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2024–25 schedule

97spiderfan said:
Gulf Coast MTE has Ball State, Southern Illinois and Eastern Kentucky in it. And then 5 open slots to be filled. I suppose that is why it looks like it might be a place for us to land. Keep in mind at SF said above, every P5 team has already committed along with every Atlantic 10, Mountain West, WCC, Missouri Valley conference. So, whomever fills those 5 spots, they are going to have very similar profiles in it as the 3 schools already committed.

It is scheduling malpractice that the reigning A-10 champions from last year is literally the only team of competitive value that does not have an MTE at this point. I mean what we were doing all Spring and Summer when these were getting done, on vacation, not answering our phones, turning down offers. It just kind of blows your mind that we are here right now.
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More likely the Gulf Coast mte needs 1 or 2. Just doesn't seem practical that it's 5. Not at the end of August. there has been some misreporting on the MTE tracker too. idk what MTE we're in but I'm definitely of the belief we've been in 1 too, just not announced. Gulf coast seems reasonable of what's left. maybe we prefer to have all 8 teams finalized b4 announcing, especially since it's not an event that will move the needle. just spitballing.

To me it's not that we don't have a MTE we're in....it's that we're in a bad one. I've said this for years...it's the connection and over reliance on the Gazelle Group. Not enough varied and good connections for MTEs, which r run by the 3rd party groups. We've parked the bus with Gazelle and we're a one trick pony more or less with these MTEs. I don't know why, although u can certainly speculate. But I don't think we can be shocked. The evidence of how we operate in past is there. The Gazelle Group doesn't even have the best MTEs. Now they have some pretty good 2 game MTEs, maybe 1 fell through for us, or they have other clients to cater to, and we go into panic mode with no other connections.
 
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spiderstudent17 said:
If we are at the point where we need to schedule these teams and even lose to one of them, then we have much bigger problems than debating our schedule and if/which MTE we should be in.
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a lot of teams r scheduling d2/d3 teams. Net gaming. Just take a W over non d1 instead of a weaker D1 that could hurt your Net/sos. So it's already a thing and why we'd do it too. poor reflection on NCAA/Net. they have to look at revising. until they do it looks like it will continue. That part is more a problem of the NET than us. I still prefer we don't do it.

as far as losing...yes we'd have much bigger problems. but fact is there are harder d3s out there than others. some would even win games against lower d1. A loss would be a death blow, so why risk any chance. u can find teams that r essentially zero chance. The others I mentioned, while very low chances, are not that. There is reason why VCU is playing Elizabeth City in theirs and not VA Union, who they've played often in exhibition and is local.

If we were doing the game for season prep instead, like an exhibition, I would want those teams.
 
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went over this before, but the idea that beating weak D1 teams hurts your NET is an urban legend.

Colgate's NET was 161 on January 11. they didn't play a team with a NET better than 267 the rest of the year.
they finished at 125.
 
GKiller said:
a lot of teams r scheduling d2/d3 teams. Net gaming. Just take a W over non d1 instead of a weaker D1 that could hurt your Net/sos. So it's already a thing and why we'd do it too. poor reflection on NCAA/Net. they have to look at revising. until they do it looks like it will continue. That part is more a problem of the NET than us. I still prefer we don't do it.

as far as losing...yes we'd have much bigger problems. but fact is there are harder d3s out there than others. some would even win games against lower d1. A loss would be a death blow, so why risk any chance. u can find teams that r essentially zero chance. The others I mentioned, while very low chances, are not that. There is reason why VCU is playing Elizabeth City in theirs and not VA Union, who they've played often in exhibition and is local.

If we were doing the game for season prep instead, like an exhibition, I would want those teams.
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I agree with playing D2/D3 in an exhibition, but personally I would never want to play a non-d1 team in the regular season under any circumstances. If we end up scheduling one this year, then it is what it is. Scheduling a Q4 game has virtually no upside but scheduling a non-d1 has zero upside, even if it’s against a team that goes 32-0 and wins the D3 national championship. At least with a team that’s Q4 there’s a hope that they perform better than usual and could turn out to be a slightly better game than we imagined. Also, beating a Q4 by 30+ will help NET (as we’ve seen with P5 teams gaming the system). My understanding is that non-d1 games are not factored into NET regardless of margins of victory. Regardless, I find it surprising that out of the 350+ D1 teams, we wouldn’t be able to find one to fill our home schedule over a D2/D3 opponent.
 
spiderman said:
went over this before, but the idea that beating weak D1 teams hurts your NET is an urban legend.

