An Introspective Look at Scheduling and Social Consciousness... or just scheduling

Here we sit, a mere 3 weeks and change away from the literal kickoff to the most glorious time of the year, fall practices have begun, teams are fine tuning (read: wholesale searching for answers), and more and more commentary regarding teams is percolating through websites, radio shows, and television. One thing that I’ve particularly enjoyed this offseason is the use of the term “sleeper” to describe several teams. A cursory Google search for “NCAA Sleepers” reveals Virginia, North Carolina, and yes, Utah as carrying that label. There are several aspects of describing a team as a “sleeper” that annoy most erudite college football fans, the foremost of which being that once a team is labeled as such, EVERYONE and their brother repeats it ad nauseum. This tends to negate the “sleepiness factor” that a team supposedly possesses - After all, when I hear the word “sleeper” I think of a team that could be surprisingly good.

This begs the philosophical question: “if everyone labels a team a sleeper, are they really a sleeper anymore?” Doesn’t being an “under the radar team” (another favorite by the way) mandate that you are better than your opponents think you will be? If everyone [and their brothers! – ed.] labels you as being potentially good, exactly how many opponents are going to overlook you? The way that the term has been utilized lately brings about a different connotation if you ask me.

Rather than simply saying that a team has a possibility of being “good” or “better” this year, many experts look at teams that lie outside of the major power conferences and dig deep into the murky colloquialism bag. What do they grab? Sleeper. Why? Well they wouldn’t want to damage their hard earned credibility by labeling a team as “good” and then end up being wrong would they? They’ve manipulated the game so that either way the team’s season turns out, they’re insulated from criticism. Who’s going to get upset at somebody for calling a team that flops a sleeper? It was just a hunch wasn’t it? People who make predictions that are more concrete stand to have their necks out on the line… see Kirk Herbstreit re: Anthony Morelli, or a certain Michigan Blogger printing National Title shirts prior to 2007. So now rather than going out on a limb and saying , “Hey I think team X has a shot at being solid this year!” analysts instead cushion themselves by using that other term (I’ve already typed it too many times).

You may be asking yourself, “What’s the point Champ?” Fair enough. Let’s take the team name “Utah” away, and instead simply look at the factors you’d normally examine to try to forecast a team’s season. You know, basics like difficulty of schedule, returning players, lost players, recent track record, coaching acumen, talent etc. If we do that for this Unknown team that resides in Unknownville and go ahead and crank this admittedly somewhat subjective data through the prediction machine, what do you come out with?

Returning Starters: 8 on offense (including all skill positions), 6 on defense

Momentum: Won 8 games in a row to close ’07 including bowl game against Navy

Coaching: Kyle Whittingham (ha…hahaha…. See, it’s dangerously close to Willingham… get it? Eh??) carries a 24-14 record in his three years since Urban Myer’s departure, and an impressive 3-0 mark in bowl games. Per the Utah media guide he is the first Utah coach EVER to take his team to a bowl game in each of his first three seasons. Not exactly chopped liver.

Schedule: There’s a reason many are saying that if Utah can get past Michigan they could run the table…

So what do we have here? A pretty decent outlook by most accounts no? So what would you call that? Me? I’d probably go with “a good football team with a good chance to be successful this coming season” but that’s just me. Hmmmm….

Here’s where things get interesting, and where I think the scheduling higher-ups at several schools could learn a key lesson or two. Utah (the somnolent one) has instant credibility available to it if it were to manage a win on August 30th. Michigan, despite many predictions of an abysmal season, stands to gain little from beating what, on paper at least, figures to be a pretty decent football team. Oh, and if they were to lose? Utah T-shirt sales would skyrocket in East Lansing and Columbus, because “hur-hur, yous lossst to thems!” Meanwhile, if Utah runs through its admittedly lackadaisical schedule with only a loss to the Maize and Blue, they will in all likelihood end up in a BCS bowl anyways. The decision to schedule Michigan is a win-win for the Utes.

Michigan, on the other hand, could stand to take a tactic from its arch rival in this regard. The Buckeyes have upped their OOC schedule in a very cunning way. Yes OSU plays USC this year, yes they’ve played Texas the past few years, and if you look ahead you’ll see a marquee matchup each season for the foreseeable future. What is hidden by these contests is a laughable remainder to the OOC schedule! OSU gets to play a big time game against a big time opponent (something most lay people would call a “high risk” game, but in fact is exactly the opposite), where a loss will NOT derail a season or a BCS hope (see: LSU vs. OSU last year), and where a win will scream “LEGITIMACY!” from the highest of peaks. All while having what amounts to exhibition games for the remainder of the OOC schedule. How is this not genius? How is it that Michigan locked themselves into playing Notre Dame for decades when they had an opportunity to say “Thanks for the rivalry, but maybe we should start seeing other people for a bit” a few years ago? Notre Dame has not added any panache to the Wolverines schedule over the past few years. I’m not discounting the tradition or the rivalry; it’s always a huge game to both schools. My point, however, is that Michigan simply doesn’t gain as much from playing ND as it did 15 years ago. Perfect example: after a blowout victory against the #2 ranked (!!!!) Fighting Irish in ’06, many were using that game as a “so-what” at the end of the year when “debate” raged over Florida or Michigan. What would have happened if Michigan had played, say, Oklahoma? Or Georgia? My guess is that UM would have gotten the nod for the rematch.

Instead, Michigan is now caught in the middle of a scheduling conundrum: with ND on the slate for God only knows how long, how do they put together a schedule that’s not too tough, not too cup-cakey, but juuuuuust right? Well you can’t; not by the national media standards anyway, and they matter, because well, they make the polls now don’t they? Despite the fact that Utah figures to be a solid football team, Michigan will not garner any votes or confidence from a victory against the Utes. A loss, however, will open up the opportunity to play every criticism card in the book. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think a solid performance against Utah would be a huge confidence boost to not only the team and the coaching staff, but much of the fan base as well. The problem is that in this current system there’s more to it than that, and that ephemeral feeling that poll creators get when they see a big game win or loss as opposed to one against a mid major solid team is enough to make a huge difference these days.

So how does the sleeper thing fit into all of this? Pretty darn well if you ask me. The media at large has labeled Utah as a team that “could be good,” which conveniently means that if Michigan were to win on August 30th, the Utes probably weren’t as good as most thought, and perhaps Michigan might not be as bad as many said. What the sleeper “label” has done has put any actual evaluation on hold for Utah while reducing the likelihood of Michigan making any kind of impact on how it is viewed by those who vote in the polls.

While this might seem small in the grand scheme of things, I think it illuminates two things that Michigan has either looked at and passed on or failed to realize altogether: that scheduling a big time tough opponent early in the year is not as damaging as the prevailing notion makes it seem, and secondly, scheduling good teams that are not widely recognized as such poses the problem of large risk with little benefit.