Quote Originally Posted by smootness View Post
Scheduling isn't that big a deal to me. Just make sure you don't have more than 3-4 games against teams likely to be 200+, try to schedule most OOC games against teams in the top 100, or at least 150, and your RPI will generally end up reflecting how good your team is.
Agree with this. First step to maximizing RPI is ensure no more than 2 games total against Jackson State, MVSU, Alcorn, UT Martin, etc. Those teams are guaranteed to finish 250 or worse in the RPI. And whatever games we do play against them need to be neutral site if possible. Personally, I'd love to see us start doing what Miami does and start scheduling DII or NAIA games in place of these RPI killer cupcakes. This would allow us the same opportunity to get guys some experience against live competition in the midweek or early nonconference schedule, with the added benefit that the games don't factor in to the RPI calculation since they are non-D1 opponents. A team like Delta State would fit in perfectly for this purpose, and they are a historically good program that would provide a level of competition equal to a SWAC program at the absolute worst.

With the rest of the openings, plug in games against any teams that have finished consistently in the top 150 or better over the past 10 years. There are plenty of teams to choose from in the Sun Belt, CUSA, Missouri Valley Conference, and maybe even a few major conference stragglers like WVU as mentioned above. The SEC is strong enough that we will be fine as long as the back end of our nonconference schedule doesn't contain a bunch of dead weight teams.