Colgate's NET was 161 on January 11. they didn't play a team with a NET better than 267 the rest of the year.
they finished at 125.
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But some teams do believe it is less risky for NET. at our level. It's different with high majors. Because they get a full conference schedule of good games. we see a lot more of these games at our level. & I've heard coaches explicitly say this to be a reason. tho part of it might be easier and less expensive to get the game too.

& maybe some teams don't want to rely on absolutely crushing a weak d1 team, bc we've also heard that's what it takes. Also Colgate went 17-1 rest of way, what % of teams pull off 17-1 down the stretch (1%?) and maybe their OOC teams overperformed we'd have to analyze. But 17-1 is hard to rely upon, if the University of Richmond could then yes we could adjust accordingly.

Also remember Colgate played half those games on road too. We r talking a HOME game only so not apples to apples.

could be urban legend at our level too, unfortunately we don't know the secret NET formula.
 
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spiderstudent17 said:
I agree with playing D2/D3 in an exhibition, but personally I would never want to play a non-d1 team in the regular season under any circumstances. If we end up scheduling one this year, then it is what it is. Scheduling a Q4 game has virtually no upside but scheduling a non-d1 has zero upside, even if it’s against a team that goes 32-0 and wins the D3 national championship. At least with a team that’s Q4 there’s a hope that they perform better than usual and could turn out to be a slightly better game than we imagined. Also, beating a Q4 by 30+ will help NET (as we’ve seen with P5 teams gaming the system). My understanding is that non-d1 games are not factored into NET regardless of margins of victory. Regardless, I find it surprising that out of the 350+ D1 teams, we wouldn’t be able to find one to fill our home schedule over a D2/D3 opponent.
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I like the upside of D1 only games too. I think the upside for non d1....in theory, is less risk. Take an easy W that inflates your record in some areas (although not the NCAA committee). And not drag your numbers. We have seen teams win bad games and go down in NET too. It's hard to know with a secret formula. But best to avoid those 300+ games. And if u can't avoid it, I understand why teams go down the non d1 route. It's sad tho and needs a change at NCAA/Net level.

Again, I'm not in favor of this scheduling approach, just discussing the reasons behind it.

I'm glad u r factoring upside, it's a little weird hearing u talk about upside when you were rather dismissive about upside playing more P5s tho.
 
GKiller said:
I like the upside of D1 only games too. I think the upside for non d1....in theory, is less risk. Take an easy W that inflates your record in some areas (although not the NCAA committee). And not drag your numbers. We have seen teams win bad games and go down in NET too. It's hard to know with a secret formula. But best to avoid those 300+ games. And if u can't avoid it, I understand why teams go down the non d1 route. It's sad tho and needs a change at NCAA/Net level.

Again, I'm not in favor of this scheduling approach, just discussing the reasons behind it.

I'm glad u r factoring upside, it's a little weird hearing u talk about upside when you were rather dismissive about upside playing more P5s tho.
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For P5s who do it, I get because they will have plenty of opportunities to bolster NET and they likely see it as theoretical zero risk of losing, whereas even with a bad Q4 team there runs a small risk of losing. For us, being who we are in the A10, we need as many games as possible to try and build our NET. That’s why I’m in favor of playing in a MTE than not, even if it’s an MTE that is the lower division.

As far as your last point, about upside and P5s, I see it as a calculated risk/upside. My general point is that I don’t want to play more than 2-3 very, top P5 teams (I mention in one of my more recent posts that the Boston College, Vanderbilt’s of the world don’t count in my number) because a great record is important for optics and I want to be realistic about our chances of winning these games. So play enough games where we have the chance to have resume building wins but not so many where we put all our eggs in one basket. Conversely, I don’t want to play too many Q4s either for the opposite reason. We can go 11-2 record OOC against Q4s but losses really hurt us and the wins likely won’t improve our NET. Essentially, I am providing what I think the formula is for UR to maximize its at-large chances, which too me is what we should strive for every year, despite only 1 at-large the last 20 years.
 
