This Blog is about college football usatoday
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Although the opening weekend for college football features non-conference showdowns between No. 5 Boise State and No. 6 Virginia Tech, and No. 16 LSU vs. No. 18th North Carolina, the majority of the nation's major programs follow the path of least resistance to open the year.
Counting independent Notre Dame, only eight of the 77 games over the five-day Labor Day weekend match teams from marquee conferences.
And some coaches who are playing early-season games against marquee opponents wish they weren't. "It's a high risk now that delivers a fairly low reward," said Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, whose No. 8 Sooners host No. 20 Florida State on Sept. 11. "You're not rewarded (in the polls) as much as you used to be for playing a tough non-conference schedule.
"The bottom line, it's only good if you win and you don't get your quarterback hurt."
Sam Bradford, the Heisman Trophy winner in 2008, was injured in OU's 2009 opener against Brigham Young.
Schools from conferences with national championship aspirations that are in conferences without automatic BCS berths (such as Boise, TCU and Utah) have to play a rugged non-conference schedule to remain in the title conversation. But there are top-25 programs that embrace a tough non-conference a regular basis. Pittsburgh, for example, has Miami (Fla.), Notre Dame and Utah on this year's schedule; FSU plays Florida and BYU in addition to Oklahoma.
While these high-caliber showdowns can benefit a school's financial bottom line and national profile, UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel, who opens Saturday at Kansas State and plays at Texas Sept. 25, thinks they are counterproductive if the only goal is to rise in the national polls: "Looked at from the standpoint of having your team as highly ranked as possible, there is no advantage to these games. You don't need to play these games, and it doesn't make any sense to do it."
But Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer, whose Hokies opened last year against Alabama, still sees an up side to playing marquee games to begin the season.
"When you play a good team like (in your opener) your preseason is better, your fall practice is better, everything is in sharper focus," he said. "You're a better team overall because you've prepared well.
"I think that anyone who knows college football knows that if we can beat Boise State, we've beaten a quality program."
Alabama, ranked fifth in last year's preseason poll, used the win over Virginia Tech as the springboard to a national championship. And while the Hokies eventually fell out of title contention, they were still ranked fourth nationally in mid-October.
"You take a chance with an early-season loss but I don't think you necessarily knock yourself out of the national championship picture," Beamer said. "You have time to recover."
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