2009 Schedule?

When does the team announce the fall schedule? If I remember correctly, the schedule is out before season-ticket renewals are solicited. Is that in May? Earlier? Does anyone have any reliable information about who is on the docket this year?

Penn State and Rutgers would be logical visitors here since we visited them last year. Did we ever play at UNC in return for their visit here in 2006? I can't find a game at UNC in recent years. Do we owe San Diego State a visit from their trip here last year?

It's only been 2.5 months since the Stanford game and I'm already getting anxious!

Didn't we play San Diego State there last fall? I guess I could look it up, but I'm too lazy.

According to UW's announcement of its spring schedule, we will be playing them on August 30 at UW.

Any rumors of the Mexican Women's National Team coming back? Those games have been classics. It would be fun to put a WPS team with former UP players on the schedule too...like the men are doing when they play the Sounders FC.

According to a Texas A&M fan, the Texas coach has said that they will be playing Portland and USC at College Station in early season games. I think that matches what someone had reported earlier about Portland having a home/away agreement with TAMU for 2009 and 2010. I recall from the earlier report that the fourth team of the foursome will be Texas Tech. Did someone also report that Penn State and Rutgers will be coming here? And wasn't there something about Illinois or Indiana?

Not sure about the midwest schools, but I'm pretty sure I heard that Penn State and Rutgers will be reciprocating this year's games.

I think we may open with Cal.

I believe Garrett said in a story at the end of last season the opener was home to Cal on August 28.

I thought I would speculate on the 2009 schedule.

I believe we know Cal will be here for pre-season game on Friday Aug 28th.

Labor day weekend (Sept 5,7). I think it could be Penn St and Rutgers paying us back for our trip there last year.

Sept 11/13. Nike invitational in Seattle: Anyone care to make a guess here. Often they have someone from the West (non-Pac 10) like CS Fullerton, Pacific, or Utah/CO team and someone from farther east.

Sept 18/20 Nike Invitational in PDX. Same comment Seattle.

Sept 25/26 A&M and Tex Tech?

Mixed in before WCC starts in Oct s.b. UO, UW, OSU. Maybe one other team from the West (AZ or ASU?)

Then WCC schedule.

Once we nail down the 4 teams at the Nike Invitationals, that pretty much sets the competition. That is, assuming PSU and Rutgers come here and we go down A&M way.

Feel free to make your own speculation.

I some how some where we need to get a game with a team in the ACC hopefully a team that beats UNC. Does anyone know if we are done with the USC UCLA exchange program? The SC win was good for the old RPI. A win over UCLA would have given us a number one seed and the Stanford game would have been played at Merlo.

Auto Pilot wrote:I some how some where we need to get a game with a team in the ACC hopefully a team that beats UNC. Does anyone know if we are done with the USC UCLA exchange program? The SC win was good for the old RPI. A win over UCLA would have given us a number one seed and the Stanford game would have been played at Merlo.

We played USC and UCLA away the year before, so yeah, that exchange looks like it's over. There could always be a new round... I'll note they are travel parners in conference

Who is Cal's travel partner in conference -- Stanford?

Nah, probably not....

According to the UW website, in an interview with their coach, we are playing UW at Merlo on August 30. So, if August 28 is right for Cal, we open with Cal followed by UW on the opening weekend. Cal's roster includes Alex Morgan, team-mate of Michelle, Elli, and Keelin and winner of the Bronze Shoe and Silver Ball at the recent U20 World Cup.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:According to UW's announcement of its spring schedule, we will be playing them on August 30 at UW.

So, which is it? Is the August 30th game vs. UW in Seattle or at Merlo? I'd love to attend if it's in Seattle.

Here's the Galimore quote:

"We are only allowed five playing dates in the non-competitive season so our players must maximize each one of those competitive opportunities. We'll kick-off with the University of Portland this spring, just as we will this coming fall at home on August 30. That game is always a battle, one we have been on the short end of too many times and a trend we are looking to change," Gallimore said.

full story at gohuskies.com

Oh Boy! ROAD trip!

Sorry about my mistake. As Geez says, it's at UW. Apparently, we're playing Cal here on the 28th and UW there on the 30th. Since Galimore seems to be saying UW will be "kicking off" the season with the Pilots on the 30th, it apparently means they will not be playing on the 28th. So, we get the advantage of having already played a game and they get the advantage of not having played a game two days earlier.

UW has posted their 2009 schedule so now we know 4 more opponents: (Miami, Illinois, Columbia, Colorado Col)
Now we know the first 6 games of the season.

Aug 28 Cal (Merlo)
Aug 30 UW (Away)
Sept 4 Illinios (Nike Invitational Seattle)
Sept 6 Miami (Nike Invitational Seattle)
Sept 11 Colorado College (Merlo)
Sept 13 Columbia (Merlo)

Then I assume we head to A&M for two games with A&M and Texas Tech.
We don't know about Rutgers or Penn St yet.
Reg season wraps up the weekend of Nov 6-8th.

Maimi gave UNC a run for their money last year. Losing twice in a row at the end of the year by 1 to nil scores. They have 23 on last year's roster and only 3 were Seniors. Let's hope for an upset when these two meet next year.

gnarly wrote:Now we know the first 6 games of the season.

