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Future Pitt Schedules

FortPittPanther

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Nov 11, 2015
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I know this opinion isn't necessarily profound, and has been expressed on here a lot, but Pitt needs to get away from scheduling more than one P5 school in their non-conference schedule per year. They know the years they will and won't play Notre Dame through 2037, so they should schedule around that as well to avoid playing multiple programs of that caliber in a given year.

I've wavered on this in the past, but what finally drove me to this conclusion was looking at the latest CFP rankings. There are six SEC schools ranked between 9 and 24 whose records are either 9-3 or 8-4. They are Florida, LSU, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, and Missouri. Let's look at the non-conference schedule for each this year:

Florida: vs. Charleston Southern, vs. Colorado State, vs. Idaho, and vs. Florida State
LSU: Miami (neutral), vs. Southeastern Louisiana, vs. Louisiana Tech, and vs. Rice
Kentucky: vs. Central Michigan, vs. Murray State, vs. Middle Tennessee, and @ Louisville
Miss. State: vs. Stephen F. Austin, @ Kansas State, vs. Louisiana, and vs. Louisiana Tech
Texas A&M: vs. Northwestern State, vs. Clemson, vs. UL Monroe, and vs. UAB
Missouri: vs. UT Martin, vs. Wyoming, @ Purdue, and vs. Memphis

In most cases, their non-conference schedules were the inverse of Pitt's. Where we played one gimme game and had three legitimate opponents, these schools mostly played three gimme games and had one legitimate opponent. Not to mention, Florida and Texas A&M played eight home games this year because of how the schedule broke with their legitimate non-conference game.

Each of those six schools all but certainly had 1 or 2 wins added to their win totals because of it. Coincidentally, each of these schools are exactly either 1 or 2 games better than Pitt this season. They're all finishing the regular season ranked and with positive vibes, and we're being mocked for being 7-5 and playing in the ACC Championship game.

To be fair, nobody could've predicted that UCF would've gone on the historic run that they have when that game was scheduled by Pitt, but to even risk playing against a school from the AAC is too much based on what these SEC schools are doing.

So give me an FCS opponent, a Conference USA opponent, and a MAC opponent every year from now on. Something like Duquesne, Old Dominion, and Ohio/Bowling Green/Akron/Kent State should do just fine. Let us get our three gimme wins every year, and have eight home games every other year.

Hopefully Heather Lyke gets the message.
 
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