VCU has D3 St Mary's and D2 Elizabeth City on schedule. I've been told that is common now.
 
spiderman said:
went over this before, but the idea that beating weak D1 teams hurts your NET is an urban legend.

Colgate's NET was 161 on January 11. they didn't play a team with a NET better than 267 the rest of the year.
they finished at 125.
Click to expand...
I’m still not sure that playing 1 weak D1 team at home for a close win won’t hurt your NET…
 
spiderstudent17 said:
and they likely see it as theoretical zero risk of losing, whereas even with a bad Q4 team there runs a small risk of losing. For us, being who we are in the A10, we need as many games as possible to try and build our NET.
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it's the same reason why at our level. and exactly what I mentioned above. teams will actually build their NET around smaller amount of games. take out 1 max 2 of the awful dogs on schedule and replace with d2s that have no chance of hurting u. I don't know if the math always works but it's being done.
spiderstudent17 said:
As far as your last point, about upside and P5s, I see it as a calculated risk/upside. My general point is that I don’t want to play more than 2-3 very, top P5 teams (I mention in one of my more recent posts that the Boston College, Vanderbilt’s of the world don’t count in my number) because a great record is important for optics and I want to be realistic about our chances of winning these games. So play enough games where we have the chance to have resume building wins but not so many where we put all our eggs in one basket.
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Ok. But I never once said they all have to be the elite of the P5. what is the elite anyway....top 10? that's pretty subjective year to year. So I'm sure I would take more than u, but the overall strategy was load up on P5s wherever u get them, most likely all neutral and road. Are u against 5 or 6 road/neutral p5s? If u aren't then great. But it felt that way. the very rare times we've gotten in or had reasonable chance is when we played 5 P5s. And we also took some losses where our record didn't stand out with the optics imo, i.e. u could afford 1 or 2 more losses. This season schedule looks like 1 P5. Ugh, our fate basically sealed. Unless we win at rates Mooney has never shown b4 in 20 years.
 
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Optics no longer matter. Teams win 26, 27, 28 games now and don’t sniff a bid if they have one off night in conference. Indiana St made the conf tourney finals with a good NET and a lot of wins and were SOL.

There are always reasons they include P5s and shaft others but if you think that non P5s are winning any optics discussions, you’re mistaken.
 
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urmite said:
I’m still not sure that playing 1 weak D1 team at home for a close win won’t hurt your NET…
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I agree with that. but if you're any good you shouldn't have a close home win against the 350th team in the country.
 
brooklyn brownstone said:
Optics no longer matter. Teams win 26, 27, 28 games now and don’t sniff a bid if they have one off night in conference. Indiana St made the conf tourney finals with a good NET and a lot of wins and were SOL.

There are always reasons they include P5s and shaft others but if you think that non P5s are winning any optics discussions, you’re mistaken.
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Their 29 NET plus Q2 wins should have gotten them in.

On the flip side they were 0-2 Q1 OOC, 0-0 Q2 OOC, and 22-1 Q3/4 overall.

