Hey, you can laugh about "how long it took me to put this together" (not long, Google exists, and it's not hard to type), but I certainly invested more thought than "Pick Six Previews did. The sad thing is, I could have done 80% of that research from memory. We have played very few quality games, and we have been overly reliant on Florida directional schools. I didn't need to Google the last 15 years to know that, I've sat through it as an alum and season-ticketholder.
Look, it's dangerous to just "drop off" a list or a stat that someone else compiled, in the mistaken belief that you have proved your point or won an argument.
So put down the crack pipe, and let's think about what you think you have proven.
"So I guess any team that isn't in the SEC plays a weak schedule". No, that's not the point. If you DON'T play in the SEC (and you only play Clemson twice every 12 years), you might need to improve your overall strength-of-schedule with some good OOC games.
If (like me) you had bothered to look at some prior year schedules, you would have seen that in some earlier years, Miami annually played up to 5 ACC teams that were ranked at year-end. This year, beyond Clemson, the ONLY OTHER ranked team at year-end was UVa, AND THERE WERE FIVE GROUP OF FIVE TEAMS RANKED HIGHER THAN UVA.
So, yeah, is it "too much" to expect Blake to make a better effort to schedule quality Power 5 OOC games? It's not even purely a "strength of schedule" issue, he needs to give the fans a good reason to buy season tickets, and a good reason to buy away game tickets. For 2020, this is the home schedule:
Temple, Wagner, Alabama-Birmingham (Thursday night), Pitt, North Carolina, F$U, and Duke
Disgusting.
I agree that we "can't help what conference we are in". But that's where your logic ends. You don't understand the difference between contractual obligation games and pre-season kickoff games and REGULAR SCHEDULING? That's why your point is so worthless. ALL THAT BLAKE HAS TO DO EVERY YEAR is schedule 4 OOC games. That's it. 8 games are already scheduled by the ACC. And if you know **** well that we are in a weaker conference, or that the "Miami audience" is hard to impress and doesn't just go out to 6 crappy games every year, then he has to make an effort to schedule better OOC games. And when we have so many contractual obligation and pre-season games (one-offs with no return trip to Miami), then it becomes painfully obvious that Blake is stealing paychecks.
I have previously posted a lengthy list of Power 5 teams that we SHOULD be scheduling, teams that haven't been scheduled in decades. Just off the top of my head, I could list USC (urban private school), Northwestern (another urban private school), Vanderbilt (ANOTHER urban private school), and TCU (a FOURTH urban private school). There, I've given you four schools from four different P5 conferences which would offer compelling storylines and ESPN-worthy games that would expose Miami to some relatively untapped markets. WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO COMPREHEND?
I'm not asking to schedule Bama and Oklahoma and Ohio Taint on an annual basis. I'm asking for Blake to do his job and make an effort.