Strength of Schedule Update
There are many different sources to support any argument on strength of schedule, so let's look at how the CFP hopefuls fare across a few of them that update weekly: TeamRankings | ESPN | Power Rankings Guru
- Alabama 2|19|2
- Texas 5|10|8
- ohiost 6|39|47
- Washington 20|43|40
- Florida State 13|55|37
- Oregon 12|53|52
- Michigan 10|65|63
- Georgia 21|78|60
These teams will bunch up even more by season's end, as we'll see Bama/Georgia, M/ohiost, and likely Wash/Oregon all play in the next 3 weeks.
An interesting parallel, Michigan is now 4-0 vs. bowl eligible teams so far this year. Nebraska and Minnesota are both sitting at 5 wins, and we have 2-5 more bowl eligible opponents on the schedule depending on this team's success. IIRC, 2018 Clemson has the all time record of 10 wins vs. bowl eligible teams in a single season. That Clemson team entered the CFP with a SoS in the 70s, and I'm sure they deeply regret that fact every time they take their ring out of the case to give it a polish.
November 13th, 2023 at 9:59 AM ^
Definitely TeamRankings has the most accurate strength-of-schedule ratings and Power Rankings Guru is totally clueless.
November 13th, 2023 at 11:16 AM ^
Also remember that this weekend is what I call the annual SEC cocktail party. Most of the league plays lollipop division 2 teams. Bama v. Chattanooga, Miss v UL Monroe, etc...
At least we played Division 1 teams in the first three.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:02 AM ^
Interesting to see that UNLV is now #29 in the Coaches poll and #31 in the AP poll.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:05 AM ^
Rank UNLV, cowards
November 13th, 2023 at 10:17 AM ^
When they beat Air Force, they probably will be ranked.
November 13th, 2023 at 11:06 AM ^
They would have been if they would not have lost last week. They were ranked #34 before that loss.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:16 AM ^
but we haven’t played anyone according to ….
*waves generally at all media*
November 13th, 2023 at 10:39 AM ^
"Michigan hasn't played anyone" yells the crap Big 10 teams that Michigan has played and destroyed who share equal share revenue with Michigan in the BIG who are voting to punish Michigan for something the whole league does, but some low level staffer on Michigan did in a dumb and possibly low level violation way.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
If not for a second half letdown at Fresno State, UNLV would be 9-1!
November 13th, 2023 at 11:07 AM ^
Yep, i did not see this and posted above - they were ranked #34 before that loss.
November 13th, 2023 at 12:58 PM ^
With Air Force losing to Hawaii, looks like the winner of UNLV/AF will be in first place in the Mountain West and in line to host their championship game
November 13th, 2023 at 10:07 AM ^
I always love it when other B1G fans complain about Michigan's weak schedule. It's almost like they don't realize that, if our schedule is weak, it's because their teams fucking suck.
According to SP+, UNLV is better than 5 B1G teams: Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Michigan State and Indiana. It would expect a tossup in a game on a neutral field against Nebraska, Minnesota, and Rutgers.
I'm just gonna quote Biff Poggi here and say "Stop whining and get a better team!"
November 13th, 2023 at 10:15 AM ^
Strength of schedule is a legit criticism. Nebraska, Alabama and a bunch of other powerhouses from back in the day use to play Troy St. and other lousy teams.
Weren't we supposed to play Texas this year? I think canceling that game exacerbates the situation. As far as the B1G goes, it isn't our fault that Mel Tucker is a creepy horseshit coach, or that some of the other teams are having middling years. Win out and our SOS will be fine.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:20 AM ^
UCLA, not Texas.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:11 AM ^
Will be interesting to see where SOS ends up after OSU and potentially Iowa.
I think "Bowl Eligible" is a 90% useless adjective. 80 teams ended the season bowl eligible last year.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:45 AM ^
Completely useless, agreed. However, still funny to put State in the other category.
November 13th, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
I don't think it's completely useless. It basically means that you got to six wins.....which means you'll be .500 or better. Talking about "teams with winning records" is pretty close to talking about "bowl eligible teams".
November 13th, 2023 at 11:11 AM ^
They are letting some 5 team wins in as well as some years there are more bowl slots than 6 win teams. They go by some academic rating after that.
November 13th, 2023 at 2:34 PM ^
Staee is bowl eligible. They are toilet 🚽 bowl eligible.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:12 AM ^
I always find this argument amusing. Teams have no influence on how good their competition is and these non-con games get scheduled so far in advance that there's no reliability in how good a team will be years down the road. It's all just a crapshoot.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:43 AM ^
To an extent I agree, but less of a conversation for us here just cancelling the UCLA series. We could schedule Bowling Green for 2039 and I'd have a decent idea of how good they'd be.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:52 AM ^
This is only sort of true. Teams can influence how good their competition is by (1) joining a better conference (looking at you JMU, Liberty, etc); and (2) scheduling non-conference games against perennial powerhouses (yes, it's hard to predict how good UNLV might or might not be in a given season, but there are some teams that are pretty close to a sure thing if you want to improve your SOS, for example, Alabama, Georgia, UofM, tOSU, Notre Dame, Texas, Oregon, Penn State, Oklahoma)
November 13th, 2023 at 11:15 AM ^
James Madison just became a D1 team last year I am pretty sure so that argument is weak. Liberty plays in a crappy division and can't just up and move if no one is willing to take them and the schedules they have are made out in advance and they have been turned down by some teams not wanting to play them. So those teams should not have you griping about them. Now a power 5 team can be different as they play in usually a good conference.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:13 AM ^
I held my nose to see the Michigan is now #1 in the ESPN FPI. Also the highest probability of making the CFP at 66%.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:16 AM ^
One thing to keep in the mind: the conference championship game. The SEC and Pac-12 champion will most likely get a big boost in schedule strength. Alabama-Georgia is already set. Oregon St is one team that could play spoiler to an Oregon-Washington championship game, but if they did, their power rank would most likely rise into the top 10 anyway.
