SUU head coach welcomes tough schedule
THe University of Montana is coming off a season in which they won 12 games for their 21st consecutive winning season. Southern Utah won three games in a season that finished with seven Which do you think would line up nine ranked teams? Yeah, that'd be the Thunderbirds. After all the losses, you'd think the head coach would be sick of tough opponents. Nope.
From the Great Falls Tribune:
From the Great Falls Tribune:
"I love to tell people we have one of the toughest schedules in the country," SUU coach Wes Meier said Tuesday before practice in Cedar City, Utah.Go back to what Hauck had to say about UM's soft schedule. Doesn't it seem a bit off? The school with no success on the field lines up the tough opponents while the Griz stay home and line up cupcakes. I've said this before but it's worth mentioning again. I understand the difficulties in scheduling someone tough but the coach shouldn't be content with easy home games, no matter how hard it is to schedule tough road ones.
"Our Athletic Director, Ken Beazer, put it together, but it's a schedule we look forward to. When I got here (four years ago) I told our AD we want to play the best teams we can play ... people think I'm crazy, but I don't want to play weak teams."
No danger of that.
Besides UM, the T-Birds will take on No. 4 North Dakota State, No. 6 Youngstown State, No. 9 Northern Iowa, No. 11 Southern Illinois, No. 12 McNeese State, No. 14 Cal Poly, No. 19 South Dakota State and No. 22 Montana State. Those are the preseason rankings of the new FCS Coaches Poll.
Also,
Don't forget the lone Division II team on SUU's schedule is the University of North Dakota, which is one of the best D-II teams and is moving up to FCS next season (they will join the Great West Football Conference along with South Dakota to replace SDSU and NDSU).
Meier may say he welcomes the schedule, but with a 10-22 career record and this year's brutal schedule — along with an expiring contract this year — I think he's just being diplomatic.