Christa Turner of the Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer wrote an interesting article this morning about the struggles of the Auburn Athletic Department in its search for two more opponents for the 2007 football season. I can't remember a time when Auburn had two openings on its upcoming schedule this close to the season (kickoff is less than nine months away).
If you haven't had a chance to look ahead to next year's home schedule believe me, it's ugly. In fact, I'm not sure it has ever been more ugly. How's this for a home schedule: South Florida, New Mexico State, Vanderbilt, Mississippi, Mississippi State and Alabama. You better hurry, that line is getting longer by the hour at Tigers Unlimited. .
The question is, how much money are Auburn fans willing to pay to have a ticket to one marque game? Sure, your lower level patrons will renew because they have priority seating to protect. But what about those in the end zones and upper decks? Are they going to make a $900 donation to Tigers Unlimited and then buy season tickets, when they know they can be had for half price outside the stadium?
Auburn is still looking for two more home opponents. Their hope is to land another school like Washington State for the opener and then a homecoming type opponent for its November date. Will Auburn sell out its season packages to fans who are willing to pay the freight for an Alabama ticket? I'm not sure. It wouldn't shock me. I hope they can.
You can't blame Auburn officials. Their yearly SEC schedule is terrible. It's feast or famine at Jordan-Hare Stadium. In even number years, you get LSU, Arkansas and Georgia at home. In odd number years you are blessed with Mississippi, Mississippi State and Alabama on the Plains.
Not only is this bad for ticket sales, it's bad for your team. Going to LSU, Arkansas and Georgia every other year can wipe out your chances of getting to Atlanta at the end of the season. Add that to the rotating schedule that brings Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina on the schedule every few years and you pretty much take yourself out of contention during odd number years. At best, you start way behind the eight ball.
Let's hope that Auburn can come up with a solid opener that will get people excited. Because after that, it's all down hill until the Alabama game.
Comments (Page 1 of 3)
How about USC? We don't duck anyone.
.....This isn't the big issue it might seem. I'd rather go and see a 63-3 blowout of Ball State than the god-awful melt-down Arkansas and Georgia games this year.
.....I'm just happy that my calendar's clear for most of the home games next fall, and we're likely to be playing South Florida and New Mexico State when I go to the beach. The Iron Bowl in Jordan Hare makes an entire season-ticket package worth it, regardless of location. 2005 was an absolute blast for AU home games, BTW (well, not Georgia Tech). And Auburn did knock out road wins over Arky and Georgia that year, too. But for a Vaughn melt-down, we could have lamented another BCS snub, in favor of Texas/USC.
Here's an idea that will put people in the seats at Jordan Hare: How about USC again? It will give the War Eagles a chance for revenge and wipe out the memory of the last 2 meetings not to mention the Orange Bowl snub a couple of years ago. We Trojan fans would love the opportunity to take a trip to The Plains, once again. What do you say? No pain, no gain.
USC should , could and hopefully will take another shot at Auburn. We have no reason to fear them and USC ALWAYS looks forward to competition! Bring on all comers! You only get to be the best, by playing the best!
This is a huge issue. Auburn will be in the position that its stregnth of schedule will be horrifyingly bad. Should it put together anything resembling a great season, that will kill, or at least severely reduce, its chances of playing in a BCS bowl. This late in the game, there is virtually no chance of Auburn adding any kind of noteworthy opponent for one of its empty slots, much less for two of them. I think the odds are that a 1-AA team will grace (or disgrace) the 2007 schedule, which will be subjected to riducule by the regional and national media.
The real problem here is that Auburn has an athletic director who is in over his head. Two of the three finalists for the job had impressive credentials. But the decision was made to hire the one candidate who could be kept under the thumb of the board of trustees. You reap what you sow.
As a comparison, look at Georgia. Oregon State backed out of a home-and-home series with the Dawgs, and it took them 48 hours to fill next year's opening with Oklahoma State. Auburn then spent weeks in negotiation with Oregon State, trying to convince them to play a game in Auburn with no return game. Why, after they turned down a home-and-home series, would anyone think they would agree to a single road game?
I am also tiring of the line that national opponents are afraid to schedule Auburn. That is a made-up excuse. Auburn is no more imposing nationally than Georgia, Tennessee or LSU, and those teams don't seem to have a problem scheduling decent opponents.
