HawkInATX
Well-Known Member
1) Dean's original post on this was more about who HF / KF scheduled than about who they played. I know in my followup I said "played", but I didn't consider the situation your list highlights- clearly, KF would have had no input into the non-con schedule for his 1st years on the job (schedules being set years in advance), so 1999 & 2000 schedules would more realistically be attributed to HF, even though KF "played" them.
2) ASU (#18) and AZ (#24) were top-25, not top-10
So, KF has been part of scheduling 0 top-10's- less than you'd expect from random scheduling.
You're right, I missed that they weren't top 10, that's my bad. But that said, I really do still think that my main point stands, which is that you don't exactly expect to schedule more than one top ten team per decade, if even that. And since scheduling occurs roughly two to three or more years in advance, scheduling a top ten team isn't something you can do without a little guesswork. I would argue that having a series of home/home with Pitt and Arizona is a good faith effort to play teams who could be ranked (maybe not top ten). But another thing to think about is if you look at the way Iowa made #2 ranked PSU look, I can imagine a lot of potential top ten teams not wanting to get into that kind of fight. What's the saying? Never getting into a mud-wrestling match with a pig, the pig will enjoy it and you'll both get dirty?