Are Oregon and Ohio State really that good?

As I turn my efforts to my BlogPoll ballot for week 3, one of the things I’ll be looking for is objective information on strength of schedule.

Yes it’s early, but some evidence is beginning to form. The tool I most value for Strength of Schedule is the NCAA’s own Toughest Schedule Grid .

What I like about the NCAA’s Toughest Schedule list is –

1. As a list of the records of team’s a program has played, it’s unbiased and transparent, unlike say Sagarin’s SOS which is neither.

2. It OMITS the records of FCS teams. This is very important to my thinking, as FCS teams essentially “don’t count” by this measure.

The NCAA also only counts the records of opponents without counting the game between them. Take Miami as an example, which has an opponent’s record of 2-0, or 100%. The record of Florida A&M is omitted as an FCS team, and the record of Ohio State (3-0) is reduced to 2-0 so that Miami’s own loss isn’t counted in favor of Miami.In this way it truly only counts your opponent’s record.

Here are the teams with the toughest opponent’s records thus far (all 100%) –

Arizona
Arizona St.
California
Cincinnati
Connecticut
FIU
Georgia
Maryland
Miami (FL)
Missouri
Notre Dame
Pittsburgh
San Jose St.
South Fla.
Southern Miss.
TCU
Tennessee
UCLA
Utah St.
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Western Ky.
Wyoming


I would suggest this helps explain the records of teams like Georgia, while making all the more impressive the records of TCU and Arizona.

Here are the teams with the easiest schedules (opponents with winless records, or 0%) –

Army
Ball St.
Boston College
Bowling Green
Buffalo
Fresno St.
Georgia Tech
Indiana
Kent St.
Kentucky
Middle Tenn.
Mississippi
Navy
New Mexico St.
Northern Ill.
Ohio St.
Oregon
Purdue
Rutgers
Syracuse
Texas A&M
Tulane
Utah
UTEP
Wisconsin

So we have Ohio State, Oregon and Wisconsin playing teams that have collectively yet to win another game against all their opponents (In the case of OSU remember – Miami’s win against Florida A&M doesn’t count).

Definite food for thought when it comes to ranking.