Tough Schedule?

Well, we're a little late on this one. I mean, for crying out loud, the Stateline Statewide Automotive Sportsline Show (or whatever its called) beat us to it. Nevertheless, mad props to Hoppy...

WVU was ranked by CNN/SI to have the 21st toughest schedule entering the 2007 football season. For Chist's sake, SI's website is slooooow. But I really have nothing to add at this point, so I'll just throw up a quote from the article.

Why they're No. 21: Big East bashers might argue that West Virginia only has to play a couple of tough games all year, but the Mountaineers' schedule suggests otherwise. West Virginia didn't schedule any Division I-AA foes and faces three nonconference games against teams that went to bowls last season. That includes a Thursday night nonconference road game with a Maryland team that went 9-4 in '06. West Virginia does get Louisville at home this year, but the Mountaineers also must travel to South Florida and Rutgers. South Florida won at West Virginia last year in one of the season's biggest upsets, while Rutgers lost to the Mountaineers in triple overtime.

WVU's ranking means they have the toughest schedule of any Big East school followed by Pitt and Louisville. Rutgers, meanwhile, has a relative cakewalk of a schedule. Two of their tough 3 are at home (WVU and USF), but must travel to Lousiville.

That's all I have. Apologies to our readers, two of us are buried in paperwork and one of us is on vacation.

Yessssss!

The Daily Mail has an article about the facelift the Coliseum will undergo this offseason. The following nugget is included:

Parsons said a new scoreboard (and accompanying sound system) for the Coliseum is on the wish list, but isn't a likely addition until "at least" prior to the 2008-09 season. He conceded that the "entertainment value" of scoreboards and video boards is an area in which WVU isn't as up-to-date at it might be.

A new scoreboard/video board with enhanced sound system tailored to the Coliseum's infrastructure will run in the $2 million range. WVU will turn to private sources and board sponsorships to fund that. MAC chief Babcock said a $750,000 gift is committed for the project.

No more "old woman clapping" graphic or Atari sounds? Get rid of Cotton Eyed Joe Huggy Bear and I'll DD for you any night of the week as long as your liver holds up. WVU is also building a Hall of Traditions to honor the basketball history. Time to celebrate.



Also, on June 5th Athlon is releasing their 2007 season preview. They are currently counting down the top 25 teams by releasing a team a day. Today Ohio State comes in at number 12. Louisville was 13 yesterday. Absent so far with 11 to go are WVU, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Pitt, and Marshall. A couple of these teams won't make it. I'll let you guess which ones.

A historical perspective

Every family has that one person that causes unneeded embarassment. Whether it be an incompetent criminal, a child molester, a Nazi sympythizer, or a Marshall graduate there is always someone that causes the family shame. Our family is no different. We have a Maryland apologist. While other family members try to ignore the problem or pretend they aren't related I feel that the best way to deal with something like this, which is so painful, is to attack it head on. While he may never overcome his dimentia, at least I can say I tried to show him the way with "facts." And in the every cloud has a silver lining category I discovered a couple of new and interesting links while looking for historical facts on WVU and other schools in basketball and football.

The above links will take you to all time records in basketball and football respectively. I was pleasently surprised to discover that WVU is currently 26th all-time in basketball and tied for 15th in football. The only team in the top ten in both is God's America's NBC's team Notre Dame.

Some schools relevant to WVU fans:
Pitt is unranked in basketball (top 50 all-time only) and 21st in football;
Louisville is 23rd in basketball and 96th in football;
Penn St. unranked in basketball and 6th in football;
Virginia Tech is unranked in basketball and 22nd in football;
Marshall is unranked in basketball and 62nd in football; and
Maryland is unranked in basketball and 36th in football.

Now the all-time wins doesn't neccessarily correlate with a better program as Vanderbilt has more all time wins (football) than both Miami and Florida State and Fordham is number 35 in all time basketball wins, but it is interesting to see where your school ranks historically when compared to recently.

Another aspect of the football database is that if you go to Div I teams individually you can look at historical records vs. oppenents. For instance WVU is 28-22-1 vs. Virginia Tech, but 0-1 vs. Mahoning Cycle Club (OH) and we got beat 26-0. Those biking bastards.

Who's the best?

WVU's elimination in the Big East Tournament gave me some extra time and Mom always told me that idle hands are the devils playground. So I kept myself busy with another research project. This project is to find the best programs in both Football and Men's Basketball for the new millennium. Using final poll numbers I looked at the last 6 years of both football and basketball and eliminated all schools that did not have at least TWO teams in each poll over the six year span thus forcing some consistency in both sports. So USC is gone due to lack of basketball (sure to change in upcoming years if Smokedog Mayo can be as good as advertised and stay away from Snoop) and UNC for lack of football (Butch Davis may change that as well). The numbers were compiled as follows: 25 points for 1st, 24 for 2nd, down to 1 for 25th.

The results:

1. Texas--183 points (11 total placings out of 12 polls).
2. Oklahoma--167 points (11 total placings out of 12 polls).
3. Florida--141 points (10 total placings out of 12 polls).
4. LSU--132 points (7 total placings out of 12 polls).
5. Ohio State--108 points (7 total placings out of 12 polls).
6. Maryland--104 points (8 total placings out of 12 polls).
7. Wisconsin--88 points (7 total placings out of 12 polls).
8. Louisville--85 points (7 total placings out of 12 polls).
9. Tennessee--66 points (7 total placings out of 12 polls).
10. West Virginia--63 points (5 total placings out of 12 polls).
11. Boston College--55 points (6 total placings out of 12 polls).
12. Pittsburgh--52 points (5 total placings out of 12 polls).
13. Notre Dame--49 points (5 total placings out of 12 polls).

Conferences:

SEC--3 teams
Big East--3 teams
ACC--2 teams
Big 10--2 teams
Big 12--2 teams

It is interesting to me that only 13 schools qualified, I would have guessed more schools made the final poll in both at least 33% of the time.