1-2 Q1 MVC, 4-1 Q2 MVC
 
GKiller said:
it's the same reason why at our level. and exactly what I mentioned above. teams will actually build their NET around smaller amount of games. take out 1 max 2 of the awful dogs on schedule and replace with d2s that have no chance of hurting u. I don't know if the math always works but it's being done.
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I agree with you that this is the approach many programs are taking. Unfortunately, it adds to the reason why scheduling has become even harder.
GKiller said:
Ok. But I never once said they all have to be the elite of the P5. what is the elite anyway....top 10? that's pretty subjective year to year. So I'm sure I would take more than u, but the overall strategy was load up on P5s wherever u get them, most likely all neutral and road. Are u against 5 or 6 road/neutral p5s? If u aren't then great. But it felt that way. the very rare times we've gotten in or had reasonable chance is when we played 5 P5s. And we also took some losses where our record didn't stand out with the optics imo, i.e. u could afford 1 or 2 more losses. This season schedule looks like 1 P5. Ugh, our fate basically sealed. Unless we win at rates Mooney has never shown b4 in 20 years.
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I know it's rather subjective on my part - and also based on our recent past record against these teams - but my thought is limiting to scheduling 2 top 40 caliber teams played either on the road or neutral. I say P5 because its easier but it technically it could include teams like Gonzaga or Memphis. So essentially 2 teams who are in the AP top 25 or receiving votes kind of teams and then one more against a fraud-Q1 team like a UCF who have an inflated NET because of record but aren't really good but also not bad (so try and schedule a total of 3 Q1 games OOC). I have no problem playing more bottom level P5 teams who will be Q2 like Boston College, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, California, etc. since those games are more winnable than say at Auburn and there is the upside that they over perform in conference and turn out to be a better win than expected. So whether or not I am for or against playing 5 or 6 road/neutral P5s depends on who the P5s are.
 
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urmite said:
Their 29 NET plus Q2 wins should have gotten them in.

On the flip side they were 0-2 Q1 OOC, 0-0 Q2 OOC, and 22-1 Q3/4 overall.

1-2 Q1 MVC, 4-1 Q2 MVC
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Exactly. Stacking wins doesn’t matter, optics or otherwise. Playing a MTE only to pick up three Q3/4 games is meaningless. There is no wins threshold that guarantees entry anymore. Seems like winning a conference is also meaningless, even if you finish ahead of so-called better teams/bid locks, as A10, MVC and AAC winners were not given bids or even thought about in a couple instances. Which shows why OOC is so important. It’s given way more weight than the 40% of the schedule it represents.


 
spiderstudent17 said:
I know it's rather subjective on my part - and also based on our recent past record against these teams - but my thought is limiting to scheduling 2 top 40 caliber teams played either on the road or neutral. I say P5 because its easier but it technically it could include teams like Gonzaga or Memphis. So essentially 2 teams who are in the AP top 25 or receiving votes kind of teams and then one more against a fraud-Q1 team like a UCF who have an inflated NET because of record but aren't really good but also not bad (so try and schedule a total of 3 Q1 games OOC). I have no problem playing more bottom level P5 teams who will be Q2 like Boston College, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, California, etc. since those games are more winnable than say at Auburn and there is the upside that they over perform in conference and turn out to be a better win than expected. So whether or not I am for or against playing 5 or 6 road/neutral P5s depends on who the P5s are.
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Top 40 caliber?...there's possibly 75 teams that are reasonably top 40 caliber. Even if we went with top 40 straight away...sorry to me I say wtf. Think I knew this tho when u said we should have no other higher goals or expectations when we have a 20 year veteran coach like Mooney.

No offense u r entitled to your opinion and you're a good fan, but I feel like that's the little ol' Richmond approach. adding a 3rd top40ish team? Yes, let's definitely turn that down. and with our current mid major approach working so well! I'm not saying all 5 will be that way, some years u don't know, but u go after it and u have 3 or 4 in 1 year who cares.
 
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97spiderfan said:
Gulf Coast MTE has Ball State, Southern Illinois and Eastern Kentucky in it. And then 5 open slots to be filled. I suppose that is why it looks like it might be a place for us to land. Keep in mind at SF said above, every P5 team has already committed along with every Atlantic 10, Mountain West, WCC, Missouri Valley conference. So, whomever fills those 5 spots, they are going to have very similar profiles in it as the 3 schools already committed.

It is scheduling malpractice that the reigning A-10 champions from last year is literally the only team of competitive value that does not have an MTE at this point. I mean what we were doing all Spring and Summer when these were getting done, on vacation, not answering our phones, turning down offers. It just kind of blows your mind that we are here right now.
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80's has known all along.
 
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GKiller said:
Top 40 caliber?...there's possibly 75 teams that are reasonably top 40 caliber. Even if we went with top 40 straight away...sorry to me I say wtf. Think I knew this tho when u said we should have no other higher goals or expectations when we have a 20 year veteran coach like Mooney.

