Not trying beat a dad horse but even Richard Cross agrees with me...

[drunkernhelldawg]

I do think it was great to beat Michigan. I personally like playing teams we haven't played much before. However, losing to a team we're favored over in the bowl game does reflect badly on us. It happens to a lot of teams, though, so it's not actually that big a deal. The main thing is to keep everything positive and show the great heart of our football program to the world. And to have fun. I guess there's a little extra pressure since the game if for a winning season, but next season will be what matters before the middle of January.

One horrible and ironic thing that happened in a bowl was the Peach Bowl when we won 10 games for the first time but our team lost all discipline in the last five minutes and racked up penalty after penalty. We still got that historic tenth win, but the shit at the end of the game dampened the party in a big, long-lasting way.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Richard Cross is going to have the opinion that passively aggressively paints MSU in a bad light.

Amen.

If UM and State were to flip positions, Cross would be preaching about how the Liberty Bowl and Music City Bowl are on the same level, and that although Rice isn't a big name, they are just as good as GT (which I believe is true). Cross will say ANYTHING to make UM look just a little bit better than State.

When you are in lower tier bowls like the LB and MCB, no team you play is going to make you look significantly better or worse. Just win the game.

[messageboardsuperhero]

And you really can't compare UM's game with GT to our game with Michigan in 2010.

The prestige associated with playing Michigan in a NYD bowl (and winning by 40) is MUCH higher than the notoriety someone gains from playing GT in the MCB.

[BulldogBear]

Beating GT is a "better" win than beating Rice. That is a true statement if taken strictly at face value. But Ole Miss/MSU beating anybody in a lower tier bowl while the other does the same changes little if any perception already in place from Egg Bowl. It simply doesn't outweight it, doesn't undo the damage, and doesn't make any statement not already made on the videoboard score column from the Egg Bowl. We're not talking about about Indepence vs. Outback here. If we so much as beat Rice there's little they can do to GT that will override what happened at the 3 yard lijne North endzone on Thanksgiving in Starkpatch.

[Barking 13]

I heard all of that... the funny thing about H2H today was all the callers from OM were in full meltdown.. about Freezus' play calling, red zone efficiency, etc.. I was LMAO

[HoopsDawg]

Of course it matters. It's silly to argue other wise.

[K9 Avenger]

Rice just may be BETTER than Ga Tech..... the yellow jackets are terrible.

[gravedigger]

Bogey, I think Richard was making the point that it matters sometimes and other times doesn't. The egg bowl victory does matter more when the bowl opponent is pitt, or rice or wake forest. But at times when it's Michigan, or Oklahoma State in the cotton bowl, or Clemson in the Chick fil a, the bowl game is bigger.

I do agree we should not play the EASIEST non conference schedule we possibly can. I Also think we should not schedule an Oklahoma State, or Texas, or USC for a non con game because it's not necessary to play that level of competition on top of our conference.

There has to be a medium and if I'm stating this wrong, I apologize, but I think the non con opponents should be this mixture:

1 swac like team from in state
1 directional school from close by
1 Tulane type team that allows us to play home and home but fans don't mind traveling to
1 lower tier major conference school like wake forest, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Duke, Maryland KNOWING FULL WELL THEY COULD END UP BEING GOOD THAT YEAR.

The lower tier major conference school game should follow the swac like team early in the year. The Tulane type team should be homecoming or swap with the lower tier major conference school game. The directional school should be later in the year, say end of October, to break up the conference schedule or even early November.

The Bama game and OM game should be in November every year. Those are the games we need the most emotion in.

So my perfect schedule would be:

Jackson State
Tulane
Kentucky
LSU
Vandy
Arkansas
Texas A&M
Indiana (homecoming)
Auburn
South Alabama
Alabama
Ole Miss


My reason for not playing the EASIEST noncom schedule: Simply that I want to make the 4 team playoff in 2 situations. One if we win the SEC (automatic), and two if we somehow lose an sec game to someone and fail to make the championship game, but deserve to be in the final 4. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN if we play the 4 easiest teams possible to schedule. We will leave the door open to be excluded even if the loss is to bama who wins the SEC. LSU wouldn't be eliminated. Auburn wouldn't be. A&M wouldn't be due to markets and national popularity. But MSU, OM and Arkansas would be.

I want the chance of that eliminated if the last criterion is the strength of the noncom schedule, which it will be due to TV pressure, in the coming years.

We can all scream truthfully to the high heavens about the SEC schedule being enough, and it is, as long as you run the table or win the conference. But we need to position ourselves to make the final four even if we dont.

[hells bells]

I refer to Richard as Dick. Need I say more?

[Dawgbite]

I refer to Richard as Dick. Need I say more?

