Thoughts on 2008 football schedule

I know everybody and their dogs are doing football previews now with spring practice and games over. I'll get one up here in a couple weeks or so, but I just don't have the time to do a thorough analysis of each team in the conference right now.

In the meantime, I've been looking at the Wildcats football schedule for 2008. It seems to be following the pattern Ron Prince has been trying to establish as far as non-conference games go. We have three home games, and one on the road. We play one high-level, BCS opponent in Louisville (at Louisville). We play a solid non-BCS opponent in Fresno State. Then we play two teams who should be fairly easy wins in U-La-La and North Texas. Here's the full schedule:

8/30: Louisiana-Lafayette
9/6: Fresno State
9/20: @ Louisville
9/27: North Texas
10/4: Texas Tech
10/11: @ Texas A&M
10/18: @ Colorado
10/25: Oklahoma
11/1: @ KU
11/8: @ Missouri
11/15: Nebraska
11/22: Iowa State

Of course, a lot can change in a few years. Louisville lost a lot of good players and lost head coach Bobby Petrino this year. Hard to say how the team will adjust in the near future. UL does not have the tradition as a football powerhouse, but Petrino and Co. laid a solid foundation for future success.

Fresno State suffered an awful 4-8 season last year after a fairly strong run of success in previous years under renegade coach Pat Hill (ok, he's not really a renegade, but that mustache is pretty wild). We'll find out more about them in the Big 12 this year as Texas A&M (howdy Ags!) and our own Wildcats take on the Bulldogs.

At this point, I like the non-conference scheduling philosophy. You can't play multiple non-con games against top-notch BCS caliber opponents if you're trying to get a program back to a point where it's making the postseason consistently. I'm also happy to see the games against Div. I-AA teams have disappeared at least for the time being. It's possible to schedule nearly certain wins against I-A opponents (unless you're Colorado). Testing the squad against a high-profile opponent (and occasionally in a hostile environment) is also a good thing once a year for a couple reasons. First, it really gives you a measuring stick that blowout wins don't. Two years ago, we blew North Texas out, 54-7, and yet finished below .500 for the year. Also, it gives the coaches something to really motivate the team with during spring and fall drills. This year, I'm sure the coaches have been pointing to that trip to Auburn as a means of getting the players to really get ready. In the past, the players didn't really have to be firing on all cylinders until about the third or fourth week of the season.

Also, 2008 signals another conference schedule rotation. We drop Oklahoma State, Baylor and Texas and pick up Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Texas Tech. Not a good tradeoff, obviously, as we drop two teams who are traditionally toward the bottom of the South for three teams that are almost always in the top four. At least we can always play Colorado and Iowa State...

Here's to that game in College Station in 2008. I will be seeing a lot of you Aggies there.

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In some final NFL Draft-related news, Brandon Archer and Quinton Echols have signed with the Indianapolis Colts as free agents. Congrats to those two for signing with a successful NFL franchise, and good luck in the future.