years. Auburn has had losing records the last two years. LSU had a losing season in 2021 and was 5-5 in 2020. Have these teams been good in the past, yea, some of them like LSU are consistently good. That doesn't make them automatically good going forward regardless of results, but their losses damage their reputations far less and receive far more excuses than equivalent teams from other conferences.

So you are clear, because you seem confused, I think the SEC is the strongest conference at the top and has been for a while. They routinely have 2-3 teams that are very very good, which is more than any other conferences usually have. But the rest of their conference in any given year is comparable to anyone else outside the SEC but gets hyped as being super tough purely by association with those top few teams when it's not the case.
 

takethepoints

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As I have said over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, Tech needs to start scheduling to win.To some extent we are stuck; we will probably never get Ugag off our schedule and that means intermittent success. But why Ole Miss? And why don't we try to get Clemson on the schedule every other year? I know there are all these "traditional rivalry" ideas, but isn't that becoming a trifle quaint these days? Trying to get as many teams on the schedule that you have a good chance to whip every single year should be task #1 for our AD. It obviously hasn't been and the program is suffering for it.

Here endeth the lesson.
 

slugboy

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As I have said over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, Tech needs to start scheduling to win.To some extent we are stuck; we will probably never get Ugag off our schedule and that means intermittent success. But why Ole Miss? And why don't we try to get Clemson on the schedule every other year? I know there are all these "traditional rivalry" ideas, but isn't that becoming a trifle quaint these days? Trying to get as many teams on the schedule that you have a good chance to whip every single year should be task #1 for our AD. It obviously hasn't been and the program is suffering for it.

Here endeth the lesson.
When we scheduled Ole Miss, we were better and they weren’t as good. They improved, and we went downhill. Hopefully, we get better now.
 

roadkill

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As I have said over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, Tech needs to start scheduling to win.To some extent we are stuck; we will probably never get Ugag off our schedule and that means intermittent success. But why Ole Miss? And why don't we try to get Clemson on the schedule every other year? I know there are all these "traditional rivalry" ideas, but isn't that becoming a trifle quaint these days? Trying to get as many teams on the schedule that you have a good chance to whip every single year should be task #1 for our AD. It obviously hasn't been and the program is suffering for it.

Here endeth the lesson.

When we scheduled Ole Miss, we were better and they weren’t as good. They improved, and we went downhill. Hopefully, we get better now.
I believe @takethepoints' basic premise here, which I agree with in principle if not in specifics, is that we should attempt to control what is controllable about our schedule in terms of selecting opponents during this time frame when we are rebuilding the program. I don't have data, but it would be interesting to see how many other P5 programs routinely schedule 2 P5 opponents as their OOC games. I suspect there are many that do not.
The ACC has given us (or perhaps we selected) Clemson as one of our 3 permanent rival games. We only have 3 OOC choices after UGA. Typically we have a home and away against a P5, usually a G5 that lately has also been home and away, and an FCS home game. So the only wiggle room we might have is the second P5. I happen to think that our best recovery plan is, if possible, to schedule let's say another G5 team in lieu of our second P5 until we can ramp up our W/L ratio, build confidence, go bowling, etc, etc. For those who say we should schedule tougher teams to build our SoS, iron sharpens iron, and so forth - we've been doing that. How do you like the results?
I hope Key proves me wrong and we go 15-0 this year. But as I said before, hope is not a plan.
 

Vespidae

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As I have said over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, Tech needs to start scheduling to win.To some extent we are stuck; we will probably never get Ugag off our schedule and that means intermittent success. But why Ole Miss? And why don't we try to get Clemson on the schedule every other year? I know there are all these "traditional rivalry" ideas, but isn't that becoming a trifle quaint these days? Trying to get as many teams on the schedule that you have a good chance to whip every single year should be task #1 for our AD. It obviously hasn't been and the program is suffering for it.

Here endeth the lesson.
Here are the 10 worst Power Five teams, per ESPN's FPI:
  1. Colorado
  2. Rutgers
  3. Indiana
  4. Boston College
  5. Vanderbilt
  6. Virginia
  7. Stanford
  8. Kansas
  9. Northwestern
  10. Georgia Tech
 
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