Anyone who has followed sports for any period of time will have heard a coach say that the next game is the most important game on the schedule and that every game is of equal importance. Former Texas Tech football head coach Mike Leach used to try to drive that point home by referring to the next team on the schedule by their color rather than by the school name so that the Texas or Texas A&M games remained as important as the Iowa State or Kansas games.
But the unavoidable reality is that all games are not created equal.