I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about the direction our athletic teams are heading. To me, it’s not so much about wins and losses as much as it is who we are playing. The schedule tells a lot about the quality of a team.
Scheduling is a debatable topic. When coaches and athletic directors are choosing teams to play for the upcoming season, a lot of thought has to go into how challenging the contests should be. For a squad that has a possibility of reaching the postseason and needs as many wins as possible to qualify, it may be in their best interest to schedule “lesser” teams in order to put an extra W in the win column. At the same time, a program that is rebuilding from the ground up may want to find some easier games to play to get some wins and build momentum for the coming years.
Realistically, however, how meaningful will it be for Northeastern to beat up on other schools? As the saying goes, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Likewise, if the Huskies win a game against a clearly inferior team that poses no real challenge, is it really a win?
In my opinion, winning a game like this is in no way an accomplishment worthy of note. No one commends you for something that is expected in the first place, yet they will criticize you if you fail in such a situation. That’s what I call a lose-lose proposition.
What I like to see are schedules that are challenging and provide the opportunity to play top-notch competition. These games offer many advantages. Often, when a big-name program schedules a smaller or lower-tier program, the larger program provides money for the visitors. This year Northeastern received compensation from Ball State for the football team’s game in Muncie, Ind. against the Cardinals and to travel to Syracuse this week to play the Orange. The men’s and women’s basketball teams received similar payments for traveling to play various teams last season.
Another positive that comes from these challenging games is the possibility to pull a major upset. When Appalachian State defeated Michigan in football last September, it brought a huge amount of press and publicity to the team and the school at large. Upsets like these are obviously few and far between, but you never know what will happen once the games begin.
The most obvious advantage to taking on top competition is the improvement that a team can make. Consistently playing better teams raises the level of play and makes the team better. By sizing up better squads a team can see what needs to be improved and needs to be done to reach a higher level of play.
Coaches and AD’s wouldn’t schedule tough games if their teams couldn’t be competitive. Looking at who Northeastern has scheduled games against this year shows that our programs believe they have the ability to play with some talented squads.
Football has two Division I Football Bowl Subdivision teams, men’s soccer plays two top-25 ranked squads, and volleyball plays in four tournaments and has already played two ranked opponents. It’s not as if the Huskies are being outclassed in these games either.
Men’s soccer has tied both top-25 teams, the football team lost in overtime to a ranked Football Championship Subdivision opponent last week and women’s soccer won their tournament earlier this season in Minnesota. It seems as though every team has a realistic chance to win every time they compete.
Winter schedules are to be finalized soon and I’m intrigued to see what opponents are listed. If those schedules are as challenging as the fall’s, then the Huskies will have every opportunity to make some noise in the college sporting world.
– Patrick McHugh can be reached at
