2010 Schedule

It's not too early to be thinking ahead about what the 2010 schedule might look like!

Has anyone with inside connections heard anything?

Here's some speculation to get a conversation started:

In addition to our 7 conference games, we seem to play Washington, Oregon, and Oregon State every year, that makes 10. Two games at the Washington tournament seem out of our control. (Up to 12.) We haven't played Portland State since 2007, but played them annually before that. Will that series restart? Is Washington State going to become a regular fixture? We played them here in 2001, 2006, and 2009, and there in 2004. If that were to happen then we'd have 13 games set. That leaves 6 more games if we play 19 as we did this year.

Looking at the 2001-2009 schedules on the Pilots' Web site, there seem to be some "open commitments" from past years. Among the top teams, we would owe visits to California, Miami, and Illinois from 2009. Rutgers, Penn State, and Texas A&M seem to owe us from 2009 or 2008.

Among other teams, SMU (away) and Montana (here) from last year, San Diego State (here) from 2008, and Yale and Kansas (both here) from 2007 have not had reciprocal fixtures. I'm not sure how committed we are to a reciprocal match with these teams.

Here's some speculation:
At Cal and Stanford, finishing the Cal pair and starting a new one with Stanford.
Two of Penn State, Rutgers, and Texas A&M here for the Invitational.
Miami and Florida State on the road, again finishing a pair with Miami and starting another with FSU, whose coach seems to like playing us.

One unexpected observation from looking at the past schedules: UNC was here both in 2002 and 2006, but we have not been there since before that. Are we due for a trip to Chapel Hill? Maybe they could be paired with Miami on a trip.

Does anyone know where the spreadsheet that has when schedules are posted and recruiting classes are announced on the athletic sites is located? It might have been on BS last year. I haven't seen any schedules posted yet, but UW is often posted early.

My mistake. It was just a tab on recruiting spreadsheet.

They have a nice addition there now with starting roster listed for '09 and SRs highlighted. That way you can see who loses the most from the starting lineups.

I have pretty much the same vision for the coming season you do. I'd say UW and the Oregon schools are a given. OSU will be in Corvalis, and the other two here.

Conversations with people who should know and with TAMU people on the net point to TAMU as the headliner to start the season next year, and it appears SMU will be coming here also.

We have Rutgers and Penn State seemingly owing us games from 2008. Those would be here, and, following past patterns, it would seem they have to be in 2010. With very few exceptions, games have been returned within 2 years.

We seemingly have current obligations with Illinois, Miami, and Cal - all away next year or in 2011, If those contracts are written like the rest of the ones we have done before.
I don't think in this economy we would travel long distances to play one game, so it would seem logical to start the series with FSU, Wisconsin, and Stanford on those trips, which means whichever we play in 2010 would also be away. It could be FLA instead of FSU, but I think Krekorian has already hinted we will play FSU soon.

WSU appears also to be an away obligation for 2010 or 2011 also. Without teams nearby we might be interested in playing, that will probably be a weekend with one game. (maybe Boise State could be scheduled?)

There are other teams I am unsure we contracted as home-home, but they would all be away also if they were. They include Yale, Kansas, , Columbia, UCSD, teams we had here in our tournament, and Montana. Those may be one-off games. If we ever do play the two Ivy's, I'll bet it's the same weekend. If we ever play Kansas, I bet we play somebody like Nebraska or Iowa that same weekend.

Another series with UNC is rumored, but I'm unsure which year that would start. I wonder if that means Duke or Wake would be also scheduled?

I'll note that last year we played 4 WCC teams at home in 2009 , which probably means we will only see 3 WCC teams here next year, and they would be SCU, LMU, and Pepp.

So we will be scrambling for home dates for 2010. Likely prospects - Seattle U, Pacific, or Denver. (they are prospects to join the conference, so we will surely schedule them in the next couple of years. They have all been working their way through the conference lately.) Also, if we think Portland State is better, we will reschedule them at some point. They did win their regular season conference title this year.

It seems we rotate trough the Southern PAC10 teams, so it's about time to get UCLA, USC, and the Arizona schools back in the mix. My guess is the Arizona schools are next.

UW usually announces their schedule before we do (late Feb.), so their tournament weekend date will go along way towards defining our schedule.

Is 19 the official schedule limit for soccer? I noticed that some of the teams---even those without conference tournaments such as Stanford, Santa Clara, and Notre Dame---played 20 or 21.

You're right that there might be a lot of dark, quiet nights at Merlo with all of our road obligations. If we could add a game or two, that would help all of us get our fall soccer fix!

SoreKnees wrote:Is 19 the official schedule limit for soccer? I noticed that some of the teams---even those without conference tournaments such as Stanford, Santa Clara, and Notre Dame---played 20 or 21.

You're right that there might be a lot of dark, quiet nights at Merlo with all of our road obligations. If we could add a game or two, that would help all of us get our fall soccer fix!

The regular season is a maximum of 20 games, and that includes any exhibitions. There is no limit on conference tournament games, although to count towards the RPI, they must be on the schedule before the season starts. The Big 12 added a game for a "play-in" to the Big12 Tournament and that game didn't count towards either team's RPI.

ACC, BIG12, and SEC teams can play up to 23 games before the tournament, I think.

Is there a reason why we only play 19?

SoreKnees wrote:Is there a reason why we only play 19?

Just choice, I guess, probably as part of conference strategy. We seem to taper off the last two weeks of the season to one game per weekend while some conferences are beating each other up. The season is only 11 weeks long, so there are only so many available dates. A couple of WCC teams did schedule the full 20, playing out of conference during the last two weeks.

The 11 week rule would seem to indicate we will start the weekend of August 20-22 again. Selection Monday is November 8.

The more games they play the happier I am.

It would be great to get Texas A&M, Stanford, UCLA, or UNC onto the schedule for the RPI. It would be so helpful to have previews of UCLA and Stanford before the playoffs so we know what we're up against.

What about the pre-season schedule? The game against the Mexican national team that I attended was a blast several years ago. I'd love to come up to PDX for that again...