Oh, Wisconsin, truly your nonconference scheduling is to be mocked: The University of Wisconsin's 2008 football schedule, released Friday, reveals that UW replaced an early season non-conference game against powerful Virginia Tech with a regular-season finale against Cal Poly, a Football Championship Subdivision program.Wisconsin's nonconference schedule is now Cal Poly, Akron, Marshall, and Fresno State. Last year's schedule: Washington State, UNLV, the Citadel, and Northern Illinois. The year before: Bowling Green, Western Illinois, San Diego State, Buffalo.
That's one BCS opponent in three years, and that opponent was Washington State. That might be understandable if Wisconsin was struggling to pick up Motor City Bowl bids, but UW is among the second-tier Big Ten powers and should be scheduling... I dunno, anyone, especially since UW returns the vast majority of a team that
What's the common thread here? Bret Bielema, who evidently learned from the master of puff scheduling as Bill Snyder's defensive coordinator at Kansas State.
(Via the Wizard of Odds, and *correction.)

































Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-04-2008 @ 4:12PM
Bringthewood said...
That's why it's called Wussconsin. I can understand a soft schedule from time to time, but every year? It's evidently part of their institutional DNA.
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3-04-2008 @ 4:22PM
formerlyanonymous said...
I'll go ahead and quell something bound to come up...
Utah just came off its BCS bid when Michigan scheduled them. Notre Dame isn't always this crappy. We did schedule Oregon last year. Washington a few years ago. Yes Toledo and Miami are cupcakes. Fine.
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3-04-2008 @ 4:28PM
Bubs26 said...
The New Year's bowl game I watched that had Wisconsin in it was won by Tennessee!! Get your facts straight.
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3-04-2008 @ 4:44PM
Chris said...
OK, so yea, it actually started as a 'home & home' series with UW and V Tech for '08 and '09. Neither game will be played and it's been off the schedule for a few years now. In case you haven't noticed in the last 5 years...it's not a cake walk to schedule any team you want on short notice. and yes, a year or two is short notice.
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3-04-2008 @ 5:08PM
Andrew said...
That's hysterical. Let's replace that September game against perennial top 25 team and invite a I-AA school from southern California to come play in Wisconsin in November!!!
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3-04-2008 @ 10:01PM
Bubs26 said...
Thanks for the correction. Now how about the fact the home and home matchup has been cancelled for 2 years since the Big Ten handed out the 2008 schedule in 2006, where UW has Michigan/OSU/Penn St. to start league play the week after the cancelled V.Tech game (to be replayed almost a decade from now) for the "easy re-scheduling" masterminds!!
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3-04-2008 @ 10:27PM
Bubs26 said...
I'll give you one more; go look at V.Tech's non-conference schedule for 2008 to 2011. Worse than Wisconsin's!!! Get a clue!!
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3-05-2008 @ 4:20PM
Stosh said...
Michigan State did the same thing last year by wussing out of their scheduled game at Hawaii. Michigan State paid a $250,000 penalty to Hawaii, They lost at Hawaii a few years ago, then in good faith Hawaii went to Michigan State and lost. The final contracted game last year? Michigan State wusses out and pays the penalty fee to complete their wuss. Typical Big 10.
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3-06-2008 @ 8:12AM
Jeff said...
MSU had good reason to back out of the second game at Hawaii -- the jobbing they took from the officials in the initial game at Hawaii was probably the worst I've ever seen. I'm a Michigan fan with no particular sympathy for the Spartans, but that was awful. I've noticed that Big Ten teams (like Wisconsin) that go there now make neutral officials a part of the contract.
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3-06-2008 @ 12:23PM
Timvalenz said...
This proves more often than not that the NCAA needs to get involved in terms of how teams put their football schedules together. Clearly, some of these teams don't know how to put a championship-caliber schedule together, and the BCS has to not only make strength of schedule a factor, but a team's nonconference schedule has to make up a major chunk of the rankings as well. I don't think you can continue to do this and expect to win a national championship. Sooner or later, they need to make an example out of one of these teams.
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3-06-2008 @ 2:56PM
Scott said...
I hope Bill Martin is taking notes on this. If you're going to schedule a tasty cupcake from the FCS, make SURE they're a tasty cupcake first.
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3-06-2008 @ 6:36PM
Michael said...
MSU backed out of the game because they got womped at Hawaii. Hawaii threw for over 500 yards. The officials didn't throw and catch the ball for Hawaii. Nonsense. And yes, all of Hawaii's recent wins over BCS conference teams, and remember, Hawaii is a Division 1 school, have been with neutral
referees. This reminds me of when Michigan State lost to Hawaii in basketball just three years ago by twenty points at Hawaii with a Pac 10 ref. crew and they blamed the loss on water quality (Hawaii has the purest in the nation), temperature (it was in a new air conditioned facility), & cramps. Sad.
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3-06-2008 @ 6:46PM
Stan said...
Michigan backed out of a game with Hawaii at Michigan, well publicized, and chose to play Appl. State instead. Great move guys, you know what happened then. Look, Ohio State play Youngstown State all of the time and other smaller programs. The Big Ten has some powerhouse programs, but the bottom five of the conference is as weak as there is and that also adds up to more wins for the Top Big 10 football schools. Wisconsin barely beat UNLV last year and UNLV is near the bottom of their conference. Big 10 schools should try a few games at mid-major schools and then say it's a challenge.
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3-07-2008 @ 12:04AM
Jeff said...
>> MSU backed out of the game because they got womped at Hawaii. Hawaii threw for over 500 yards.
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3-07-2008 @ 12:07AM
Jeff said...
Danged brackets, let me try that again. Michael claimed that MSU got "womped" at Hawaii. Hawaii won the game 41-38.
Michael claimed that Hawaii threw for over 500 yards in that game. Hawaii threw for 416 yards, quite impressive, but he got that factoid wrong too.
Penalties in the game? 16 were called on MSU, 5 were called on Hawaii.
I'm not one of those Michigan fans who thinks one has to root for Big Ten teams (at least not when those teams are MSU and OSU), so I wasn't pulling for the Spartans. But that was the worst officiated college football game I've ever watched.
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3-07-2008 @ 2:10AM
Rusty said...
Jeff, you're right. Michigan lost at Hawaii just like Purdue, Arizona State, Alabama, Washington, any many more over the last three years and the list goes on an on...they win because of the officiating. Okay, Michigan had nine penatlites vs. Michigan State's four last year. Yes, we know, the officials cheated in favor of Michigan. I bet they were a WAC crew.
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3-07-2008 @ 2:14AM
Rusty said...
Jeff, Sorry, revised slightly, here you go. You're right. Michigan STATE lost at Hawaii just like Purdue, Arizona State, Alabama, Washington, any many more over the last three years and the list goes on an on...Hawaii wins because of the officiating. Okay, Michigan had nine penatlites vs. Michigan State's four last year. Yes, we know, the officials cheated in favor of Michigan. I bet they were a WAC crew. There, a corrected submission.
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4-17-2008 @ 7:18PM
jerry said...
The blog is a bit misleading. The VATech game was dropped some years ago and the CalPoly game was added in 2008. That is not the impression one gets from what was written.
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