Welcome back, oh great and wonderful sports fans, to episode #669. As long-time reader and really good friend Carl L. pointed out, we are past the 2/3 of the way to 1000 mark! We estimate we’ll be around 850 at the end of March Madness in April (the end of our fiscal season). That assumes we combine football, men’s, and women’s basketball daily games on one post (still debating whether the combined post or multiple daily posts is better – could use some feedback from our readers). If we have more than one post a day, we could approach 1000 this season. Either way, we should hit the mark no later than the 2027-2028 season. The biggest change in our weekly posting schedule is based on the remarkable increase in readership we saw during last year’s March Madness as well as bowl season in football. It appears that the more frequently we post, the faster we grow (in support of our readers sharing with others). In previous football seasons, we generally had two posts each week: G’s Expectation (what to watch) for the week on the first day of any games that week (Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday), followed by G’s Evaluation (the Top 266) on the day following the last game of the week (Sunday except for Labor Day week). During the regular basketball season, we would have two posts per week (Men’s Top 365 and Women’s 363), but no Expectations. During the bowl season, we dropped the ranking post (until the season is over) but increased the Expectation for every bowl game day. For basketball, we began Expectation posts for every game day beginning with the post-season non-conference tournaments, but Evaluation posts stopped until the season was over. This season, we are going to attempt to have an Expectation for every day for which there is a game – some days in November and December, all three sports have games (hence the question above). We will keep up with the Evaluations behind the scenes daily so that the Expectation record/rank/predictions will be up to date; however, we will still post each of the sports Evaluation once per week (generally Sunday for football, Monday for women’s basketball, and Tuesday for Men’s basketball). These posts will definitely be in addition to Expectation posts. If we keep the sports separated for Expectations, there could be as many as four posts on a given day (and a guarantee that we’d hit 1000 this season). But if we combine the day into a single Expectation, there could be a couple of hundred games listed. A conundrum that will be solved before the season starts.
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So far this preseason series, we’ve looked at the 25 Division I (D1) conferences from the GCR’s preseason strength of schedule (PS-SOS) metric. Because every team is currently tied for first with a Score (combination of performance and strength of schedule metrics) with no games yet played, we used each team’s 2025 Score overlaid on their 2026 schedules. Non-D1 teams have their own algorithm, and teams are given bonuses for away and neutral site games. The resulting number can be viewed as the average number of wins each opponent “should” have, assuming 2025 repeats itself exactly (it won’t), and each game is against an FBS team played on a neutral field. The most-challenged teams approach (or exceed) 10.000 while the least-challenged teams approach (or fail to meet) 3.000. We went through the 14 FCS conferences and, in our last post, finished the Group of 6 (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac 12, Sun Belt, and UCONN) conferences. We are now down to the final four conferences, the Core 4 (ACC, Big 12, Big 10, SEC and Notre Dame).
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That means today is about the least-challenged Core 4 conference which is the 16-team Big 12. There are no teams in the Top 10 PS-SOS: Baylor at 13th has the top spot. While there are 68 Core 4 teams, 2 of the Big 12 are ranked outside of the Top 68: Houston (70) and Texas Tech (81). One would expect Core 4 conferences to average individual ranks of 34.5 (1 plus 68 divided by 2). The Big 12 has a mean of 42.8. That means the average team is ranked with the ~43rd most-challenged schedule – 24% below expectation. While the play a 9-game conference schedule, there are only 13 games against fellow Core 4 opponents, led by Colorado who plays 2. All 16 teams play one game against an FCS foe. They were the first conference to play 9 in-house (when a round robin with 10 teams worked perfectly), but they seem to have dropped in football prominence the last few years. This year could be different. They could produce the national champion – they do get a minimum of one team in the playoff, after all. All of that said their PS-SOS is still more than a full point above the top Group of 6 conference (Pac 12). In the table below, (4) indicates a game against a non-conference Core 4 opponent, (G) indicates a Group of 6 matchup, (F) indicates that ubiquitous FCS foe, and (N) indicates a neutral site game. With no further ado, we proudly present the fourth most-challenged conference: the Big 12.
