Greetings oh wonderful and great college football fans. With no baseball or MLS soccer or any other sports-like entertainment, as well as shows being cancelled (check our band out – Project Detour Band on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram), I have work (really happy to have that), serious Netflix time, teenage-daughter-driving-instructor time, and not a whole lot else. I’m used to having a bunch of stuff going on at once so I turned to what some of my friends could call an obsession – over-analyzing spreadsheets and data. So that leads us to this series. For those who are new to the blog or just don’t remember, I’m a serial geek. During the season, I generally have 4 posts a week. I tend to have recurring themes, but haven’t really done a true series before. This one will have something like 15-18 parts. I know, I know, I had you at more than a dozen installments. But wait, there’s more! Each of the series will be about preseason Strength of Schedule or SOS. We’ll start slowly with the easiest conferences and build through all of the FCS (smaller colleges and universities that make up the lower half of Division I) and then a top to bottom listing of all FCS teams. Then we’ll do the same for the Group of 5 (also known as mid-majors) who make up the bottom half of the FBS (or bowl-eligible) portion of Division I. Then we move to the Power 5 (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC, and Notre Dame). The first pass will be focused on the overall season. After we finish the 3 sub-leagues, we will look at each month and see which teams face the most uphill battles. Theoretically, I could have done all of this in a single entry, but it would be much too long – hence the series. The analysis is done – it’s just the write-up now.
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So off we go starting with the least challenged conference – number 25 out of 25 – the esteemed academic halls of the Ivy League with an average adjusted opponent’s win total (more on this in a sec) of 3.275. It’s 8 members rank up like this:
- Brown with an average adjusted opponent’s wins of 3.625 (ranked 214 out of 257)
- Columbia – 3.550 (224)
- Harvard – 3.400 (232)
- Princeton tied – 2.133 (241)
- Dartmouth tied – 2.123 (241)
- Yale – 3.125 (245)
- Cornell – 3.050 (251)
- Penn – 3.025 (254)
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So let’s define average adjusted wins. For the preseason SOS, I use a series of calculations that start with the number of wins each opponent had in 2019, including bowl games and playoffs. Losses do not come into play. Then I take into consideration whether it’s a home, neutral, or away game. True away games are deemed more difficult than home games, so a team’s away opponent’s get a boost in wins. Neutral is in the middle. Home games have no boost. Then I adjust for sub-league. Playing a 10 win team from the Ivy League (see their SOS, for crying out loud) is not the same as playing a 10 win team from the Big 10 or other Power 5 conference. Then, I average all of the games. That average is designed to read as “if a team played a Power 5 team at home every game, how many wins would that opponent have.” In Brown’s case, it’s 3.625. Not a very good team. The overall average of the averages for all 257 teams is 5.601 which makes sense. There are a few dozen games the FCS plays against non-Division I opponents which lowers their value. It’s not perfect, but I do believe it’s close.
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Now, back to the Ivy. Brown has the most difficult schedule because they play both Yale and Dartmouth (both were 9-1 last year) on the road which gives them an adjusted total of 6.75 each. Playing 8-2 Princeton at home gives them 6 more. Their most difficult non-conference game is at Holy Cross (winner of the Patriot League at a whopping 7-6) giving them 5.25 more. Compare this to Penn who plays Yale and Princeton at home and just Dartmouth on the road along with a non-conference game at home against 7 win Sacred Heart worth just 4.5. Make sense?
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In 24th place, the second most easy aggregate schedule belongs to the FCS Independents at 3.485. There are just 3 of them.
- Dixie St – 4.227 (171)
- Tarleton – 3.227 (239)
- Presbyterian – 2.994 (255)
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Yes, my alma mater, the mightly Blue Hose out of Clinton, SC has the 3rd easiest schedule in Division I. I’d almost take a bet that we still end up with a losing record. I still love the Hose, but expectations are low. Why are they facing a theoretically easy path to success? They are in transition, as all of the FCS independents, and had to fill the schedule with non-Division I teams. PC and Tarleton each play 4 of these teams while Dixie St “faces” just 3. What makes Dixie State stand out in this group 7 road games, 4 of which are against 2019 playoff teams: 11-4 Montana St, 11-4 Weber St, 9-4 Sacramento St and 10-5 Illinois St. Both they and Tarleton are making the jump to Division I this year and testing themselves a bit. Tarleton only faces one playoff team, Kennesaw St (11-3). For reference PC’s 2019 playoff opponent is Furman (8-5).
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The final group for today at 23rd place is the Patriot League. Last year, only 1 of the 7 had a winning record (Holy Cross at 7-6 following a first round loss in the playoffs) and they combined for an absolutely amazing 10-30 non-conference record. Surely, with that record, the NC opponent’s must be incredibly difficult. Well, you might think that, but at an average of 3.541, you would be mistaken.
- Lafeyette – 3.830 (198)
- Fordham – 3.795 (203)
- Colgate – 3.670 (212)
- Bucknell – 3.625 (214)
- Holy Cross – 3.386 (233)
- Lehigh – 3.364 (235)
- Georgetown – 3.114 (246)
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Ok, so Lafayette does play at Navy (11-2) early in the season which is worth 12.375 points, but their second most difficult game is at 7-5 Sacred Heart worth just 5.25. On the flip side the only strong team on the Hoya’s schedule is at San Diego, winner of the Pioneer League, at 9-3.
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That’s it for this week, as the conferences increase in difficulty, I’ll highlight more teams. These bottom 3 probably got more than the usually get. That said, comment, question, provide feedback and most importantly, please share the link with friends.
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thanks, and I’ll see you in a few days for the next installment, G
