Some of Lincoln Riley's most interesting comments yesterday concerned scheduling strategy. He was asked specifically if he wanted to keep the annual Notre Dame series and his answer may surprise many, because it was very much conditional.
"I would love to. I would love to. I know it means a lot to a lot of people, so again, the purist in you, no doubt. now, if you get a position where you have to make a decision on what's best for 'SC to help us win a national championship vs. keeping that, shoot, then you gotta look at it. We're not the first example of that. Look all across the country -- theres been a lot of other teams sacrifice rivalry games. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, but you know, as we get into this playoff structure, and if it changes or not, we're in this new conference, we're going to learn something about this as we go and what the right and the best track is to winning a national championship, like, that's going to evolve.
"Bama was ahead of the curve for years, I thought, with how they scheduled in the non-conference. They would occassionally hit the marquee non-conference game, they'd play two other not very good teams, they'd play one late so they got essentially a bye week there late in the season when your season's been going on, you're a little beat up. They didn't schedule for their fans -- they scheduled to win championships. My hope is we can do the best thing, schedule to win championships, and that includes a rivalry game for all that comes with that and all that it means, but if you get in those positions you gotta make a decision on what the prioroity is. It's not an easy answer."
He then continued in a separate answer about how he hopes the CFP committee would evaluate strength of schedule vs. just W-L total ...
"There's no question, losses -- no matter who they're to -- have outweighed everything else, and history has taught us that. Now that you have two super conferences, or whatever you want to call these, you've got two conferences that are way out in front of everybody else right now, all right? There's going to have to be a shift in thinking -- like, there has to be -- or it won't work. So how much value do they place on the ninth game? How much value do they place on playing Notre Dame vs. some directional school? It's going to have a big impact on how we all schedule in the future, so if they want these matchups then they need to value them accordingly."
"I would love to. I would love to. I know it means a lot to a lot of people, so again, the purist in you, no doubt. now, if you get a position where you have to make a decision on what's best for 'SC to help us win a national championship vs. keeping that, shoot, then you gotta look at it. We're not the first example of that. Look all across the country -- theres been a lot of other teams sacrifice rivalry games. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, but you know, as we get into this playoff structure, and if it changes or not, we're in this new conference, we're going to learn something about this as we go and what the right and the best track is to winning a national championship, like, that's going to evolve.
"Bama was ahead of the curve for years, I thought, with how they scheduled in the non-conference. They would occassionally hit the marquee non-conference game, they'd play two other not very good teams, they'd play one late so they got essentially a bye week there late in the season when your season's been going on, you're a little beat up. They didn't schedule for their fans -- they scheduled to win championships. My hope is we can do the best thing, schedule to win championships, and that includes a rivalry game for all that comes with that and all that it means, but if you get in those positions you gotta make a decision on what the prioroity is. It's not an easy answer."
He then continued in a separate answer about how he hopes the CFP committee would evaluate strength of schedule vs. just W-L total ...
"There's no question, losses -- no matter who they're to -- have outweighed everything else, and history has taught us that. Now that you have two super conferences, or whatever you want to call these, you've got two conferences that are way out in front of everybody else right now, all right? There's going to have to be a shift in thinking -- like, there has to be -- or it won't work. So how much value do they place on the ninth game? How much value do they place on playing Notre Dame vs. some directional school? It's going to have a big impact on how we all schedule in the future, so if they want these matchups then they need to value them accordingly."
