Welcome back, college football fans, to episode 667 since we began this platform. With just 15 days remaining before the first games of the season, we are moving forward with our preseason strength of schedule (PS-SOS) countdown or the 25 conferences (more on that word later). We started with the 14 FCS conferences (Big Sky, Big South/Ohio Valley, CAA, FCS Independents, Ivy, MEAC, Missouri Valley, NEC, Patriot, Pioneer, SoCon, Southland, SoCon, and UAC), then began the FBS with the Mountain West (11th most-challenged with a PS-SOS of 6.952), then the MAC (10th at 7.009), then Conference USA (9th at 7.276), the Sun Belt (8th at 7.310), and the American (7th at 7.676).
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A quick reminder that the PS-SOS is calculated by taken each team’s 2025 GCR Score (a mixture of performance and strength of schedule metrics) and overlaying those Scores on each team’s 2026 schedule. There are separate values for non-Division I (D1) teams and bonus are awarded for away and neutral site games. While not perfect or “accurate”, whatever that means in any preseason discussion, the scale does give an idea of the quality if this season’s opponents. The PS-SOS can be seen as the average number of wins one’s opponents have assuming all FBS foes on neutral sites. The most-challenged approach and sometimes exceed 10.000 while the least-challenged approach and sometimes fall below 3.000. BTW, the Score metric is what we use to rank the teams in G’s Evaluation.
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But today is about the 6th most-challenged “conference” in college football. It’s not actually a conference, but the last two independent FBS teams. On July 20th, we talked about the two FCS independents as if they were a conference as well. In that case, Merrimack (who became an Indie after joining a basketball conference that does not have D1 football) had the most-challenging FCS schedule and Chicago St (who will join the Northeast Conference next season and is playing their first ever football game this season) had the least-challenging FCS schedule. Like the FCS Indies, the FBS Indies do not play each other during the season.
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What is interesting is that UCONN, who is classified as a Group of 6 team (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac 12, and Sun Belt), has a fairly uninspired schedule landing 121st out of 128 FBS teams. The most difficult team in the Core 4 (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC) to justify being included is the other independent, Notre Dame. We know that statement is very controversial, but the very nature of their independence (and how they use it) is the key to the problem. Every other Core 4 team has at least 9 games against other Core 4 teams averaging 9.92 Core 4 games per team. Boston College, Colorado, Georgia Tech, and Purdue lead the way with 11 such games. Notre Dame has 10 such games along with bouts against Group of 6 Navy (11-2 last season) and Rice (5-7). But they play Michigan St (4-8), Stanford (4-8), Boston College (2-10), Wisconsin (4-8), Purdue (2-10), North Carolina (4-8), and Syracuse (3-9). Those seven teams combined for a 23-61 (.273) record. Add the three games against winning teams, Miami FL (13-3), SMU (9-4), and BYU (12-2), their Core 4 opponent’s record moves up to 57-70 (.449) compared to the overall winning percentage for those 68 teams of over .580 last season. The expected opponent’s record would be 73.7-53.3 which gives them a 13.5 game deficit. Their PS-SOS ranked 59th out of 68 Core 4 teams, not what we would think of as traditional Notre Dame football. The Group of 6 opponents had a higher winning percentage (.640) than their Core 4 opponents. If this was the first time this type of thing happened, we wouldn’t notice it, but year after year, the PS-SOS for Notre Dame is among the least-challenged in the country. Add to that the big story that they dropped Indiana from future schedules, coincidentally after Indiana made the playoffs two years in a row, and it seems that the Fighting Irish may be cherry-picking (or the opposite of that term) its schedule. The solution to this is, of course, for them to join a conference. They are not independent in any sport but football, so it is not unprecedented. They already belong to the ACC in basketball, baseball, and other sports, so that is the most logical and immediate fix. They fit, geographically, with the Big Ten, but they already have 18 teams, and it would require extricating themselves from the ACC. These two teams, which are not a conference except in our countdown, come in 6th place with a mean PS-SOS of 7.709 and an average rank of 90.0 out of 266. In the table below, (4) indicates a Core 4 opponent, (G) indicates a Group of 6 foe, (F) indicates a matchup with an FCS team, and (N) indicates a neutral site game. With no further ado, we are proud to present the FBS Independents for 2026.
| Team Conf Rank | Home Field | 2025 Record (Rank) | 2026 PS SOS (Rank) | Home Games | Away/Neutral Games | Hardest | Easiest |
| Notre Dame Fighting Irish (1) | South Bend, IN | 10-2 (5) | 8.45 (59) | Rice (G), Michigan St (4), Stanford (4), Miami FL (4), Boston College (4), SMU (4) | Wisconsin (N4), Purdue (4), North Carolina (4), BYU (4), Navy (NG), Syracuse (4) | at BYU (13.13) | Boston College (5.76) |
| UCONN Huskies (2) | East Hartford, CT | 9-4 (64) | 6.97 (121) | Lafayette (F), Maryland (4), Syracuse (4), UMASS (G), North Carolina (4), James Madison (G), Old Dominion (G) | Southern Miss (G), Miami OH (G), Temple (G), Air Force (G), Wyoming (G) | James Madison (9.94) | UMASS (2.87) |
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That’s it for today. Tune in tomorrow for our 5th most-challenged conference. Thank you for reading and commenting (check out Carl’s great observation on the webpage at bit.ly/2019GCR). Especially, thank you for sharing with others through the webpage, Facebook (Gettys Computer Ranking), or LinkedIn (G Robert Gettys). Until tomorrow, JoJo and G.
