2009 Schedule?

I agree on both counts AP. The pressure Stanford exerted on us is probably the best way to get a team out of the type of long debilitating possessions we often threw against teams last year. But, don't forget, we were missing three pretty important players last year (understatement), and I don't think Stanford was missing anyone, were they? I think Stanford was probably the most impressive team I saw last year, and I think we will be better than them this fall. It sure would be a fun game to see. And, I too would have loved to see them play UNC last year. I think they would have won.

I was as disappointed as anyone when Penn State did not schedule the Pilots here in Portland. Penn State just announced their fall schedule and they will have their hands full with the pre-season. Hopefully, next year they will come here.
PSU Schedule
http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/w-soccer/sched/psu-w-soccer-sched.html

That looks like a challenging schedule. We're familiar with James Madison from the tourney, and UConn is always tough too. I wish we had a video feed like you do at the Penn State site. That's pretty sweet. I love those small video feeds like the one at the US National Team site...

FANatic has pointed out to me that according to the schedule on the Pilots' website, the Oregon game has been moved up from September 27 to Saturday, August 22 @ 7:00 pm in Eugene. I remember reading that it was possible something like this might happen, if the NCAA decided to allow games a week earlier than usual. (Geez, was it you who mentioned that possibility?) I guess that's what the NCAA decided.

Changing the Ducks game to Aug. 22 alters the plan Poop Deck Pappy and I have for taking a road trip to Eugene. Looks like it's moving up a month, Poop Deck. It simply means the Pilots will beat the Ducks a month sooner than expected.

Just means I'll be thinking of how many goals the Pilots scored while watching the Timbers in 107 that night.

After seeing the Ducks play the Pilots even for most of the April game, I wouldn't discount the possibility of an upset in Eugene. UO looked very poised at Merlo and could be pretty fired up on their home field. Throw in the uncertainty of the first game of the year and anything can happen.

The Ducks won't be pushovers, SoreKnees, and I foresee both a good game and a high-quality Pilots win. An opening loss does not mesh with my beatific vision for the Pilots this coming season.

I predict the Ducks will lose 4-0. This IS the beginning of the the Real Season.

I have yet to see a Pilots road game in person, and I hope the Ducks game will be the first.

I'm resurrecting this thread because I believe it had some discussion about the Pilots' strength of schedule this year. I've been curious about how the Pilots' 2009 opponents have been doing, so I did some counts of last year's and this year's games to see how things compare between last year and this.

I used, as a cut-off date, the date as of which the Pilots had played their first five games last year and this (September 7 last year and September 6 this year).

As of September 7 last year, the Pilots' 18 opponents' combined records were 47-28-6 (excluding their games against the Pilots, in accord with the RPI formula). Treating a tie as half a win and half a loss (as the NCAA does for RPI purposes), this comes out to a 63% average winning percentage for the 2008 opponents (this again follows the RPI approach of calculating the winning percentage against other opponents for each team and then taking the average of those winning percentages). As of September 6 this year, the 19 opponents' combined records are 47-27-3 (again, excluding their games against the Pilots), with a 62% average winning percentage.

The most interesting part to me is breaking out the West Coast Conference teams. Last year as of September 7, their combined records were 17-15-3 with an average winning percentage of 53%. This year, their combined records are 20-11-1 with an average winning percentage of 65%.

You may remember that last year, at the end of the non-conference season, the Pilots were well on top of the heap in the RPI ratings. Notwithstanding that the Pilots went undefeated for the balance of the season, however, the WCC teams had an off year and their records, when incorporated into the Pilots' RPI, caused a drop in the Pilots' RPI rating so they ended up #4 in the final regular season RPI rankings. Maybe that won't happen this year.

I'm in DC, so I won't be at the game tonight, but I'll be watching on my computer and cheering all the way from here.

GO PILOTS!

UPSF, welcome to the world of pixilated video soccer....

You get to see the sweet graphics 5-10 minutes after they happen... It's pretty cutting edge...

The heck with the stats system, I'm going to spring for the video.