Oregon with #19 SOS

[UOducksTK1]

https://fbschedules.com/college-footbal ... -rankings/

According to Phil Steele. Higher than I thought it would be.

[AutzenMember]

This always makes me laugh. SEC schedule is so hard, because they play so many ranked teams...when everyone in the SEC is ranked, it creates this illusion that they play a tougher schedule. However, we all know the rankings are not very accurate and give the SEC the benefit of the doubt. Big 18 and SEC are very comparable in most conversations, and honestly it's hard to figure who is the tougher conference (when you get rid of the homers anyway). With that in mind, while the SEC plays super light OOC (currently 4 games), the only way they maintain the SOS rankings is because of the inter-SEC play mixed with the high pre-season rankings for the SEC. How can this be when the SEC plays a 4th OOC game at home against a lower tier/division opponent, while other conferences are playing an extra conference game?

Case in point...

SEC SOS
Top 25: 11
26-50: 5

BIG SOS
Top 25: 8
26-50: 4
51-75: 6

Let's compare using logic...

SEC OOC marquee (power 4 or ranked) matchups (SOS ranking listed):
#2 Mississippi State vs Arizona State (MSU has @ Southern Miss, Alcorn State, Northern Illinois)
#3 Arkansas vs Notre Dame (Ark has Alabama A&M, Arkansas St. Little Rock and @Memphis)
#4 South Carolina vs Clemson, vs Virginia Tech (Neutral site) (SC has SC St. and Coastal Carolina at home)
#6 LSU @ Clemson (LSU has La. Tech, SE LA and W. Kentucky all at home)
#7 Oklahoma vs Michigan (OU has Illinois St., @Temple, and Kent State)
#9 Kentucky @ Louisville (UK has Toledo, E. Mich., and Tenn. Tech all at home)
#12 Florida @ Miami, vs USF, vs Florida State (other game is Long Island at home)
#14 Texas A&M @ Notre Dame (A&M has UTSA, Utah St. and Samford all at home)
#15 Texas @ Ohio State (UT has SJ State, UTEP and Sam Houston all at home)
#17 Auburn @ Baylor (Auburn has Ball State, S. Alabama and Mercer all at home)
#21 Alabama @ Florida St., vs Wisconsin (Bama has UL-Monroe and E. Illinois both at home)
#28 Vanderbilt @ Virginia Tech (Vandy has Charleston Southern, Georgia State and Utah State all at home)
#44 Georgia vs Florida (Neutral Site) (UGA has Marshall, Austin Peay and Charlotte all at home)
#47 Tennessee vs Syracuse (Tenn has E. Tenn. St., UAB and NM St. all at home)
#48 Ole Miss vs Wazzu (Miss has Georgia St., Tulane and The Citadel all at home)
#50 Missouri vs Kansas (UM has C. Ark, UL-Lafayette and UMass all at home)

Notes:
- 8 out of 64 OOC games on the road against power conference or ranked teams (12.5%)
- No SEC team has more than one away OOC game (Tenn, Missouri and Ole Miss do not travel at all for OOC...Georgia and S. Carolina each have one neutral site game, no away games)
- This is the most aggressive the SEC has been in scheduling Power Conference opponents, and it still doesn't measure up
- Alabama has 2 Power Conference opponents, one on the road! which may equal their total over the past 10 years (exaggerating a little, but not much)
- All the the "strength" of schedule comes from artificially ranked SEC teams
- Since there are intentionally very few losses on the SEC slate, they maintain their rankings longer and perpetuate the idea that their teams are better...but they played a crap OOC schedule
- This will be rectified by the SEC playing 9 conference games, and needing to play one power opponent out of the 3 OOC games (at least it will be equal ground from then on)

All that said...The B1G is not much better, although they have to play an extra conference game which adds 8 losses to the conference overall record. Pretty significant. And, you see much more travel on the slate.

B1G Power Conference OOC Games (I didn't bother listing the other OOC games cuz they're crap like the SEC and mostly at home.)
#1 Wisconsin @ Alabama
#8 UCLA vs Utah
#13 Purdue @ Notre Dame
#16 Rutgers (none)
#19 Oregon vs Oklahoma St., vs Oregon St. (OSUx2)
#20 USC @ Notre Dame
#23 Northwestern @ Tulane
#24 Ohio State vs Texas
#26 Iowa @ Iowa St.
#31 Michigan St. vs Boston College
#37 Penn St. (none)
#46 Maryland (none)
#52 Minnesota @ Cal
#53 Washington vs Wazzu
#54 Michigan @ Oklahoma
#56 Illinois @ Duke
#58 Indiana (none)
#63 Nebraska @ Cincinnati

Notes:
- 9 out of 54 OOC games on the road vs power conference or ranked teams (16.7%)
- If Wisconsin has the toughest schedule in the country, I'm not seeing it. Middle Tenn. and Miami (OH) at home are the other two OOC games. Phil gives them an AWFUL lot of credit for traveling to Bama...again, SECism.
- Interesting that Penn St., Maryland, Rutgers and Indiana have ZERO power conference or ranked opponents on their OOC schedule.
- Oregon is the only team playing 2 power opponents.
- With only 3 OOC games, B1G teams have to play an extra conference opponent, be it on the road or at home. This is MUCH tougher than playing the likes of Mercer.

Bottom line...Phil Steele is helping bolster the SEC rhetoric that they are not only good, but play the toughest schedules in the country. It's just not true. Phil's SOS ranking system is bogus. Can't wait for the level playing field and I applaud the SEC for finally going to 9 conference games (although I'm sure they didn't want to).

[UOducksTK1]

Yeah Wisconsin is #1 because they play an SEC team basically lol.

For sure SEC bias.