Big 12’s Most Embarrassing Non-Conference Games Of 2009

by ccmachine on May 7, 2009 12:48 AM CDT in Football

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The Colorado Buffaloes travel to play a non-conference game at Toledo

The start of the football season is the one time in which every team is on an even keel as far as records go. Obviously the goal is to keep the perfect record intact for as long as possible which leads to some interesting matchups. Feeding on teams from lesser conferences has long been a practice of the power conferences and the Big 12 is no exception to this. Some of the non-conference games scheduled in `09 for the Big 12 are bad and then some are just down right embarrassing. Here’s a look at the twelve most embarrassing non-conference games scheduled by Big 12 schools.

12. Louisiana Monroe @ Texas, September 12^th – The Big 12 has a history with the Sun Belt Conference and its mostly filled with boring games against lesser teams. Expect the trend to continue in this one.

11. Kent State @ Baylor, October 3^rd – The Golden Flashes are coming off a 4 win season in 2008. Delaware State, Miami (OH), Temple and Buffalo were the wins for Delaware State and their lone experience against the Big 12 was a 48-28 loss to Iowa State.

10. Colorado @ Toledo, September 11^th – Toledo did beat Michigan last year but this game makes the list because Eastern Michigan and Miami (OH) were the Rockets only other two wins. The other thing that baffles me about this is that the Buffs are going to Toledo to play. I know that things have been down in Boulder recently but seriously, on the road at Toledo?

9. North Dakota @ Texas Tech, September 5^th – The Fighting Sioux won six games last season but only beat Idaho State by three points. That says a lot because as we’re going to discuss in a minute the Bengals are one of the worst teams in all of college football. What does all this mean? The game will be over by the half.

8. North Dakota State @ Iowa State, September 3^rd – The Bison are members of the Missouri Valley Conference* and finished the 2008 season with a 6-5 record. Even if it’s a game against Iowa State this is a team that has no business playing against Big 12 competition.

7. Northwestern State @ Baylor, September 26^th – The Northwestern State Demons finished the 2008 football season with a 7-5 record including an embarrassing 51-6 loss in Waco. Expect nothing less than the same this year.

6. Massachusetts @ Kansas State, September 5^th – Bill Snyder is back and so is the watered down scheduling. The Minute Men finished 7-5 in 2008 and were blown out 56-14 when they stepped into Big 12 competition against Texas Tech.

5. Furman @ Missouri, September 19^th – Furman played Virginia Tech within seventeen points last season, losing 24-7 in Blacksburg. They finished the season 7-5, losing their final two games to Georgia Southern (17-10) and Wofford (35-10).

4. Tennessee Tech @ Kansas State, September 26^th – Tennessee Tech finished 2008 with a 3-9 record by losing seven games in a row by an average score of 39-17.

3. Northern Colorado @ Kansas, September 5^th – The Jayhawks are really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. The Bears are from the Big Sky Conference and enjoyed a lone victory in 2008 over Idaho State (More on them in a minute). This will be nothing more than sixty minutes of stat padding for the Fighting Manginos.

2. Grambling State @ Oklahoma State, September 26^th – Grambling’s only two losses last season were at the hands of Nevada and Northwestern State but they saw nothing like Oklahoma State’s offense. The Cowboys could score points in historical proportions.

1. Idaho State @ Oklahoma, September 12^th – The Sooners open the 2009 season with a more than respectable game against BYU at Jerry World but follow it up with their home opener against the Bengals. As a Sooner fan let me just say that I wouldn’t even want to see the Idaho Vandals come to Norman much less Idaho State. This may be the worst home opener under Bob Stoops. The Bengals won just one game last season and the defending Big 12 Champs should be embarrassed to be hosting them.

* My apologizes to the good people of North Dakota State. They are members of the Missouri Valley Conference and not the Summit League as originally posted.