To make a slight correction to the article, tickets to games againt the compass-point schools can be had for far less than half price. Over the last few years I have never paid more than $5 per ticket to those types of games.
Jay Jacobs is to blame for this. He has been pathetic in his handling of Auburn's non-conference scheduling. On top of that, the AD tries it's hand every year in meddling and destroying the game day atmosphere that we have all come to love. Jacobs is nothing but a puppet for Osama Bin Lowder who will try to retain his control over the BOT at Auburn even into a cryogenic state well past his death.
Auburn could be an attractive non-conference game for the some of the elite teams in the nation. The fact is no effort is made to obtain an agreement with those potential teams. This is why Auburn recieves no respect from the media and the voters. Of course the 2004 Auburn team had a mirror schedule of the 2003 LSU team (La Tech, La Monroe, and a Div 1AA), however Auburn did not lose to Florida at home like LSU. BTW, the BcS sucks, but that's another story.
Nothing will change in Auburn until Lowder, Jacobs, and our 20 year interim president are gone. Get used to it. It is the very fact why I refuse to renew my TUF contributions. It is sad to know that the 2007 schedule has not been set. You can however look forward to Auburn hosting powerhouse Western Kentucky or the Helen Keller School for the Deaf and Blind in 2007 and beyond.
I have purchased season tickets in the past but the article is correct. At most home games they will be giving tickets away in the parking lot. I don't know if its worth the Tiger Unlimited charge for one game. Even if its the start of the Saban of Alabama/Tuberville era. As far as strength of schedule it did not seem to hurt Ohio State in the polls. They played a weak schedule and still remained #1. I can't believe Auburn hasn't finalized it's schedule for next year yet.
I'd love for USC to come again. However, you USC fans are a little rusty on how this works. We can't just pick up the phone six months before and say come to Auburn. It would have to be planned in advance like it was previously. Also, it would require a return trip to LA, and while thats not something I'd be against, that would have to work with our future schedule (we're playing WVU in 2008) and yours. For Auburn fans, there is a good chance we'll play K-State as a home opener next year. While our schedule is still kinda bland at home, that would help a lot. K-State would be a fun game, and South Florida could very well be ranked when we play them. New Mexico State is whatever, but i think its probably a bit better than playing NW La. or something. If we can get K-State and fill the other void with some Div 1A team, our SOS will be fine.
Several thoughts:
- Athens doesn't scare me given the reverse home field advantage in the AU-UGA series. Otherwise, you are correct about the conference scheduling problems. Alabama had it even worse this year.
- Please keep in mind that we only have two openings on the schedule because of the 12th game being added last year.
- I'm not a big fan of opening the season with a "marquee" opponent. First games are usually sloppy, and we've lost almost all such games against big-time teams. Better to start off with a patsy (the "pre-season," as Spurrier calls it), and then play the good team in the second game.
- Don't automatically dismiss the Tigers because of the schedule. Everyone wrote-off Florida at the beginning of last year based on their schedule, and look what happened.
Poster #1 above (Kent)has no clue what he is talking about. He is just doing the old worn out criticisms without a shred of knowledge of what is the truth.
Poster #1 above (Kent)has no clue what he is talking about. He is just repeating old worn out criticisms that bear no resemblance to truth.
This is so simple to fix!
As a fan I am willing to pay the difference in ticket pricing to move this 12th game away from Auburn every other year just to get a Good Non-Conference home game in the Odd years.
One HUGH problem is this SUCKED UP FEC schedule Auburn has to work around. Our SEC schedule needs to change. UGA/LSU and UARK/UA should alternate years in Auburn. This will NEVER happen. SO, Auburn's non-conference scheduling needs to go through a major over haul in 07' and 08' to get everything to work-out.
Obviously this task is over Jay Jacobs' head. He needs to hire someone who can broker an interesting game. The easy game to schedule is the game before UGA. I really don't expect much for this slot. Schedule Troy or USM before the UGA game. This type game would create some interest.
The other team on the schedule needs to bring a crowd and a national audience. JJ needs to look at other BCS conference teams with weak directional opponents. Get a home and home deal done and do both schools a favor. Pay the Compass School’s a Buy-out and let the directional school deal with the problem.
