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The bragging rights of playing the toughest schedules year after year doesn't compensate for getting hammered by OOC opponents.Toughest and weakest nonconference schedules entering the 2023 college football season
Our bowls expert looks at the standout nonconference slates this year
Beating up on patsies doesn't do anything for me. The way to fix this is to start winning against these tough opponents, not dodge them.
No one plays 2 really tough OOC opponents on a regular basis. We will have done this 4 years in a row. ND and UGA in 2021. Ole Miss and UGA in 2022 and 2023, and ND and UGA IN 2024. We already have UGA every year. The other 3 should not be top 25 Power 5 conference teams..
Alabama is next up!
Are we really going to act like Ole Miss is on the same level as UGA? They’re not even close. Ole Miss only beat 5-7 Tulsa by 8 points last year. Just because Georgia Tech has been one of the worst teams in P5 football for the last 4 years doesn’t make Ole Miss some powerhouse.
Thing is, I don't really care what other teams do. I don't want all the other three to be P-5s, but one of them should be.
Who is saying Ole Miss is on the level of UGA? The only team that really gave UGA a game last year was Ohio State. Even LSU in the SEC Championship didn’t give UGA much to think about.
The post I responded to literally compared Ole Miss to UGA in the same sentence.
He said that, with UGA being one of our yearly OOC opponents, that the other one shouldn’t come out of the top 25.
We should be playing academic schools OOC. Vandy, Tulane, Rice, Stanford not Ole Miss or even teams like UCF at this point. Need to develop a winning mentality first against "like" competition. Too bad we can't start the season with an easier opponent to get the kinks out but IIWII.
And I said if we’re scared to play Ole Miss we should kiss our dreams of being in the B1G playing “big boy” football goodbye. My point was that Ole Miss is not in the same category as UGA, or even Notre Dame, and we should not be acting like they’re some supremely difficult opponent. Being ranked #22 in a preseason poll should not intimidating or daunting at all. Ole Miss is (or should be) on our level, and guess what: Every Big 12, PAC 12, and B1G team plays at least 9 P5 games, and most of them play 10 or 11.
Being in the B1G or the SEC comes with benefits. Like more money and recruiting advantages. If (and I do mean if) we're ever invited to sit at the grown-up table again, we will see very quick improvements on the field that will enable us to hold our own against our conference opponents.
| University | Undergrad Enrollment |
| Illinois | 33,955 |
| Indiana | 33,429 |
| Iowa | 24,503 |
| Maryland | 29,868 |
| Michigan | 29,821 |
| Michigan State | 38,996 |
| Minnesota | 35,433 |
| Nebraska | 20,954 |
| Northwestern | 8,700 |
| Ohio State | 45,946 |
| Penn State | 40,835 |
| Purdue | 32,132 |
| Rutgers | 35,641 |
| Wisconsin | 31,358 |
| Name | Total |
| The University of Alabama | 38,316 |
| Auburn University | 31,526 |
| University of Arkansas | 29,068 |
| University of Florida | 55,781 |
| University of Georgia | 40,118 |
| University of Kentucky | 30,390 |
| Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College | 35,912 |
| University of Mississippi | 21,203 |
| Mississippi State University | 23,086 |
| University of Missouri-Columbia | 31,401 |
| University of South Carolina-Columbia | 35,471 |
| The University of Tennessee-Knoxville | 31,701 |
| Vanderbilt University | 13,796 |
| Texas A & M University-College Station | 72,530 |
Should = dumb word. Based on our recent performance we “should” be a bottom tier ACC Team. Ole Miss has far more talent than GT including some of our former players who would have been major players for us. Liffey is a proven coach. They destroyed GT last year. We need to become just decent before we talk like we are “a somebody.”
Ole Miss is signing checks to their players in a much larger and more frequent amount than GT. We are at a disadvantage to almost every SEC school and definitely Ole Miss. An old friend of mine was visiting whose brother works in the Ole Miss Athletic department and we were talking football and I brought up Jared Ivey. His brother gave a nod and a wink to my friend and said “He’s part of the blah-blah collective”. Bought and paid for.
And if we’re not on Ole Miss’ level right now, we’re never going to be on anyone’s level in the SEC or B1G.