Why Athletic Directors Should Schedule All Cupcakes

As fans, we love to see our teams play a big-time program from another conference.

Bragging rights are on the line.  We have a great excuse for a new road (or plane) trip.  The buildup to the games is much better than those against Western Illinois and The Citadel.

Still, athletic directors and coaches should rethink scheduling them.

After 10 years of existence, the BCS rankings have not given any meaningful advantage to a team because of its non-conference schedule.

The BCS has, however, rewarded teams with weak non-conference schedules and punished teams with tough non-conference schedules.  Teams appear to be rewarded for any win and punished for any loss.  Conference games have proven to be much more important in deciding bowl matchups.

If I were an athletic director of a team with any sort of hopes for BCS contention, I would schedule a steady diet of cupcakes.

It seems that almost every year, some team takes some media heat for blowing through a non-conference schedule completely comprised of patsies.

Last year, it was Kansas.  In 2006, it was Rutgers.  Wisconsin's toughest 2006 test outside of the Big Ten was Bowling Green.  In 2005, Alabama climbed to No. 4 in the polls when their best nonconference opponent was Southern Miss.  The list could go on and on.

But none of these teams were punished for their weak non-conference schedules.  In fact, either they were rewarded for them, or were in perfect position to be rewarded for them.

What kept these teams out of the BCS title game, or any BCS bowl game, were losses within their conference.

Let's look at two teams from last year as an example.

Kansas was No. 2 in the BCS when it finally lost on Thanksgiving weekend and would have played Ohio State in the BCS Championship Game had it won out.  The validity of that matchup isn't up for debate here.

The point is that Kansas would have been rewarded for playing Central Michigan, Southeastern Louisiana, Toledo, and Florida International outside of their Big 12 North schedule.  Their schedule didn't keep them out of the BCS title game—Missouri did.

Virginia Tech, on the other hand, traveled to Baton Rouge for an early September matchup.  They were destroyed by LSU and written off by most of the pollsters as national championship contenders.

They ended up only losing one more regular season game, a 14-10 loss at Boston College.  Virginia Tech got revenge a few weeks later when they beat BC 30-16 in the ACC Championship Game.

Now hypothetically, if Virginia Tech had played Southeastern Louisiana instead of LSU and been 12-1 at the end of the year when top-ranked teams kept losing, would they have been left out?  Odds are that Virginia Tech would have been in New Orleans for the BCS title game rather than LSU, if not for aggressive scheduling.

I don't see how the pollsters would have voted a two-loss LSU team over a one-loss ACC Champion, regardless of LSU's conference schedule.  One four-point loss to BC would have been more impressive than LSU's two triple-OT losses.

At the same time, if Kansas had played at Baton Rouge in September, they would not have gotten the BCS Orange Bowl they ended up with.  (I'll just assume

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