No offense u r entitled to your opinion and you're a good fan, but I feel like that's the little ol' Richmond approach. adding a 3rd top40ish team? Yes, let's definitely turn that down. and with our current mid major approach working so well! I'm not saying all 5 will be that way, some years u don't know, but u go after it and u have 3 or 4 in 1 year who cares.
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I think you're a good fan too. You cannot predict with 100% certainty who a top 40ish team will be, but like a bunch of other things I base my reasoning off of, you can look at recent data. The same reason I don't want to play at Bucknell this year because they've stunk the last 5 years and I don't care about the fact they were good 15 years ago, is the same reason I would be fine scheduling a game at Auburn since they will more than likely fit that criteria of being top 40ish. I do respect your mindset about playing as many top teams as possible, but I disagree with the notion that by trying to create a more balanced schedule to maximize our at-large chances - even if it means limiting those kinds of games - is the "little ole Richmond" mindset. I think the "little ole Richmond" mindset is giving up on at-large hopes from the get go and instead going the route of Monmouth where we play all our games on the road against top teams to collect a paycheck and not care about record, or going the route of scheduling all cupcakes just to boost our ego. I am all for going after it with big games but within reason. For me, playing 2-3 of those kind of games OOC each year is enough where going 2-1 and maybe 1-2 (depending on the game) is great but going 0-3 won't crush our at-large hopes if we do well in our other games. You feel different and again I respect that. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
 
spiderstudent17 said:
I think you're a good fan too. You cannot predict with 100% certainty who a top 40ish team will be, but like a bunch of other things I base my reasoning off of, you can look at recent data. The same reason I don't want to play at Bucknell this year because they've stunk the last 5 years and I don't care about the fact they were good 15 years ago, is the same reason I would be fine scheduling a game at Auburn since they will more than likely fit that criteria of being top 40ish. I do respect your mindset about playing as many top teams as possible, but I disagree with the notion that by trying to create a more balanced schedule to maximize our at-large chances - even if it means limiting those kinds of games - is the "little ole Richmond" mindset. I think the "little ole Richmond" mindset is giving up on at-large hopes from the get go and instead going the route of Monmouth where we play all our games on the road against top teams to collect a paycheck and not care about record, or going the route of scheduling all cupcakes just to boost our ego. I am all for going after it with big games but within reason. For me, playing 2-3 of those kind of games OOC each year is enough where going 2-1 and maybe 1-2 (depending on the game) is great but going 0-3 won't crush our at-large hopes if we do well in our other games. You feel different and again I respect that. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
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Who is comparing us to Monmouth? Maybe I missed that. Yeah we just disagree on best way to get into positioning of an At large. Way too rare but the way I suggest is really our only history of it.

Yeah Bucknell game rough this year in a vacuum tho I’d still sign up for a 5-1 future series!! U should ask the coaches why they r kinda doing what u suggest with Buckynell & W&M with those mid major H&H series.
 
I'm still watching that pot. Western Illinois, South Alabama, and Incarnate Word are off the board with their own MTE.

 
spiderman said:
we almost have to be doing our own MTE as well, at this point.
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We could but it would be 3 teams of the Caliber of Western Illinois and Incarnate Word, so that isn't really helpful either. UR80 assured us that we have been in top secret MTE for a long time now, so lets hope his inside scoop is as accurate as he purports it to be.
 
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97spiderfan said:
We could but it would be 3 teams of the Caliber of Western Illinois and Incarnate Word, so that isn't really helpful either. UR80 assured us that we have been in top secret MTE for a long time now, so lets hope his inside scoop is as accurate as he purports it to be.
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his top secret MTE might have been a Spider Invitational though.
clearly wasn't one of the many MTE's we've been following.
 
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spiderman said:
his top secret MTE might have been a Spider Invitational though.
clearly wasn't one of the many MTE's we've been following.
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Checking on Randy Mac now - Spider invitational! Old Richmond SID Phil Stanton would know he’s still over there.

Think Gulf Coast counts if we’re in that. Recent mte follow but def counts to me. Tho not a good MTE & I thought he said we’d get a couple good teams.

I’m more concerned w Auburn. Mainly bc 80s deleted that. I think the intentions w the collective calls r good but possible some propaganda comes occasionally too & not 80s fault. But I’m riding with Auburn.
 
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