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Comments

I take it you are not fond of Div 2 schools

playing Div schools? (and yeah I realize they aren’t called D-1 and D-2 anymore) And…actually I’m not either. But wins must be on the crappiest schools schedules, and Big Schools don’t want to go Home and Away against the smaller D-1 schools anymore, and the smaller D-1 schools don’t want 4 non conference road games

So in comes the Nancies. I’m so glad college football added a 12 game. (that’s sarcasm folks!)

by Redhawk on May 7, 2009 8:43 AM CDT reply actions

I got no beef against D2

It’s just the Big 12 has no business scheduling against some of these. They would actually accomplish more by scrimmaging against themselves.

by ccmachine on May 7, 2009 10:08 AM CDT reply actions

I see K-State made it on here twice...

Welcome back, Snyder. :D…:’(

Hail to the Purple, Hail to the White
Wildcat in spirit, Wildcat in fight
Hail Alma Mater from sea to sea
Onward forever, Hail Victory!

by MadCat on May 7, 2009 11:40 AM CDT reply actions

patsies

I love the blog, but man I get sick of these articles every year. Yeah, schools have to play cream puffs EVERY year. It’s damn near impossible to schedule D1 schools every year. From what I heard OU was scratching and clawing for one, but had to settle on Idaho St. Same with Chattanooga last year. So what?

Is it ugly? Yeah. Is it avoidable? Not really. It’s not like OU really really really wanted to play Idaho St.

by matty in dallas on May 7, 2009 11:43 AM CDT reply actions

I agree on the D-2 bashing

I’m also a graduate of Colorado St. Let’s take a look at it from their side. I’m sure Colorado St, would love to go to a Big 12 school and get a big pay day. But they also have to fill 6 home games (4 from Conf. and 2 out of Conf games) and would love having a big school on their home schedule to sell tickets to. But, the Big 12 schools…don’t want to go to little bitty Colorado State..they just want one way series.

So for awhile the smaller D-1 schools did 2 for ones….2 games on the road for one return game. But that still leads to an imbalanced home schedule for the smaller schools. So What does Colorado St do? They go to the other smaller D-1 schools, and signed long term H/A series with Nevada and Fresno St, and that leaves the big schools having to either play each other, or taking D-2 schools that will play one road game for the cash.

And why not schedule Chattanooga or Idaho St…..they both are sold out games for OU. OU can make more money playing Idaho St once and having another patsy next year in Norman, than going home and away with some team like Colorado St.

by Redhawk on May 7, 2009 12:33 PM CDT up reply actions

Do your research on number 8

I gotta say… that would should not even be on the list. 1) Iowa State is not a very good football team. I’m not saying that to bash them or anything, but they haven’t won much lately. 2) NDSU just came out of 5 years of transition of D-2 to D-1AA where we beat 3 of the 4 D-1A teams we played. They may not be elite programs, but we beat Central Michigan at their place by 30, sneaked out our first one against Ball State, and beat Minnesota 1 of the 2 times we played them (side note we should have one the first one). I’d have to say that Iowa State is right on par with those teams. I’m not saying we will win for sure, but it definately will NOT be embarassing. We have the core of our team coming back… our only question is at the QB spot. Yes we slipped a little last year due to sloppy play, but that season was on the heals of back to back 10-1 seasons.

by NDSUbison on May 7, 2009 1:48 PM CDT reply actions

I would put the entire non-conference schedule for Texas A&M, Tech and UT as your top 3. At least baylor schedules UConn and Wake Forest. OU has miami and BYU. If OSU hadn’t scheduled Georgia, then they should be in the same class as A&M, Tech and UT. Then again, the Big 21 South has not reason to make excuses because conference play is so brutal.

by TXGolfJunkie on May 8, 2009 9:37 AM CDT reply actions

Colorado Schedule

We aren’t entirely to blame for playing at Toledo. We originally had a home-and-home scheduled with a better MAC team, Miami of Ohio, but they backed out of the game to play Kentucky at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati.

And we do play at West Virginia. And next year we have Cal and Georgia on the schedule, so at least we try to play decent teams. But everybody wants to schedule cupcakes now, or else those weird neutral site games on tv. Non-conference scheduling is getting ridiculous.

by Buffsrising on May 8, 2009 12:43 PM CDT reply actions