Doesn't everybody?

[BogeyGolfer]

You are wrong. Put simply, it really does not matter. Unless you are in the BCS Championship game. And even that really doesn't equate to shit the following year. Sure, it sucked for Oregon to lose the 2010 game but they still got tons of recognition for just being there and continued to build their program. On the other hand, Auburn....

Richard Cross is going to have the opinion that passively aggressively paints MSU in a bad light. And you ate it up like a good bulldog that is in their place. You are pathetic and exactly what is wrong with our fanbase.

Bullshit, so our win against UCF was just as big as Michigan?? How did 2008 work out for us? My point is that we would feel a lot better about our season if we were to beat a team from a power conference. There is a reason a 10-3 team and conference champion is playing a 6-6 team. We play in the SEC and can beat a lot of bowl teams which would create even more excitement going into next year. As far as me being pathetic, 17 off...

[Jack Lambert]

Who you play in a bowl game does matter. Will beating Rice be a bigger win than Ole Miss? Was beating Michigan a bigger win than beating Ole Miss in 2010? If we were to play and beat a team like GT in a bowl game it is a much better win and would give us much more momentum in the off season... Ive accepted the fact that we are playing a below average team but I still don't understand the argument that it doesn't matter who we play or wanting to play a shitty team just to get a cheap bowl victory.

Another reason why Rice is a big game for us is because if we lose we have a losing record and if Ole Miss lose they still have a winning record. Now which one would you rather have an 6 and 7 team or an 7 and 6 team going into signing period? We have tried that GA Tech thing before and got beat both times. We need a win in the bowl game to have a winning record to carry into some kids home.

So if you want to be another dick just keep thinking like him.

By the way Ole Miss is going to get beat.

[BogeyGolfer]

Bogey, I think Richard was making the point that it matters sometimes and other times doesn't. The egg bowl victory does matter more when the bowl opponent is pitt, or rice or wake forest. But at times when it's Michigan, or Oklahoma State in the cotton bowl, or Clemson in the Chick fil a, the bowl game is bigger.

I do agree we should not play the EASIEST non conference schedule we possibly can. I Also think we should not schedule an Oklahoma State, or Texas, or USC for a non con game because it's not necessary to play that level of competition on top of our conference.

There has to be a medium and if I'm stating this wrong, I apologize, but I think the non con opponents should be this mixture:

1 swac like team from in state
1 directional school from close by
1 Tulane type team that allows us to play home and home but fans don't mind traveling to
1 lower tier major conference school like wake forest, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Duke, Maryland KNOWING FULL WELL THEY COULD END UP BEING GOOD THAT YEAR.

The lower tier major conference school game should follow the swac like team early in the year. The Tulane type team should be homecoming or swap with the lower tier major conference school game. The directional school should be later in the year, say end of October, to break up the conference schedule or even early November.

The Bama game and OM game should be in November every year. Those are the games we need the most emotion in.

So my perfect schedule would be:

Jackson State
Tulane
Kentucky
LSU
Vandy
Arkansas
Texas A&M
Indiana (homecoming)
Auburn
South Alabama
Alabama
Ole Miss


My reason for not playing the EASIEST noncom schedule: Simply that I want to make the 4 team playoff in 2 situations. One if we win the SEC (automatic), and two if we somehow lose an sec game to someone and fail to make the championship game, but deserve to be in the final 4. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN if we play the 4 easiest teams possible to schedule. We will leave the door open to be excluded even if the loss is to bama who wins the SEC. LSU wouldn't be eliminated. Auburn wouldn't be. A&M wouldn't be due to markets and national popularity. But MSU, OM and Arkansas would be.

I want the chance of that eliminated if the last criterion is the strength of the noncom schedule, which it will be due to TV pressure, in the coming years.

We can all scream truthfully to the high heavens about the SEC schedule being enough, and it is, as long as you run the table or win the conference. But we need to position ourselves to make the final four even if we dont.

Grave, I agree would love to play a mid to lower tier team each year from a power conference.... I will not go watch us play South Alabama but I would go watch us play Indiana or Iowa St...

[preachermatt83]

Bogey, I think Richard was making the point that it matters sometimes and other times doesn't. The egg bowl victory does matter more when the bowl opponent is pitt, or rice or wake forest. But at times when it's Michigan, or Oklahoma State in the cotton bowl, or Clemson in the Chick fil a, the bowl game is bigger.

I do agree we should not play the EASIEST non conference schedule we possibly can. I Also think we should not schedule an Oklahoma State, or Texas, or USC for a non con game because it's not necessary to play that level of competition on top of our conference.

