Repeatedly, writing about college football and proving that he's in way over his head, Gregg Easterbrook has said that "football factory" schools gain an advantage by scheduling more home games than away games against creampuff opponents. He said this of Oklahoma for both 2004 and 2006, but as graphically demonstrated here, Oklahoma had six home games and six away games in 2006 (and 2004).

The problem? Easterbrook, who puts so much emphasis on history and tradition, is looking at some printed schedule that lists Oklahoma as the "home team" for the Texas game in even-numbered years and therefore pretends that it is a "home game" for the Sooners, even though it is always played in Dallas.

This year, proving that he is an equal-opportunity moron, Easterbrook writes:

Texas, No. 4 in the Associated Press preseason poll, plays seven home games and five road dates.

You can see this coming—Texas plays six games in Austin and six games away from Austin in 2007. It's an odd-numbered year, so Texas is officially the "home team" for the OU-Texas game in Dallas, and Easterbrook counts this as a "home game" for Texas.

If he truly felt that the "home team" designation in a neutral site was an advantage, that might be fair, but clearly TMQ does not feel that way at all. Look at what he wrote about NFL home games just one day earlier:

Miami is the designated home team for the Dolphins-Giants tilt at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 28, though Miami International is 1,000 miles farther from London by air than is Newark Liberty. Designating Miami the home team means the Dolphins get only seven actual home games in 2007, while the Giants receive the full eight. Recall that in 2005, Jersey/A became the sole team in NFL history to play nine regular-season home games, when the Saints-Giants contest scheduled for New Orleans was switched to New Jersey owing to Hurricane Katrina. The huge gift of a bonus home game helped the Giants win the NFC East in 2005. Now came an ideal chance to balance the books by having the Giants play only seven home games in 2007. Instead, the league front office penalized the Dolphins. And Miami is one of the NFL's best-connected clubs politically! If there ever was any doubt the Giants are the sentimental favorite at 280 Park Avenue (NFL headquarters), this second huge scheduling favor in three years makes it official. The NFL never explained why Miami was designated the home team for the London event. Since it would have been obvious at 280 Park that the decision would be seen as favoritism to the Giants, this tells us the commissioner's office doesn't care if its favoritism to the Giants is obvious. Why don't the other 31 owners complain?

So it's quite clear that TMQ recognizes the "home team" designation at a neutral site is nothing like a "home game," yet for OU and Texas, going back four years, he dishonestly insists on pretending they're exactly the same. Ye Gods!

Oh, and the real kicker? For scheduling difficulty reasons, Oklahoma actually does play seven games in Norman this year, for the first time in about a decade (IIRC)—and Easterbrook didn't notice! Probably because game #2 is against the Miami Hurricanes, which doesn't meat his "creampuff" theme. OU has also scheduled non-conference games in the future with Michigan and Notre Dame, but they're years away, because these kinds of things are hard to arrange.

Oklahoma's 2006 schedule wasn't even announced until April of that year because it took that long to finalize the Oregon game, and of course, that worked out so well for everyone involved that this year, the NCAA actually changed the rules this year to allow replay review of possession at the end of kickoffs. For a long time, even in the BCS era, a lot of top-tier teams did not want to schedule non-conference games against other top-tier teams, thinking they had a lot to lose and little to win. That is finally changing.

Oh, wait, now I see that Easterbrook has to get in an OU slam:

Cupcake note: Arkansas, Navy and Oklahoma all scheduled North Texas this season, expecting easy wins. Tuesday Morning Quarterback will be rooting for the Mean Green, as North Texas is now coached by Todd Dodge, former coach of Southlake Carroll High School, which in this decade has dominated Texas 5A high school football. Dodge is the real-world Eric Taylor, the SuperCoach of the "Friday Night Lights" TV series.

OU has also played North Texas in 2003, 2001, and 1999, just in the past decade, because North Texas (based just north of Dallas) will come to Norman and play even though they cannot host OU in return–their stadium is too small and the Dallas area wants to save OU's annual presence for the Texas State Fair weekend, so the Powers That Be are not behind anything that would make it easier for that to stop happening.

Plus, even before Savior-TV-Related-Coach arrived, North Texas opened with a game against a powerhouse almost every year. In 2006, 2004, and 2002, North Texas opened against Texas—in Austin, for many of the same reasons they travel to Norman so often. In 2005, they played at Kansas State; in 2004 at Colorado, in 2002 at both Texas and at Alabama. This year they travel to Norman and Arkansas for non-conference games. NTSU may not be a BCS contender, but the school has never shied away from powerhouse top-ranked opponents on their home fields.

Now-traditional footnote: For more on TMQ's inexplicable animus towards Oklahoma and football, one so strong that facts have to date been unable to penetrate it, see here, here, here, here, here, and especially here.