The Big Ten and ACC are the conferences to probably get the least juice out of a championship game with Iowa and Louisville the best case scenario for an opponent.
November 13th, 2023 at 12:43 PM ^
Louisville is ranked 9th and will only help FSU if FSU wins but I am hoping for a Louisville upset. But the Big Ten is going to have the Weakest Conference ship for sure all other should have Top 10 matchups
November 13th, 2023 at 1:41 PM ^
Iowa was ranked 22nd by the committee last week. A number of teams in the 15-21 range lost last week so Iowa will probably be hovering just outside the top 15 this week.
It won't be a battle of Top 10 teams in the big ten championship but if Iowa is around or just inside the top 15 at 10-2, it's not bad.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:17 AM ^
I do find it interesting that now Michigan seems to have a slightly stronger schedule than UGA yet the narrative has been how soft Michigan's schedule is with almost no similar criticism for UGA. It's almost like a certain network tends to favor one conference over another (crazy thought I know).
November 13th, 2023 at 10:29 AM ^
Well...as 2x defending National Champions I think Georgia is rightly getting a pass
November 13th, 2023 at 11:14 AM ^
Georgia does have 2 scalps in the top 15 - Missouri and Ole Miss. We have 1. Both have nothing burger non conference games. (Kentucky was ranked when they played them but have fallen off)
November 13th, 2023 at 2:12 PM ^
Kentucky is just SEC Maryland: compile a nice shiny record early by beating lots of terrible non-conference opponents and winning a few conference games and then "fading" down the stretch due to playing teams who don't suck.
To be fair, Stoops has gotten Kentucky to a level of respectability that they have rarely enjoyed in football but they still are very, very mediocre.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:29 AM ^
Good post. Only thing I'd do differently is drop BSPN and instead find a ranking system from a more reliable and intelligent source.
November 13th, 2023 at 11:09 AM ^
November 13th, 2023 at 10:45 AM ^
FWIW
Sagarin has UM #1, OSU #2 by a clear margin: 2.11 pts (by contrast there is only 9/10 of one point separating #2 OSU and #3 Ala). Ga has the worst SOS in the top 10, UM is #9, OSU #7 (so much for their “strong SOS” argument used by the CFP). http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm
The Massey composite ranking also has UM #1 with 37 #1 rankings among individual polls. OSU is a distant #2, with only 11 #1 rankings. https://masseyratings.com/ranks
November 13th, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
It's weird how the media and fans ignore the fact that the SEC only plays eight conference opponents and all of them play FCS opponents.
Alabama is going to play FCS Chattanooga
Arkansas played FCS Western Carolina
Auburn played FCS Samford
Florida played FCS McNeese State
Georgia played FCS UT Martin
Kentucky played FCS Eastern Kentucky
LSU played FCS Grambling State
Ole Miss is played FCS Mercer
Mississippi State played FCS Southeastern Louisiana
Missouri played FCS South Dakota
South Carolina played FCS Furman
Tennessee played FCS Austin Peay
Texas A&M is going to play FCS Abilene Christian
Vanderbilt played FCS Alabama A&M
The last time Michigan played an FCS team was in 2010, and all SEC teams do it on a yearly basis.
November 13th, 2023 at 1:05 PM ^
It's a massive advantage to have an extra easy win instead of an additional conference game.
That is one of the biggest reasons that more SEC teams achieve bowl eligibility vs other conferences.
November 13th, 2023 at 11:05 AM ^
I’ve never truly believed SOS should matter as much when ranking teams. SOS should only play a part when combined with a metric of how a team played against the teams on their schedule. This year Michigan has powered through their schedule, without any real hiccups of note like some of the other unbeaten and one-loss teams have.
In the end it comes down to simply “Win the game!”, and regardless of Michigan’s SOS, if they win it all who cares what their schedule consisted of.
November 13th, 2023 at 1:27 PM ^
We are a collection of 9 games of ranked teams winning by one score. It could be Michigan/OSU and two - 2 loss teams if the top ten wasnt so lucky this year. I am convinced that OSU,PSU, and U of M have the best defenses (Georgia in there as well). If this top ten luck runs out OSU/UM could be for playoff seeding only (as far as CFP goes).
Losing to number 1-3 has to be the most important thing when considering where to rank a 1 loss team. You cant get jumped by teams losing to 2/3 loss teams that arent even top ten.
Georgia is in even if they lose as far as im concerned.
Washington and FSU are in if undefeated.
OSU/Um winner is in of course.
We are staring down a one loss Bama or OSU/UM loser as the replacement for whoever above falters.
November 13th, 2023 at 1:19 PM ^
"Your bottom 4 teams on your schedule are worse than ours!"
Everyone's bottom 4 teams are ass. Bowling Green > Gtech > Miami who almost beat FSU
Beat #10 on the road and #1 at home. Give me your best 2 on your schedule.