Due to increased ticket prices and the somewhat dull (compared to previous years) home schedule, many fans decided not to renew their season tickets. How weak is this years schedule? Well, it’s pretty weak (again, compared to other SEC schools). Sporting News recently ranked the best and worst non conference schedule in college football and the CATS ranked #7 on the worst list.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
[QUOTE][B]1. Indiana: [/B]Towson, at Western Kentucky, Akron, Arkansas State: Can the staff keep the Hoosiers focused all four weeks and avoid a letdown?
[B]2. Arizona State:[/B] Portland State, Northern Arizona, at Wisconsin: This is too good a program, with too much potential, to be playing two I-AA teams.
[B] 3. Virginia:[/B] Richmond, at USC, VMI, Eastern Michigan: A gift for first-year coach Mike London: two I-AA teams (including his former team Richmond), the perhaps the worst Division I-A school in the nation and a weakened national power trying to keep its roster intact.
[B]4. Syracuse:[/B] at Akron, at Washington, Maine, Colgate, Boston College: Now that’s the way you drum up support and impress recruits: Maine and Colgate on the home schedule.
[B]5. Ole Miss: [/B]Jacksonville State, at Tulane, Fresno State, Louisiana-Lafayette: The worst of a bad lot in the SEC, the Rebels’ only game of significance (Fresno State) is in Oxford. And it won’t be easy.
[B]6. Northwestern:[/B] at Vanderbilt, Illinois State, at Rice, Central Michigan: Two programs in flux (Vanderbilt and Rice), another with a new coach (CMU) and a I-AA punching bag.
[B]7. Kentucky:[/B] at Louisville, Western Kentucky, Akron, Charleston Southern: UK isn’t the worst in the SEC because even years mean the Louisville rivalry is on the road. Other than that, Ole Miss and UK are twin ugly.
[B]8. Missouri:[/B] vs. Illinois, McNeese State, San Diego State, Miami (Ohio): Four home games (that’s right, I’m including Illinois at St. Louis as a defacto home game), four dogs. The reward: eight wins, and a trip to San Antonio.
[B]9. Baylor: [/B]Sam Houston State, Buffalo, at TCU, at Rice: Can we really be upset at Baylor scheduling down? Of course we can—within reason.
[B]10. Rutgers:[/B] Norfolk State, at FIU, North Carolina, Tulane, Army: A method behind the madness: Coach Greg Schiano plays at FIU, which just about no BCS school will do, because he’s selling his program (billboards, and all) in South Florida.[/QUOTE]
