| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> 2002 Intended Schedule Strength | About the author, Boyd Nation |
Publication Date: February 12, 2002
Bring 'em On
The 2002 Strength of Schedule numbers for the preseason are out, and I wanted to take this week to look at some of the details. The usual disclaimers apply, most notably that there's no moral compulsion to play a tough schedule, but strength of schedule has to be considered in determining a team's quality.
As always, any relationship between these rankings and the actual strength of schedule at the end of the season is purely coincidental. Schedules change due to rainouts and makeups. These rankings are based on last year's ISR's; obviously, each of a team's opponents will change in quality from last year to this year, and the changes don't always cancel out. In practice, though, a team's SoS ranking at the end of the year tends to end up within about 25 spots of where it begins.
Because last year was such a heavily dominant year for the West Coast -- the Pac-10 and Big West went 1 and 2 in the conference ISR's for last year -- and those teams tend to schedule mostly each other, all of the toughest schedules are out west this year, at least at this point. The toughest schedule by a non-Western team is LSU way down at #21. Obviously, this could change some if there's a general quality dip for the West Coast conferences. It's too early to tell if that's going to happen, although it's hard to imagine another year like last year -- the only real points I can find so far off-hand are the Arizona State-Tennessee, Tulane-Pepperdine and Stanford-Florida State series, although lots of smaller series will factor in before it's over.
Southern California once again has scheduled the nation's toughest schedule. I won't read you the whole list, of course, but here's the top 10 for non-conference schedules, since I don't have it sorted that way:
All Non-conf
Rank SoS SD Rank SoS SD
13 112.8 7.5 1 118.2 4.5 Loyola Marymount
2 116.7 6.9 2 116.6 5.9 Long Beach State
1 116.9 7.2 3 116.5 7.7 Southern California
5 115.5 7.3 4 116.1 8.0 Cal State Fullerton
6 114.7 6.9 5 116.0 8.6 Fresno State
23 111.6 8.2 6 115.3 7.2 Houston
17 112.5 7.8 7 114.9 5.6 Hawaii
4 115.7 6.6 8 114.3 6.7 Stanford
3 116.1 8.7 9 114.2 9.2 UCLA
8 113.3 7.0 10 114.1 8.5 Nevada
A few that are playing tough schedules in an attempt to outgrow their conference affiliations or generally strengthen their programs:
All Non-conf
Rank SoS SD Rank SoS SD
32 110.3 10.0 24 110.7 10.1 Miami, Florida
49 108.4 7.3 19 111.9 6.0 Louisiana-Lafayette
73 106.2 8.0 29 110.0 7.8 Creighton
76 105.7 7.8 30 110.0 9.3 Brigham Young
78 105.5 8.3 27 110.3 9.8 San Diego State
222 91.3 15.0 69 105.3 9.3 Mississippi Valley State
The Louisiana-Lafayette schedule may be an example of the lag time that can sometimes occur in scheduling; some schools try to schedule 2-3 years ahead, so their 2002 schedule may be a reflection of the success of the 2000 team.
Finally, the average non-conference strength of schedule for each conference:
112.7 WCC 111.0 Big West 110.9 WAC 109.7 Pac 10 107.3 Mountain West 105.8 C-USA 104.3 Big 12 103.1 Southland 103.0 SEC 102.7 Sun Belt 102.0 MVC 101.8 ACC 100.8 OVC 100.6 Mid-Continent 99.5 Atlantic Sun 98.9 Big Ten 98.7 Independents 98.7 Big South 97.9 Southern 96.3 MAC 94.3 CAA 94.2 MEAC 93.8 Horizon 93.8 Big East 92.1 Atlantic 10 91.7 Ivy 90.3 MAAC 90.0 SWAC 89.9 Patriot 89.0 NEC 88.7 America East
The SWAC numbers are somewhat skewed by Alcorn State, who has no games scheduled against non-conference Division I opponents. The code I wrote accidentally ends up counting that as a 0; since I don't have any idea what to do with it, bump them up a few spaces if you like.
Pitch Count Watch
Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye.
| Date | Team | Pitcher | Opponent | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | AB | BF | Pitches |
| Feb 15 | Louisiana State | Bo Pettit | Mercer | 7.2 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 31 | 35 | 123 |
| Feb 16 | Mercer | Brett Jarrett | Louisiana State | 6.1 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 22 | 29 | 125 |
(*) Pitch count is estimated.
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| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> 2002 Intended Schedule Strength | About the author, Boyd Nation |