| Team (Conf Rank) | Home Field | 2025 Record (Rank) | 2026 PS SOS (Rank) | Home Games | Away/Neutral Games | Hardest | Easiest |
| Baylor Bears (1) | Waco, TX | 5-7 (78) | 9.48 (13) | Prairie View (F), LA Tech (G), Colorado, TCU, Iowa St, Texas Tech | Auburn (N4), Arizona St, Kansas, UCF, BYU, Houston | at BYU (13.13) | Prairie View (4.40) |
| Arizona Wildcats (2) | Tucson, AZ | 9-4 (20) | 9.40 (17) | N Arizona (F), N Illinois (G), Cincinnati, Iowa St, TCU, Utah, Arizona St | BYU, Washington St (G), West Virginia, Texas Tech, Kansas St | at Texas Tech (13.98) | N Arizona (3.55) |
| West Virginia Mountaineers (3) | Morgantown, WV | 4-8 (83) | 9.39 (18) | Coastal (G), UT Martin (F), Oklahoma St, Arizona, Cincinnati, Kansas, Houston | Virginia (N4), Iowa St, TCU, Texas Tech, Utah | at Texas Tech (13.98) | UT Martin (2.66) |
| Cincinnati Bearcats (4) | Cincinnati, OH | 7-6 (48) | 9.37 (19) | Boston College (4), W Carolina (F), Kansas St, Texas Tech, Utah, Colorado | Miami OH (NG), Arizona, West Virginia, Houston, Iowa St, BYU | at BYU (13.13) | W Carolina (3.65) |
| Colorado Buffaloes (5) | Boulder, CO | 3-9 (96) | 9.10 (33) | Weber St (F), Texas Tech, Utah, Kansas St, Houston, UCF | Georgia Tech (4), Northwestern (4), Baylor, Oklahoma St, Arizona St, Cincinnati | Texas Tech (12.16) | Weber St (2.20) |
| BYU Cougars (6) | Provo, UT | 12-2 (9) | 9.03 (39) | Utah Tech (F), Arizona, Iowa St, Notre Dame (4), Arizona St, Baylor, Cincinnati | Colorado St (G), TCU, UCF, Utah, Kansas | at Utah (13.23) | Utah Tech (2.29) |
| Arizona St Sun Devils (7) | Tempe, AZ | 8-5 (37) | 8.98 (41) | Morgan St (F), Baylor, Hawaii (G), Kansas St, Colorado, Oklahoma St | Texas A&M (4), Kansas (N), Texas Tech, BYU, UCF, Arizona | at Texas Tech (13.98) | Morgan St (2.44) |
| TCU Horned Frogs (8) | Fort Worth, TX | 9-4 (21) | 8.98 (42) | Grambling St (F), Arkansas St (G), BYU, West Virginia, Kansas, Kansas St, Utah | North Carolina (N4), UCF, Baylor, Arizona, Texas Tech | at Texas Tech (13.98) | Grambling St (3.08) |
| Oklahoma St Cowboys (9) | Stillwater, OK | 1-11 (134) | 8.90 (45) | Oregon (4), Murray St (F), UCF, Colorado, Texas Tech, Kansas | Tulsa (G), West Virginia, Houston, Iowa St, Kansas St, Arizona St | at Oregon (12.21) | Murray St (1.38) |
| Utah Utes (10) | Salt Lake City, UT | 11-2 (8) | 8.84 (47) | Idaho (F), Arkansas (4), Utah St (G), Kansas, Houston, BYU, West Virginia | Iowa St, Colorado, Cincinnati, Arizona, TCU | at Arizona (11.75) | Idaho (3.14) |
| Kansas St Wildcats (11) | Manhattan, KS | 6-6 (46) | 8.73 (51) | Nicholls (F), Washington St (G), Tulane (G), Houston, Kansas, Oklahoma St, Arizona | Cincinnati, Arizona St, Colorado, TCU, Iowa St | at TCU (11.69) | Nicholls (2.72) |
| Iowa St Cyclones (12) | Ames, IA | 8-4 (32) | 8.71 (52) | SEMO (F), Bowling Green (G), Utah, West Virginia, Oklahoma St, Cincinnati, Kansas St | Iowa (4), BYU, Arizona, Baylor, UCF | at BYU (13.13) | SEMO (2.79) |
| Kansas Jayhawks (13) | Lawrence, KS | 5-7 (68) | 8.68 (53) | Long Island (F), Missouri (4), Mid Tenn (G), Baylor, UCF, BYU | Arizona St (N), Utah, Kansas St, TCU, West Virginia, Oklahoma St | at Utah (13.23) | Long Island (3.48) |
| UCF Knights (14) | Orlando, FL | 5-7 (76) | 8.39 (63) | Bethune (F), Georgia St (G), TCU, BYU, Baylor, Arizona St, Iowa St | Pittsburgh (4), Houston, Oklahoma St, Kansas, Colorado | at Houston (11.51) | Bethune (2.84) |
| Houston Cougars (15) | Houston, TX | 10-3 (26) | 8.13 (70) | Oregon St (G), Southern (F), UCF, Oklahoma St, Cincinnati, Baylor | Texas Tech, Ga Southern (G), Kansas St, Utah, Colorado, West Virginia | at Texas Tech (13.98) | Southern (1.80) |
| Texas Tech Red Raiders (16) | Lubbock, TX | 12-2 (4) | 7.79 (81) | Abilene Chr (F), Houston, Sam Houston (G), Arizona St, Arizona, West Virginia, TCU | Oregon St (G), Colorado, Cincinnati, Oklahoma St, Baylor | Arizona (10.22) | Abilene Chr (3.89) |
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That’s it for today. Tune in Monday for our next installment; the third most-challenged conference in 2026. Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing with others, JoJo and G.
