Who has the toughest College Football schedule in 2011?
College Football season is upon us. It’s about time!
I wondered, who has the toughest schedule going into the season, and what conference has lined up the toughest opponents?
A tough out-of-conference schedule can mean boom or bust for college football teams. With only a 12 -game season, it’s tough to make up for an early loss, even against a top team. Indeed, the risk-reward balance is out-of-whack when the system rewards preservation of a perfect record over any 1-loss team despite their schedule.
Methodology: I looked at each of the 6 BCS automatic-qualifying (AQ) conferences and looked at their non-conference games. I calculated the % of games played against the top 6 conferences, plus Notre Dame and Boise State.
Conference Strength of Schedule
The ACC has lined up a pretty tough schedule. 44% of non-conference games are against other BCS AQ schools. In fact, 8 of the 12 teams play >=2 games against AQ teams, and only Virginia Tech lined up a schedule of cupcakes (0 AQs). My hypothesis is that this does not bode well for the ACC when it comes to top 25 rankings, and that we’ll see the conference under-represented come the end of the year.
The Pac 12, Big East, and Big 12 are in the middle – 40% – 33% of non-conference games against AQ schools. The Pac 12 and Big 12 only have 3 non-conference games, so it’s a tall ask to schedule more than 1 AQ game.
The Big 10 and SEC are at the bottom. Both have 4 non-conference games, and average only 1 AQ opponent each. Only Ohio State, Iowa, Georgia, LSU, and Vanderbilt scheduled 2 AQ games.
Team Strength of Schedule
A couple teams have laid out a difficult path for themselves to run the table this season. Six teams have scheduled more than half of their non-conference games against AQ teams:
USC has lined up a killer schedule. Good luck Lane Kiffin. While they’re not facing the toughest of the AQ schools (Minnesota, Syracuse, and Notre Dame), any time you go up against another BCS AQ team, you’re in for a challenge. They have nothing to lose though, being ineligible for a bowl game due to sanctions. Similarly, Miami may have picked the right year to load up their non-conference schedule, as it faces looming NCAA sanctions as well.
My hypothesis is that none of these teams will be contending for a BCS bowl when all things are said and done. Two of them will be ineligible anyway.
Who are the teams that lined up cupcakes?
Arizona, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Texas Tech, Virginia Tech. and Washington State are the only schools that scheduled an entirely non-AQ non-conference schedule. What a joke.
4 Comments
VT has played (and lost) to the eventual national champion in out of conference games three times in the last 7 seasons, plus there’s the game against (and loss to) Boise State last year. At least they don’t make this a habit, like some in the SEC.
The year VT did actually get to the national championship game, they opened their schedule with JMU and then followed that with UAB. I can’t fault them for trying that again. (Not that I think they’ll get there this year. They won’t.)
What kills me the most, though, is that VT is probably going to get hammered for having a terrible strength of schedule in 2014 and 2015 because their hardest out of conference game will be Ohio State, which may still be recovering from sanctions at that point. I definitely wanted Tressel to stay until then.
@Justin – completely agree about VT in the last few years. There’s no reward for tough out-of-conference games.
LOL about Ohio State – Ohio State is a perennial contender – 11 BCS bowls in the last 15 years (including Pre-Tressel years). You’re not going to have to worry about a weak opponent. :)
How’s the Northwestern Football team looking this year? The game vs. BC should be interesting.
USC does play all good teams but only plays 3 ranked teams and only one of those is out of conference and you rank them as number one. If you look at LSU yes they do play 4 teams out of conference but 2 of those are ranked and play a total of 7 ranked teams. You rank the SEC as last again you are only looking at out of conference the SEC has 8 ranked teams that play each other.Also why use the automatic conferences include Boise State and Notre Dame.
Hi Lobo71,
Thanks for the comment.
True – I have not taken into consideration pre-season rankings. The reason is because most schedules are set years in advance. I wanted to see which schools set up games against other top conferences. Totally agree that I have not looked at intra-conference strength of schedule, only inter-conference.
I’ve included Notre Dame and Boise State because I consider them perennial contenders, and it takes guts for schools to schedule them. While they’re not a BCS AQ, scheduling them is comparable to scheduling a BCS AQ team.