Aug 28 Cal (Merlo)
Aug 30 UW (Away)
Sept 4 Illinios (Nike Invitational Seattle)
Sept 6 Miami (Nike Invitational Seattle)
Sept 11 Colorado College (Merlo)
Sept 13 Columbia (Merlo)

Then I assume we head to A&M for two games with A&M and Texas Tech.
We don't know about Rutgers or Penn St yet.

If we assume we will play Rutgers and Penn State, as well as A&M and Texas Tech, then adding those to the WCC games, we get 17 games. If we add Oregon and Oregon State, that brings us to 19. Possibly, there will be one more. This is a much tougher schedule than last year.

In terms of out-of-region games, this would give us 3 against the Central Region (Colorado College is Central); 2 against the Great Lakes Region (Penn State is Great Lakes); and one each against the Northeast, Mid Atlantic, and Southeast Regions. Are we trying to schedule non-conference games so we play at least one game each year against every other region?

In terms of where teams finished on the RPI (unadjusted) list last year, without counting Oregon and Oregon State or the WCC teams, we have the following:

Penn State 9
Washington 13
Texas A&M 15
Miami 30
Rutgers 32
Illinois 34
Cal 45
Columbia 59
Colorado College 63
Texas Tech 123

You have to figure we will play at least one of the Oregon teams....


<EDIT>

The ducks have their schedule up. We play them the 27th of September - in Eugene

http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&KEY=&SPID=237&SPSID=4314

Portland State also has it's schedule up. We won't Play them this year.

gnarly wrote:UW has posted their 2009 schedule so now we know 4 more opponents: (Miami, Illinois, Columbia, Colorado Col)
Now we know the first 6 games of the season.

Aug 28 Cal (Merlo)
Aug 30 UW (Away)
Sept 4 Illinios (Nike Invitational Seattle)
Sept 6 Miami (Nike Invitational Seattle)
Sept 11 Colorado College (Merlo)
Sept 13 Columbia (Merlo)

Then I assume we head to A&M for two games with A&M and Texas Tech.
We don't know about Rutgers or Penn St yet.
Reg season wraps up the weekend of Nov 6-8th.

Checking the UW schedule, I think you mixed up the weekends. Miami and Illinois will play at Merlo the 11th and 13th

Colorado College and Columbia will be at UW in Seattle the 4th and 6th

http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/w-soccer/sched/wash-w-soccer-sched.html

This jibes with what Illinois folks are saying on BS. They are definite Illinois will play at Merlo.

Phew, I was a little concerned, as in the past we have come out a little flat at UW. cough cough... Purdue. I feel much better having those 2 at Merlo.

Whoa -- Pilots vs Columbia Lions? "Roar, Lions, Roar!" I may have to go turncoat and wear light blue for that match. Labor Day weekend road trip!

I wonder how this schedule can top last year's for difficulty when last season began vs USC and UCLA. RPI wonks, this is your cue.

purple haze wrote:
I wonder how this schedule can top last year's for difficulty when last season began vs USC and UCLA. RPI wonks, this is your cue.

I don't think UPSF is talking about how difficult the wins are, but how much tougher your RPI is.
The short answer is the bonus for playing tough teams extends to the top 40 teams. You get the same credit for beating 39 as for beating 1, as long as they have the same record (or almost). Since that is presumably easier to do, you end up with a better RPI.

Purplegeezer wrote:You get the same credit for beating 39 as for beating 1, as long as they have the same record (or almost).

So you want to schedule teams who will be "pretty" good, not "really" good.

mattywizz wrote:

So you want to schedule teams who will be "pretty" good, not "really" good.

In might be important to schedule some top 5 or top 10 schools, but not for RPI reasons. You want to schedule teams that have good records, are in the top 40, and you have to beat them to maximize your RPI.

It's probably more important to get as many dates with teams in that bonus category than it is to just beat a couple of top five teams and play a middling schedule otherwise. beating teams lower than 65 or so doesn't do as much for you. It also helps a little if you play teams from conferences that have a high conference RPI to give a boost to element 3 of the RPI (OOP)

We can't do much about part of our schedule, obviously, so we are a bit at the mercy of how well other conference schools do in non conference. (If you recall, UPSF had us at #1 RPI going into conference last year)

Last year, by some accounts, I think Santa Clara played the toughest schedule in D1. But they didn't win and their RPI plummeted (taking teams they played with them).

Notre Dame did play a couple tough dates (most notably UNC) and beat them. They also had a remainder of the schedule that wasn't all that tough (but generally top 40) and won all their games.
They ended up with an undefeated season that is hard to ignore and a top 5 RPI to boot.

Element 1 of the RPI is the most volatile part of the RPI, winning your games is really important. UP hasn't lost to a school with a ranking below 15 or so in a very long time.

True. It's not just who you play though, but, where you play them. When the top teams play each other, playing at home can be a nice advantage. I think having 2 games against top 5 teams can give you a good barometer of where you stand as a team. The games against UNC, Notre Dame, UCLA, or other top contenders tend to be 1-0 or 2-1 or pretty close matches, and a team needs to have those experiences before the tourney begins. When we won our first national championship, I believe that our ranking was only about 7th going into the tourney, however, we had beaten some top teams at home. It was the perfect storm...low expectations for a very dominant team as Sinclair was coming into her own.

Sigh. I'm taking this too seriously. They're just student athletes; let them play.