There has to be a medium and if I'm stating this wrong, I apologize, but I think the non con opponents should be this mixture:

1 swac like team from in state
1 directional school from close by
1 Tulane type team that allows us to play home and home but fans don't mind traveling to
1 lower tier major conference school like wake forest, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Duke, Maryland KNOWING FULL WELL THEY COULD END UP BEING GOOD THAT YEAR.

The lower tier major conference school game should follow the swac like team early in the year. The Tulane type team should be homecoming or swap with the lower tier major conference school game. The directional school should be later in the year, say end of October, to break up the conference schedule or even early November.

The Bama game and OM game should be in November every year. Those are the games we need the most emotion in.

So my perfect schedule would be:

Jackson State
Tulane
Kentucky
LSU
Vandy
Arkansas
Texas A&M
Indiana (homecoming)
Auburn
South Alabama
Alabama
Ole Miss


My reason for not playing the EASIEST noncom schedule: Simply that I want to make the 4 team playoff in 2 situations. One if we win the SEC (automatic), and two if we somehow lose an sec game to someone and fail to make the championship game, but deserve to be in the final 4. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN if we play the 4 easiest teams possible to schedule. We will leave the door open to be excluded even if the loss is to bama who wins the SEC. LSU wouldn't be eliminated. Auburn wouldn't be. A&M wouldn't be due to markets and national popularity. But MSU, OM and Arkansas would be.

I want the chance of that eliminated if the last criterion is the strength of the noncom schedule, which it will be due to TV pressure, in the coming years.

We can all scream truthfully to the high heavens about the SEC schedule being enough, and it is, as long as you run the table or win the conference. But we need to position ourselves to make the final four even if we dont.

Yes!! A million times yes!!!!!!!!

[Political Hack]

beating Indiana doesn't get you in the BCS hunt. beating Bama, LSU, A&M, and Auburn does. We've got plenty enough chances to reach greatness stacked right in front of us by playing in the best division in the history of college football. Making things tougher is just dumb... we'll have our chances in conference.

[preachermatt83]

beating Indiana doesn't get you in the BCS hunt. beating Bama, LSU, A&M, and Auburn does. We've got plenty enough chances to reach greatness stacked right in front of us by playing in the best division in the history of college football. Making things tougher is just dumb... we'll have our chances in conference.

you lose to one sec opponent, which is gonna happen, having an Indiana or wake forest win on the schedule will help a ton.

[Coach34]

you lose to one sec opponent, which is gonna happen, having an Indiana or wake forest win on the schedule will help a ton.

help you do what?

[Political Hack]

help you do what?

help you have a weaker schedule than if you played bowling green.

[Todd4State]

you lose to one sec opponent, which is gonna happen, having an Indiana or wake forest win on the schedule will help a ton.

Here's the big issue with an Indiana or a Wake Forest- and I've said this before- I don't care how crappy a program is, a BCS team like Indiana, Wake Forest, Iowa State, etc. are going to only play us during the regular season if we do a home and home with them. So, if we were to play Indiana, we would have to go play them in Bloomington. I'm not worried about losing to them in Indiana, but the issue with that is we would lose a home game. We lose a home game, and we lose money, we lose a chance for recruits to visits, we lose money for the city, we lose money because we have to pay to transport the team and the MSU entourage (band, cheerleaders, athletic staff members, etc). A big part of our resurgence is the fact that we have consistently been playing 7 home games a year for the most part- with some exception. But seven home games is the goal for us. Playing someone like Indiana would make that more difficult.

And the fact of the matter is if we played Wake Forest, Indiana, or whomever- it would not draw any better or any worse than playing Louisiana Tech. As Hack said, it wouldn't help us nationally if we beat them. There's nothing for us to gain from it. Not to mention playing La Tech would be a lot cheaper and they would at worst do a 2 for 1 deal with us where we get 2 home game for 1 trip to Ruston.

The best way for everyone to be happy is to follow the manageable schedule plan and then you can see Michigan in a bowl, and see an "interesting" team in an environment that maximizes the benefit for MSU. When you play an Oklahoma State, odds are better that you are going to end up 6-6 and then you go to a lower tier bowl, which means you are more likely to play someone like Rice. If we played La Tech this year, we are 7-5 and I wouldn't have been surprised if we would have ended up in the Music City Bowl if that was indeed the case, and of course it would be MSU/GT instead of Ole Miss/GT. But hey! You got to see Oklahoma State, so those "interesting" team people should be happy.

[Todd4State]

The funny thing about Cross's argument- I would be willing to bet that Rice is better than the 6-6 Pittsburgh team that Ole Miss beat last year- and in a crappier bowl. But that didn't stop their momentum to landing the best recruiting class in the history of mankind.