Let's say a good Non-Conference home and away game can happen. Then in 08' Auburn will have only 6 home games and another mess. I understand a minimum of 7 home games is a MUST. What in the hell were we thinking by scheduling a road game to UWVa in 2008? Did not anyone have the foresight to see this coming?
UWVa is a good game, but UWV needs to swap there home and home schedule to make this work out in 08' for Auburn. If not we just need to kick UWva to the curb and find another worthy opponent to have a home and home schedule. If the first thing can happen then we have time to fix 2008.
Hear is my wish list in no particular order: Nebraska, Oklahoma, USC, UCLA, Louisville, Ohio State, Wisconsin, the U, Ga. Tech, Boston College. Any of these teams would make for great road trips and I am sure they all have some directional school on their schedule.
Quit making everything so complicated! Fix it once right now and stop patching the problem every year.
FYI - USC can't play you next year. They have a full schedule already:
http://nationalchamps.net/NCAA/future_schedules/southerncal_future.htm
They play ND, Nebraska, Idaho and a 9 game Pac-10 schedule. They are also full in '08 and '09.
As for Oregon State. Georgia scheduled a 2 for 1 with the Beavers. However, a few weeks after the announcement with OSU, we announced a deal with the Oregon Ducks in a 1 for 1.
The Beavers would've lost TREMENDOUS face in state if they did a 2 for 1 with us when OU did a 1 for 1. So the Beavers canceled. If you were trying for a 0 for 1 or a 2 for 1, you really were wasting your time.
Kansas State has availability. But 2 open slots? Geez guys. That's ridiculous.
If you really wanted to play anyone anytime, Texas had an open slot til a few weeks ago for the season opener.
pwd
I think the BSC should mandate all BCS Conference schools to play at least two teams from OTHER BCS conferences every year, at least until we get a Div-1A playoff, which could come soon or never. That would facilitate the scheduling and open the field up to new and interesting matchups. It would also seriously reduce the practice of cupcake scheduling that all teams occasionally suffer from.
USC is an excellent idea. As one of their fans pointed out, they don't duck anyone, and I believe it. Get 'em inked! I like this little pipeline the SEC and the PAC10 have had the past few years. And for local opponents, let's try with GA Tech again. With 12 games, we can crank that rivalry back up!
Nice write-up and nice comments. Here are my thoughts. This scheduling problem has irritated me for serveral months since I first heard mention of it. Specifically:
1. Our seeming unwillingness to do a home and home series bothers me. I didn't see any mention of it here, but we had a chance to sign Boston College for next year. But (gasp!) they wanted us to return the favor and play them in Boston a few years later. We declined! It seems only fair to go there in exchange. Plus, playing games in other venues outside the South can only help give us more national exposure -- to both sportswriters and recruts.
2. Many of our scheduling problems could be solved long-term by lining up UAB and Troy State every year. We pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to smaller teams (some 1-AA) to come play us in Auburn. Why do we ship that money out of state? Let's commit to playing UAB and Troy St. every year. Let's keep that money in state. The fans would love it. And those games could probably be played at Jordan-Hare every year.
3. Auburn needs to make some changes to its scheduling of SEC opponents. A few years ago, Ohio St. was in the same situation we are in. One year was always loaded with many good home games. The next year was loaded with many good away games. What did they do? They swallowed a tough pill. They decided to play Wisconsin AT Wisconsin two years in a row. By doing this, they created some more balance in their scheduling, adding another quality home game in the years that had previously been suffering. Auburn should do that with LSU, in my opinion.
Cheers,
Bryan
If we end up having to schedule a team in the NCAA Football Championship subdivision (formerly known as 1-AA), how about throwing Pat Sullivan and Samford a bone?
auburn doesnt really want a top notch team if they did they could add texas or either usc or either penn.state.auburn would rather play the teams like middle tenn.or either ball state,auburn will be lucky to go 7-5 next year.
So is Tulane no longer on the schedule for Auburn?
BTW, #17 is all over this.
Haha, the above person is likely a Bama fan. They're a little upset at getting dominated for a half decade. He's probably also miffed about living below the poverty line. Need I remind you that Auburn in recent years played Tech and Southern Cal, and in 2008 will play West Virginia.
I believe "by guy" is Jake, a little bammer fan that likes to come drool nonsense on our board under several different names. I would be positive it's him if he had mentioned us not buying Cotton Bowl tickets. That's one of his favorite gripes.