South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier is never afraid to ruffle some feathers with a comment or two. So when the Head Ball Coach made an appearance Tuesday on the Paul Finebaum Show, it should come as no surprise that he took a little shot at the defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes' 2015 schedule.
Spurrier was talking about South Carolina's difficult schedule for 2015 and he just couldn't help but mention the disparity in schedules for some teams -- even in the SEC -- that don't have difficult out of conference opponents.
“Every now and then when I listen in to your show, I know the SEC fans are a little upset at Ohio State’s schedule and rightfully so to tell you the truth,” Spurrier said to Finebaum, via Saturday Down South. “But that’s just the way it is and how it works out for all of us. I remember several years ago, Texas A&M had four gimme games outside the conference, then eight conference games.
“There’s four of us that have in-state rivalry games from another conference. We’ve got a pretty tough schedule.”
Spurrier is referencing the four SEC schools -- South Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Kentucky -- that have a yearly in-state rivalry game with a difficult opponent from out of conference, compared to other teams like Texas A&M -- which no longer plays Texas each year for really dumb reasons -- that can keep the out of conference schedule light.
Ohio State's schedule this year is certainly one of the easiest among Top 25 teams in the country, but that has as much to do with the Big Ten as it does the out of conference schedule. Ohio State's Big Ten schedule gives them Penn State and Michigan State at home, with the game at Michigan as their biggest road test in conference -- the Buckeyes also avoid Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa this year, three of the toughest in the Big Ten West.
The Buckeyes, like most programs, have one fairly difficult out of conference game this year when they open at Virginia Tech and then have three easy games to round out the non-conference schedule. That's just the norm in college football. It just happens to be amplified by a weak in-conference slate.
With out of conference schedules being made so far in advance now, it's hard to know if a future opponent will still be good that year. I mean, there are games already scheduled for 2028, which means freshman playing in those games are currently four or five years old. We think LSU vs. Oklahoma will be a good game in 2028, but there's no way to know for sure.
South Carolina just happens to have a tough game every year with Clemson occupying a permanent spot at the end of the Gamecocks' schedule. The SEC schedule is difficult, but other than Clemson, it's not like South Carolina is bringing in world beaters each week out of conference -- last year USC played ECU, Furman and South Alabama out of conference.
We'd love to see programs take more risks with scheduling, and Ohio State seems to be trying to put more difficult out of conference games on the future schedule. The Buckeyes have a home and home series next year with Oklahoma and have series in the future scheduled with Oregon and Notre Dame.
However, until the Big Ten and others just get better from top to bottom, strength of schedule is always something that SEC coaches use to take jabs at other conferences. Spurrier just happens to be the best at the "aw, shucks" comments by qualifying it with "that's just the way it is" and then taking an innocent sip from his soda.
